Pet Owners Awarded Settlement For Contaminated Pet Food Deaths.

source: Fox News
"A judge has granted initial approval to a settlement in which companies that manufactured or sold contaminated pet food would compensate pet owners for all costs related to the death or illness of their dogs and cats. Under the deal, granted initial approval by U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman, pet owners in the United States and Canada would be notified of the settlement by June 16 and would have until early December to submit claims. A final hearing on the $24 million settlement is scheduled for Oct. 14. The settlement doesn't pay pet owners for pain and suffering."


In 2007, over 1500 dogs and cats died by eating food that contained tainted wheat gluten. The company, Menu Foods, is at the center of this terrible tragedy. It seems that China, where the contaminated ingredient (wheat gluten) came from, has very, very loose inspection laws.

The chemical that is used to make plastic, melamine, was the contaminate. When it was discovered, it started the largest pet food recall in history. The company (Menue Foods), set up a fund called the Menu Foods Income Fund, and announced back on 4/1/08, that it is settling the lawsuits of pet owners who lost pets due to eating the contaminated food. The settlement is 24 million dollars. The final hearing is set for 10/14/08.

A Very Disturbing Investigation Of The Iams Pet Food Company.

My own words:

Back in 2002 and 2003, PETA went undercover into a contract laboratory employed by the pet food manufacturer Iams. What they found was sickening. For the nearly 10 months the investigator had to endure this to get the footage needed to expose this, the investigator found dogs who had literally gone crazy from intense confinement in barren, steel cages and cement cells. They were left there to see the result of solitary confinement on a dog.

Another sick thing they found were dogs who had been left on a filthy floor after chunks of muscle had been hacked from their thighs, and the ever so "popular" debarked dogs. And, then there were the horribly sick dogs and cats who were just laying in cages, neglected and dying slowly and painfully, alone. They were given no veterinary care at all.

source: www.iamscruelty.com

Even Iams own Executive criticizes the Company's Cruel Caging Policy. Her name is Diane Hirakawa, Sr. Vice Pres. of Iams Research and Development.

Here is the list of violations documented by government inspectors.

Failure to provide pain relief to sheep used in experiments that cause pain/distress.
Failure to ensure that personnel were trained to perform experiments on animals.
Failure to provide veterinary care and to observe animals daily.
Failure to properly ventilate housing facilities for dogs and cats.
Failure to house cats with adequate number of litter boxes and resting surfaces.
Failure to keep animal-housing facilities clean and in good order/resulting in injuries.
Failure to maintain comfortable temperatures in animal-housing facilities.
Failure to provide animals with sufficient space.

If you feed this food, you might want to go to the website I listed above and read about what you are feeding your dog and what the dogs have to go through in order for you to feed it. I feed BilJac.