Greer Haseman didn’t know what to think when her 4½-year-old sheltie named Roxy started refusing treats and then food in February. She remembers on Feb. 15 phoning her veterinarian, who makes house calls and checked out Roxy a few days later.
There was nothing the vet could do. Roxy died Feb. 23 of massive kidney failure, Haseman said. Haseman wouldn’t know for weeks that what was killing her dog was the food she was feeding it.
“It’s a very devastating thing to have happen,” Haseman said. “You would think the food supply would be safe-for animals and pets-in the United States.”
Although official reports have pegged the number of pet deaths in North American caused by tainted food to just more than a dozen, more recent evidence shows the problem is probably much larger.
Three Oak Parkers have self-reported food-caused pet deaths to the website petconnection.com, said Gina Spadafori, executive editor and columnist for Pet Connection, a weekly pet-care feature syndicated by Universal Press. Roughly 1,800 people self-reported pet deaths on the website as of Monday including Haseman.
Haseman said her veterinarian performed an autopsy and is awaiting results of lab work to confirm Roxy died from exposure to aminopterin, the toxin determined to be responsible for the massive recall.
Aminopterin is used to treat cancer, to induce abortions and, in some countries outside the U.S., to kill rats.
Ontario, Canada-based Menu Foods recalled 60 million cans and pouches of “cuts and gravy”-style cat and dog food produced in two of its U.S. production plants. Pet food produced by Menu Foods is sold under 95 brand names, everything from store brands to the more expensive Iams, Eukanuba and Nutro brands.
Haseman fed Roxy the whole panoply of food-Iams, Mighty Dog, whatever was on sale. “She wasn’t a finicky eater.”
Jeffrey Foster, of Berwyn, said he and his partner, Tony Villasenor, have two dogs that were poisoned by eating cans of Nutro dog food purchased at PETCO, 7265 Lake St., in River Forest. Foster said Monday that their veterinarian at the River Forest Animal Hospital would euthanize the couple’s rottweiler and Maltese on Tuesday.
The River Forest PETCO refused to comment on the recall, but the company’s website states that, “All PETCO customers can return any product from the recall list even if they do not have a purchase receipt.” Find a complete list of recalled food at menufoods.com/recall.
Foster said he fed his dogs Nutro, both wet food in cans and dry food that he paid $40 a bag for, because “it’s worth spending the money if it keeps them healthy.”
He hoped to save his dogs’ lives by giving them kidney-flushing treatments, but said the dogs were getting worse.
“It’s pretty shocking to say the least,” he said.
PetVets Animal Hospital, 342 Harrison St., treated six animals with food-related kidney failure, said Dr. Yael Cidon, the PetVets owner. One cat died, but the other animals, including one dog, are expected to recover and “do quite well,” Cidon said.
The rash of the unusual cases-sudden kidney failure in healthy animals-began the third week of February, Cidon said, before Menu Foods’ preliminary recall March 16. Cidon said she and others at PetVets were considering food as a possible cause before the recall was announced because no other explanations made sense.
Cidon said there are differences in quality between foods manufactured by Menu Foods. But the foods do have commonalities, one of which is the wheat gluten thought to be the carrier of the aminopterin, she said.
Fortunately, not all pets exposed to the toxin died from it, and reactions did not seem to be related to how much of the tainted food an animal ate, Cidon said. “There must be some sort of individual sensitivity,” she said. Dozens, if not hundreds, of other pets had some reaction to eating tainted food, but were fine.
Cidon said it is unlikely that any new cases will arise now that word has spread about the recall.
Foster and Haseman each said they paid more than $1,000 for treatments for their pets and that they will seek repayment from pet food companies.
“Nobody can give us back our family pet,” said Haseman. “This dog was part of our family.”