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Anonymous
My cat is sick and likely to be put down in a few days.

Cheer me up, /an/?
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
I.m sorry to hear that
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>> Anonymous
cats
>> Artie
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>> Anonymous
*huggles*
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>> Anonymous
Mine's gonna die soon, cancer has put her down and she can barely walk. You are not alone.
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
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We had to put on of mine down last October because of the bad cat food and it was, without reservation, the worst day of my life. We're actually involved in a class action lawsuit against them. We still love you, House Mouse!
>> Anonymous
>>164978

Let me get this straight. YOU fed the cat tainted food, which made the cat sick. However, even though YOU fed the cat, you think it's the fault of the cat food company, because they were the ones who claimed the food was safe, even though it wasn't.

Then again, the cat food company did exactly what YOU did. They bought some ingredients from a company, who claimed to be selling safe goods, but were actually contaminated.

Now, you want to punish the cat food company for doing EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, which was trusting that the materials they bought were safe for consumption. HIPOCRISY ALERT!

If the buyer is responsible for the purity of things they receive, then YOU are every bit as guilty as the pet food company.

On the other hand, if the blame lies with the people who actually contaminated the ingredients then you should be going after the Chinese vendor who is the actual source of the toxic contamination and both you and the pet food company did nothing wrong.

...either that or you are simply suing people to make a quick buck...
>> Anonymous
>>164983
so the company should not be responsible for the quality of it's own product?
>> Anonymous
>>164983
Fail..

Most pet food companies DON'T have health inspectors. So thus, who's fault is it? How is the owner going to know if the food they are buying is tainted? It's the COMPANY'S responsibility to sell SAFE products.
>> Anonymous
>>164983
I would agree with this post only if the owner continued feeding the cat the tainted food AFTER the recalls were announced. If the recalls hadn't been announced yet, how was the owner supposed to know? The consumer isn't responsible for the quality.
>> Anonymous
>>164987

The question is, which company? If it is OK for a consumer to trust that the food they are buying is safe, then it is also OK for the pet food company to trust that the materials they are buying is safe. It's the exact same thing. The blame lies with a company alright--but it's the company who provided the contaminated ingredients.


>>164989

If the consumer of a product isn't responsible for quality, then the pet food maker isn't responsible for the quality of the products they buy either. Thinking otherwise is a rediculous double-standard.

Nobody wants to take responsibility for THEIR decisions when it's much easier to simply blame someone else.

What next? Are you going to suggest that the Chinese scammers who deliberatley spiked their product in order to cheat on test results should come out and say "Sorry pet-food company, we sold you some poisonous ingredients but it's really your fault for not testing them?"
>> Anonymous
>>164992
I'm pretty sure the company manufacturing food for the consumption of others is more responsible than the intended consumer. It's not a double-standard. People making food for others have a responsibility to ensure its safety. I can't say whether the people making the ingredients or the people making the food are more responsible, but the owner is CERTAINLY not.
>> Anonymous
>>164983
fuck you you goddamn bastard. i hope you get mad cow disease and e. coli and all the horrible things that can happen to human food.
>> Anonymous
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>> Anonymous
I couldn't afford to put my cat down two years ago and he was suffering so much. I sat with him for about 2 days until he finally passed away. It was the worse thing I've ever been through and I can't even think about it without feeling horribly guilty.

The best thing you can do is put it down and think of the good times :(

(lol I'm a big help..)
>> Anonymous
Everyone is quick to blame the pet food company in this unfortunate situation, but everyone seems to be forgetting that they got screwed far worse than anyone else did. They are a convenient target for blame, but they aren't the people who deliberatley contaminated a food ingredient in order to commit fraud and then lied about it repeatedly: both BEFORE the incident happend on the certificates of analysis that they provided, AND after the fact when they swore up-and-down that they supplied only pure materials.
>> Anonymous
well they should have tested the product before it went out. If you bought your child the same breakfast cereal every day and all of a sudden they get sick and the company recalls the product because it was contaminated wouldn't you go after their asses in the same way that this poor person is doing? its the companys responsibility to make sure what they are putting out to the consumer is safe
>> Anonymous
>>165324

Agreed.

Also, I would just like to point out that this is just one big circle jerk of responsibility.

The animal's owner has already paid for it: with a dead cat. I don't know about anyone else here, but I would rather have a live, friendly companion than a "quick buck," thank you. So, no, I do not feel that the cat's owner was out of line by joining in a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer.

However, no, the pet food manufacturer isn't entirely at fault... but, hey, they actually have access to quality control equipment procedures and obviously failed. Therefor, a greater portion of the culpability belongs to them, for having the methods available to them to prevent this, but failing to act.

However, the greatest and ultimate blame lies on the manufacturer of the products used in the pet food. Therefor, there should be nothing stopping the pet food manufacturer from suing THEM in turn.

It's not "unfair" to anyone or a double-standard to hold other, more culpable people accountable for their actions at each step of the process.
>> Anonymous
Here's the problem: On TV and in movies you see scientists and detectives "analyze" something. They have a bunch of fancy equipment with beeps and flashing lights. Someone pushes some buttons and then BAM, they say "the food contained such-and-such". That's hollywood. In the real world, labratory testing is slow, very expensive, and the tests are very specific. Each test only checks for one chemical or pathogen at a time. Many tests require expert intepretation and are highly subject to error. It's like playing "20 questions" except each time you ask, it costs you $1000 and you have to wait a week or more to hear the answer.

So, let's say you made a batch of pet food. Now you want to "test it". Well, what do you test it for? Lead? Radium? Botulism? Chlorine? Cyanide? Benzene? Streptococcus? Bromine? Melamine? Hexavalent Chromium? E. Coli? Which strain? ...the list goes on forever. There are literally MILLIONS of possible contaminants that could be harmful to a pet. Each one requires a long and costly procedure to test for it. In order for the results to be reliable, each test must be repeated multiple times to make sure there are no false results. Testing for all possible contaminants would be impossible. Which ones do you test for?

The pet food in question WAS tested for the known and likely contaminants. The problem was that a 3rd party vendor put an unlikely poisonous additive in a raw material and then falsified the lab test results supplied with it. They deliberatley used a hard-to-detect chemical which wouldn't be found in typical testing. Then they faked lab reports to hide their treachery. Do you honestly expect that the pet food company would have caught this...especially when the customer demands ever-cheaper pet food?
>> Anonymous
>>165324

If my pet or child were the victim of a situation like this, I'd want to know what happened. If someone broke the law, then I'd expect legal consequences. (and in this particular case, I think the true blame lies with the supplier in China. And in case you handn't heard, the Chinese EXECUTED the government official overseeing the safety of said products in their country).

But, suing the company doesn't do anyone any good. It won't bring anyone's cat back. And in this case, the pet food company has suffered PLENTY due to lost sales, recall costs, legal costs, and loss of reputation. The only thing this lawsuit is going to do is make some ambulance-chaser lawyers very rich, and puts an useless drain on an already congested legal system. Sorry, but I'll pass.
>> Anonymous
>>165364

Hmm.... How about the pet food supplier could have NOT BOUGHT FUCKING SUPPLIES FROM CHINA? Jesus Christ, between the lead-based paint on children's toys and the mercury-contaminated grain stock, how many recalls from Chinese suppliers do we have to have before manufacturers stop buying from them just to fucking cut costs? And I don't want to hear any fucking crying about how manufacturers have to use overseas suppliers or they will go out of business. THAT'S BULLSHIT. It's not like any of these fucking pet food company executives were hurting for money, neither before nor after this travesty.
>> Anonymous
>>165381

I agree with your post, though I do think it's a bit more complicated than a simple decision of where to buy materials from.

In business everything is a matter of reaching a balance. The pet food company is in business to make money. That's the motivation behind it. Sure, the executives probably aren't hurting for money. But there's a reason why they are paid more than the sheeple on the factory floor--they have the skills and the drive to manage the business and keep it going....but I digress.

Ultimatley it comes down to competition and pricing. Everyone in the chain is out to make a buck: The customer wants their food to be as cheap as possible. The store gets a cut. The distributor gets a cut. The pet food company gets a cut too. And of course, the executives want to keep themselves and their stockholders happy.

If this company decided, hey, let's clean up our act and we'll only buy top-quality ingredients from here in the US, and we'll test everything just to be extra-safe, YOU wouldn't buy it.

Look at the brands that were recalled: they are mainly lower-end "store brand" pet food. Customers who opted for the good stuff weren't affected.

If we go car shopping and you buy a BMW and I buy a Kia, is anyone really suprised when my car breaks down in three years but yours is still running strong?
>> Anonymous
>>165400

Um, no, it wasn't "mainly" lower end store brands that were recalled.

Hill's Science Diet, Diamond, Royal Canin, and Natural Balance were all affected. These brands are all veterinary recommended, considered "high end," and quite expensive, especially when compared to house brands and crap like Ol' Roy. Other pet foods, such as Nutrience and Nutro, which use only high quality natural ingredients that are locally obtained, were not affected and cost roughly the same (or in some cases less) than the food brands listed.
>> Anonymous
Buy a new cat. A longcat.
>> Anonymous
>>165416
Never call anything by Hill's high quality again. Veterinarian recommendations on food rarely mean much, considering how little they're taught about animal nutrition in vet school. I even hear what they do know about nutrition is funded by Hill's. Hooray.
>> Anonymous
>>165416

Diamond was actually the first brand that I heard about causing deaths. Honestly, I was quite shocked, as I had always heard Diamond touted as a very healthy, expensive premium food. Many of the local, reputable breeders in my area who genuinely cared about their animals and weren't concerned with the bottom line swore by Diamond.
>> Anonymous
>>165420

Compared to Ol' Roy and Kibbles and Bits, it is. Granted, considering the amount of corn meat and wheat gluten, and lack of animal protein, there are MANY much better pet foods out there, I've still never seen a puppy develop rickets or a cat develop kidney disease from eating it.
>> Anonymous
>>165425
That doesn't make it high quality, it just makes it adequate for most pets. Any animals I've had on it (they all came from our local shelter being fed it) had flaky skin, greasy fur and gassy stomachs.
>> Anonymous
>>165420

Veterinarians don't go just by "what they were taught in vet school." A decent veterinarian does his own research, and a good many are advocates of decent foods or raw diets. More than likely, if a veterinarian pushes Science Diet, it's because it's the brand that they sell and therefor make money on, not because they are ignorant of animal nutrition.
>> Anonymous
>>165429

Adequate, sure, and well-endorsed (rightfully or not) by enough veterinarians that a pet owner SHOULD NOT be faulted for choosing to buy it, especially over low-end bullshit.

Which, as I recall, was the point of the fucking post originally.

Christ, cry moar.
>> Anonymous
>>165431
I haven't said anything about faulting people for buying it. The first post I had in this thread was>>165420and it had nothing to do with this recall business. Provided it's not causing the animal problems, I see no reason to crucify someone for feeding it Hill's. I was just correcting that it's not high quality.
>> Anonymous
>>165434

According to pet food industry propaganda, Hill's is considered to be "high quality." I don't believe Anon's personal opinions figure into this.
>> Anonymous
>>165438
Google pet food quality. Read it from unbiased sources. I am not alone in my "opinion."
>> Anonymous
Veterenarians are people too. As much as we want to put them on a pedastal, face the facts: Vets often times (though not always) endorse products for personal gain or for business purposes. Every time you see a picture of a Vet with a happy-looking dog and a bag of Hill's, you should realize that that "Vet" is a paid model and the vet was paid as well.

I'm not trying to imply that Hill's, etc, is a low-end brand. I'm saying that there is always a chance that things can be wrong. That chance is what seperates a great product from a good product from a poor one.
>> Anonymous
>>165440

The original contention was still "low-end" store brand foods versus "high end" food. A neat black and white comparison with no grey shades in between, pertinent to the discussion of how much culpability a pet owner should share in their choice when buying pet food. Read and actually try to understand the scope of the discussion before singling out an isolated sentence out of context from the thread around it and jumping on it with personal opinions of "Hill's sukcs lol."