I've been reading that some pet food brands use euthanized pets in their food! I probably shouldn't be surprised; I mean, beef companies have been rendering unused cow parts and feeding them to other cows, but...but...in our PET food?! It's used in some brands that list their meat ingredients as just "meat" and "animal". They get them from shelters that are having trouble getting rid of the bodies of the thousands of pets being euthanized every year. It's not a common practice, but still...

 Does anyone know if this might be just a rumor? I hope it is...there's something inside me that is just screaming "now way!" dispite the articles I have read on the subject. It sounds like something from that movie "Soylent Green". There is almost nothing lower. Just disgusting.

Here's an artical I found on the subject:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0106-03.htm

I'm speechless.......

Check out www.dogfoodproject.com and go to Ingredients to Avoid.  Check Animal Digest, Animal Fat and Meat and Bone Meal.  Learn what ingredients to avoid.....these are in the cheap, nasty foods.  The key here is to educate ourselves on the ingredients in the food we feed.

Meat & Bone Meal

AAFCO: The rendered product from mammal tissues, with or without bone, exclusive of any added blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. The animal parts used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters and so on. It can also include pus, cancerous tissue, and decomposed (spoiled) tissue.

That is disguisting.  But, it is also disguisting that in some countries they eat dogs.  They sell them at the marketplace. 

Not only do they used euthanized pets to add to dog food, they use sick and diseased dead animals.  It's disgusting.  I did a lot of research on this subject about 6 years ago when my first Rattie, Bandit, died from cancer.  It's why I am VERY particular about what I feed my babies now...

I know Dawnie, I was so ignorant back then. One of the treats I gave my Bandit was from Hills Science Diet, and it had that ethoxyquin in it, a known carcinogen used as a preservative. Here I thougth cuz the vet I used at the time sold it, it was good. So much for that! I was appalled by what I found during my research.

I would like to thank EMG for starting this thread. I had read the other threads about dog foods but still never did any research other than reading the ingredieants list on the bag of Hills Science Diet that we feed Yaz. Seemed okay to me and she wasn't having any issues so we kept feeding it to her. After I read this last night I did extensive online research. Today we bought a bag of Solid Gold for small breeds and started mixing a little in with the Hills to transition her off of it. The difference in ingtredients was amazing. So EMG Yaz and I thank you.