Channel 4 News is to be commended for reporting the disgusting and dangerous practice of using the discarded bodies from veterinary practices as "meat meal" in dog food.

But there is an even worse twist to the horror. It isn’t just the remains of someone’s pet that your dog eats, he could be ingesting pentobarbital, the lethal drug used by vets and shelters to euthanize pets. With permission from KMOV News, St. Louis Missouri, here's what you must know for your pet's safety.

DOG EAT DOG? IT'S IN THE CANNED DOG FOOD According to the well-documented report, your pet could suffer a toxic overdose of euthanasia drugs. Jamie Allman reports “Earlier this month we reported how euthanized dogs and cats from local animal shelters are taken to the same rendering plant that produces raw materials for pet foods." The awful truth is revealed by Jamie who says “It's a sad secret kept by most animal shelters run by local governments. The dogs and cats they put to death go to one place, a rendering plant in Millstadt, Illinois where their bodies are boiled down into raw materials that could be winding up in pet food.“

Like many other dark secretes that affect human foods, the Food and Drug Administration appears to ignore the problem. The FDA claimed that drugs like sodium pentobarbital, which is used to kill the animals, did not survive the rendering process. Now the FDA has proof that it does. We learn that test results in 1998 have been kept secrete and that "several retail feeds were confirmed for the presence of pentobarbital which could have only come from euthanized animals.”

KMOV quotes Don Aird with the Food and Drug Administration who says they were prompted to test the dog food because the FDA "had reports from veterinarians that dogs had died after eating foods that may contain pentobarbital."

The worst part of this gruesome story is that the FDA knows which pet foods tested positive but isn't telling!!

Can you believe that? We continue to feed our dogs “meat and bone meal” AND a drug used to kill animals but the FDA won’t make them take it off the market and won’t tell us which foods contain the lethal drugs!

FDA is quoted as saying "We'll be releasing all that in January. The problem is just because it's there doesn't mean it's dangerous." The FDA spokesman says the deaths are “rare.”

We can be grateful to the news agencies for having the courage to uncover and report this danger because dog food commercials are a major income source for the media. This station has the facts and has contradicted the Pet Food Institute who earlier denied that rendered dogs and cats were used in the production of some pet foods.

The reporter asks “What would the FDA do if this was found in people food?” The makes-you-wonder FDA response was "If it was in people food we would immediately have a recall," says Aird.

The MOV website ran a poll on whether or not you think the FDA should reveal the names of the pet food companies that tested positive for animal remains and dangerous drugs. That’s a no-brainer but you shouldn’t shrug it off, especially if you have an ill dog, an old dog, or one that died mysteriously.

Update: Pet Food Lawsuit filed May 2007

#110428 http://www.thedogplace.org/Nutrition/Dog.Eat.Dog_02.asp