Pet Food Safety: Canidae is safe - Case closed!

You may or may not recall my comment written back in January titled Pet food safety: Beware of the Internet reporting untrue stories, there’s nothing wrong with Canidae and Wellness. In it I reported of rumors circulating on the Internet and consequently everywhere else about an apparent class action lawsuit going on against Canidae. Since then a few weeks have passed (already?) and I have received many calls and inquiries. While many pet owners called me to share that they never had and still, even after the changes made last year have absolutely no problems with the Canidae food and their pets are just as fine as can be, there were just as many inquiries expressing concerns. Even pet food retailers have contacted me and told me about how much they are suffering from way reduced sales due to these false stories. In my original article I was making a point of the fact that I do not understand people making false claims on Internet blogs and forums thereby hurting many people involved in the business. And I had at that point also found that there simply was and (still to this day) is no such a thing as this apparent class action suit. At one side I hate to bring this up again and would like to put the case to rest, because I believe that as more as is being talked about it as more the false rumors work in the favor of those irresponsibly spreading them. They get the attention they want. At the same time I would like to put the case to rest with a closing, which can be considered a satisfactory closure and will allow us to move on with our lives. Needless to say that I was extremely pleased when I received the following letter in my e-mail yesterday:
“Information on CANIDAE's Reformulated Products

From the Desk of John Gordon and Scott WhippleAt CANIDAE All Natural Pet Foods, we constantly strive to provide the highest quality and safest products to our consumers.In May 2008, we set out to enhance the safety and quality of our Lamb and Rice dry pet foods. We had two overall goals: to improve our formulations using the safest, highest quality ingredients available; and to find a partner who could manufacture our products to exact safety, quality and consistency standards. One month later, in June 2008, we introduced the improved All Life Stages (ALS), Chicken and Rice and Platinum dry pet foods. These products are among the safest, highest quality products available to pet owners today.When we introduced the reformulated products, we took steps to inform consumers, retailers, distributors, and breeders about the change and about our products' advanced safety, quality and consistency. The information was also prominently featured on our website. We have worked closely with pet owners to address the transition, and the vast majority of our customers switched to the new diets without issue. It is also important to note that at no time has our product testing indicated any safety issues with our products.As you may have heard, we have recently been sued over the improvements we made last year to our dry formulations. The lawsuit was filed by a single person who claims that the improvements were actually unsafe cost-cutting measures. Rest assured that these allegations are completely untrue, and we fully expect that this lawsuit will be shown to have absolutely no merit.The truth is that, beginning in May of 2008, we improved our dry formulations to make them better and safer for pets. The new formulation is actually more expensive to produce than our previous version, but our consumers expect us to continue to strive for better, safer, more nutritious products, and that's what our improved formulations deliver.Our reformulated products include higher quality ingredients than before. Coupled with advanced manufacturing processes and rigorous safety testing, CANIDAE foods are among the safest, highest quality products a pet owner can buy.We receive positive feedback from our customers on a daily basis. We are committed to providing high quality products that are thoroughly tested in the plant and by third parties to assure safety and consistency.
As always, we will continue to place the best interest of pets at the heart of every decision we make.
Respectfully,
John Gordon & Scott Whipple
Founders and Owners of CANIDAE Pet Foods

CANIDAE Commitment to Pet Food Safety
CANIDAE All Natural Pet Foods was founded out of love for our own pets and animals. In today's environment, and as pet owners ourselves, we understand consumer concerns when it comes to the safety of the food we choose to feed our beloved family pets.All CANIDAE products are made using only the finest human grade, natural ingredients, grown and raised in the United States and manufactured with the strictest testing and quality control procedures in place. Our production facilities already surpass future AAFCO and FDA standards. By meeting these newer pre-process and post-process monitoring guidelines with state of the art equipment and procedures, our manufacturing facilities enable us to produce a safer, higher quality product with specific procedures in place to assure the health and well being of your pet.To assure the safety of our products, CANIDAE has strict protocols which require that all formulas are tested in-line during our production runs and cleared by a second supervisor every 30 minutes. Additionally, there are 141 ingredient tests and 10 finished product tests that are performed. A sample of each finished goods batch is also sent directly to our research and development center where they are tested again, this time by a third party lab, for known toxins and potential risk hazards including but not limited to:Melamine Cyanuric AcidSalmonellaToxinsChemical ResidualsBacterial ToxinsCANIDAE Pet Foods are safe.
All CANIDAE products meet or exceed AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) nutrient profiles and are manufactured in USDA and FDA approved facilities. CANIDAE products consistently receive superior Silliker Good Manufacturing and Food Safety Audits scores of 95% or above. CANIDAE's manufacturing capabilities also include the U.S.D.A. Organic Certification.CANIDAE is committed to providing the highest standard of excellence for nutritional benefit, palatability, product safety, and customer satisfaction. We understand the level of trust that you have come to expect from us and our products and it is our responsibility and commitment to deliver on that trust!”

I would say this should do to put the case to rest. It does once again, though I was already convinced back in January, provide me with enough confidence to continue to recommend the Canidae brand to pet owners as a reliable and healthy pet food alternative. There is indeed nothing wrong with Canidae ! “Rumor mill operators”, go and find yourself different and new victims, stay away from pet food, everybody here has been seriously hurt enough many times in the past and worried way beyond acceptable levels. Better yet, find yourself a new hobby. If you hurt yourself, that’s fine with us, as long as you leave everybody else alone.