Happy Halloween...

...hope any celebrations you have go well, even if you are as pissed off as this kitty looks. The good news is that it's only for today...

Are you kidding me?

Nancy Cook, Vice President of the Pet Food Institute, an organization that acts as the "voice" of the U.S. pet food manufacturers, has been quoted as saying the majority of pet owners are "confident" their pet food is safe, even after this Spring's massive pet food recall.

Huh?

Nancy, the PFI, and their membership should call on a few of us and get the real story. To this day, I still don't buy any gravy-based foods, and there isn't a new can opened that I don't wonder if there's something terrible in it that I might be unknowingly giving my pets. I'm sure I'm not alone in this worry and just because, as busy pet owners, we've had to return to feeding our pets purchased foods doesn't mean we're fine with things as they are without significant changes.

There are about 13 bills working their way through Congress that relate to food safety, and while additional bureaucracy may not be the solution, it can at least serve as a forcing function to clean things up. For Ms. Cook to declare that "we can't insult" China because they are "our largest growing supplier of ingredients in the world" is ludicrous. We have a competitive world market and opening it up for bidding on delivering non-poisonous ingredients seems to be a no-brainer, and this should have started the day the recalls were announced.

The good news is that Menu Foods, the pet food manufacturer that produced most of foods that contained ingredients with melamine, has discontinued their contracts with their China-based suppliers. Hopefully, they can lead the way to a more sane approach in addressing a problem that hits the very core of all families with pets.

Life goes on

For some pet owners dealing with the wildfires in Southern California, several refuges for horses and other pets have been set up, including one at Fiesta Beach, an island on Mission Bay. Along with a variety of smaller animals, including birds, dogs and cats, there are now dozens of horses grazing on hay in makeshift corrals or trotting along the water's edge. They are somewhat stressed, since many aren't used to the amount of surrounding activity, but the situation is still better than where they've been since this disaster started.

Christopher Richter moved his large menagerie of pets, including four horses, at least five times during the past week, and finds the peace of Fiesta Beach therapeutic.

"When we got here, there was smoke around, but the air quality for us and our animals was a lot better because of the breezes," he said.

A very nice up-to-date Google map of the wildfire area and the services available can be seen here.

Texas Alarm System

Many people think a dog is a wonderful deterrent in keeping a home safe from burglary. In Texas, a parrot seems to do the job nicely as well. Salvador, Mexican Red-headed parrot, who won't speak on cue but will say "hello" when visitors come in, alerted his owner, Dennis Baker, that it was not just the two of them at home in the middle of the night. And in making sure all visitors are equal, Salvador also chirped "hello" when the police arrived.

Being a guns-creep-me-out kind of girl, I won't even mention that Dennis followed up Salvador's call with a fully Texas (legal) action with his gun.

The beautiful picture is not Salvador himself but another Mexican Red-headed parrot from Bird Breeds.

Homeless in Silicon Valley

Those of us who make our home in Silicon Valley have been criticized in the past for not giving back to the community. That is changing overall, and Steve Wozniak has now joined in to help the cause of homeless cats. This three minute video gives a good overview of the problem and ways we can help.

It's interesting that one key argument against the Healthy Pets Act earlier this year was that euthanasia numbers continue to go down for unwanted pets. This video talks about the growing feral cat population (125,000 in Santa Clara County alone) and the non-stop work that many dedicated volunteers do to help control the numbers without having to resort to euthanasia. It's a constant battle regardless - even with their efforts, 30,000 of these cats are put down each year, in this county alone.

More information on this campaign is available via the Humane Society of Silicon Valley and Cats Without a Home.

Pets threatened as homes burn

With 18 wildfires ravaging Southern California, there is a lot of good and useful information being disseminated about how to keep pets safe during times of disaster.

The San Diego Humane Society is working non-stop within the fire zones to rescue animals that cannot be reached by their owners. Their site has regular updates on information important to pet owners, including evacuation centers that can accept them and their pets as a family. Another article gives practical advice for pet evacuation. Some of the tips include:

Always look for personal solutions (especially friends and family) and only use public services as a last resort. During a disaster, animal shelters and other public services become overwhelmed with thousands of animals very quickly.

Locate pet-friendly lodging in or around your area. Sometimes these facilities waive their no pet policy for one or two smaller animals in times of disaster...

Look for animal day-care facilities in the area, and if you are in a potential path of danger, do not leave your animal home alone for extended periods.

Birds and horses are extremely susceptible to smoke. Place birds in enclosed rooms without many windows and keep horses in a barn to cut down on smoke inhalation.

and probably the most chilling one is:

• If fire is rapidly approaching your home and there is no time to safely evacuate, release your animals rather than leaving them confined. This will allow them to escape (make sure the animal has a collar and tag with a cellular telephone number).

This is staggering work: consider that 1500 homes have been affected by this fire to date, and the evacuation of over 500,000 people is now the largest in California's modern history. A very conservative estimate of animals affected is easily in the thousands.

If you'd like to help support this effort, the San Diego Humane Society is accepting donations, including a wish list of supplies that will enable them to support the influx of pets they are saving for families like ours.

Seven Shopping Days Left...

...before Halloween!

An interesting overview in the Orange County Register shares these tidbits about us and what we're planning for our pets on Halloween:

• The National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade group, predicts 11 percent of us who celebrate the holiday will dress our pets in costumes. That equals 7.4 million households nationwide.
• Retailers are jumping into the trend by stocking more costumes this year and planning additional investments next year. And there will be social events as well, like Howl-O-Ween parties, sponsored by small boutiques as well as the large chains.
  
• This year's hottest costumes are animals pretending to be other creatures, including skunks, spiders, lobsters, ladybugs, bumblebees, and butterflies.
• While not part of the animal theme, an Elvis wig for cats is flying off the shelves, PetSmart spokeswoman Jennifer Ericsson said.

Another article recommends that we keep with the "made for pets" costumes and avoid using doll or baby clothes, as they can bind and hinder a pet's mobility. The manufactured costumes seem to address this to some degree, although Chocolate is never happy when I have anything on him but his collar and leash. I guess he's going as a dog.

More cute pics follow below...