Urgent - Nutro Cat Foods Recall!

Some Nutro pet foods have been voluntarily recalled due to contamination. The brands recalled are Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care and Nutro Max - both dry foods for cats. None of the dry or canned dog food are affected nor the canned cat food. This Press release was issued by Nutro:

Today, Nutro Products announced a voluntary recall of select varieties of NUTRO® NATURAL CHOICE® COMPLETE CARE® Dry Cat Foods and NUTRO® MAX® Cat Dry Foods with “Best If Used By Dates” between May 12, 2010 and August 22, 2010. The cat food is being voluntarily recalled in the United States and ten additional countries. This recall is due to incorrect levels of zinc and potassium in our finished product resulting from a production error by a US-based premix supplier.

Two mineral premixes were affected. One premix contained excessive levels of zinc and under-supplemented potassium. The second premix under-supplemented potassium. Both zinc and potassium are essential nutrients for cats and are added as nutritional supplements to NUTRO® dry cat food.

This issue was identified during an audit of our documentation from the supplier. An extensive review confirmed that only these two premixes were affected. This recall does not affect any NUTRO® dog food products, wet dog or cat food, or dog and cat treats.

Go to the following web sites to check out which ones were recalled and why.

http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/nutro05_09.html

http://www.nutroproducts.com/

Book Review: The Holistic Cat by Jennifer A. Coscia

This newly published book is a very personal account of life in the author's rescue group and how her background as a nutritionist has helped the cats that live with her.

Coscia is an internationally recognized nutritional consultant specializing in disease prevention. She has combined her background and her love of animals to form TARAA - The Animal Rescue and Adoption Agency, Inc. - a nonprofit, no kill organization for the betterment of animal welfare. Partnering with Petco, Coscia has rescued and placed hundreds of cats into loving homes.

In this book Corscia presents a complimentary approach to health care by combining conventional veterinary medicine and alternative methods to focus on disease prevention, using first hand knowledge and experience from her shelter cats.

She covers a variety of topics and illustrates each with personal experiences involving her cats with photos as well. Some topics included in her list are holistic nutrition, vaccinations, caring for feral colonies and using TNR, the dangers in the house and outdoors for cats, bringing in new pets and moving or traveling with cats. She also gives nutritional treatment suggestions for many feline illnesses - URI's, eye issues, kidney, heart and intestinal problems and allergies.

Her book is full of useful suggestions and honest opinions based on her experiences. I particularly like how she presents the vaccination dilemma, explaining very simply the way vaccines work and how they can adversely affect cats. Even if you are not a big holistic medicine follower, her her honestly written stories and anecdotes about life with her rescued cats are heartwarming and informative as well. She has dedicated her life to rescuing homeless cats and caring for them if they cannot be placed in other homes. I find her extremely admirable and enjoyed her book very much.

Rescue Ink

I thought this was a great bunch of tough guys in the NYC area who formed a rescue group that is just as tough on animal abusers! Check out their web page and keep posted on what they are doing. They even have a TNR feral cat program!

Right now they are trying to raise money to send Sailor, a very abused dog, to a sanctuary where he can live out the rest of his life. he has too many issues to be placed in a home.

Great work guys!!!!

Go here to see what they do ot go over to the sidebar and click on their website. http://www.rescueink.org/

World's Best Cat Litter

I did an earlier post on the dangers of chemicals in cat litter and suggested using natural substances instead. This brand is my all time favorite. I discovered it many years ago and have been using it since.

The reason being that once I began bringing in in new cats and kittens to the household, I saw that sometimes they ate the litter or got a lot on their paws and would clean it off. I worried about what was in it that they were ingesting. I researched all cat litters and was horrified to learn about the chemicals in them.

Sodium bentonite is the clumping agent in scoopable litters. It acts like expandable cement when digested when cats lick themselves. It causes problems that can lead to death. Silica, a form of quartz, is believed to be a carcinogen when inhaled. Silica is what causes the dust when litter is stirred.

Looking for something more natural, I found World's Best Cat Litter at a healthy pet store and began to carry it in my gift/book store.

WBCL is made from whole kernel corn with no harmful chemicals, perfumes or additives. Their scientists found out that highly absorbent proteins and fibers found naturally in corn bind cat urine and odor molecules in the litter.

Why do we love this litter?

Great odor control - no more smelly boxes.
Compact clumping - easy to scoop.
Silica dust free - no dangers or messy dust.
100% natural - safe for cats and kittens
Long lasting freshness - use less than other litters.
Flushable, biodegradable and septic safe - safe for our planet.
And most importantly, my cats love it.

Try a bag of this litter and you will see for yourself. Petsmart carries it as well as many health food stores, grocery stores and other pet stores. For more info go to www.worldsbestcatlitter.com.