I was in a chain pet supply store the other day, looking for a higher-quality food for some foster dogs from my local shelter who are a little chubby. For this reason, I was looking for a product that was not too high in fat.

I was a bit surprised to realize that grain-free foods have sort of taken over the shelves in the section of the store where the higher-quality foods are stocked. Many of the companies whose products appear in the “natural/holistic” or “premium” section seem to offer only grain-free foods. I had to go through several aisles before I found a product from a company that I like offering a food that contained grain and had a lower fat content.

After I got home, I did more research; are these companies discontinuing their dry dog foods that contain grain? The answer was no; the companies I was thinking of still offered those products, but the chain store where I was shopping that day didn’t stock them. That said, some of the companies have far more grain-free options than foods that contain grain.

For example, one whole aisle was devoted to Merrick, and only Merrick’s grain-free foods were being sold. Most of these foods contain a minimum of 38 percent protein and 17 percent fat. At home, I saw that Merrick still offers a “Classic” line of foods that contain grains, and these contain slightly less fat (15 percent) but also less protein (25 percent in the case of the lamb variety, and 30 percent for the beef and chicken varieties).

The marketing of foods has also gotten very focused on grains, whether pro or con. Merrick highlights the Classic line as containing “ancient grains like quinoa.” Quinoa is a favored ingredient in dog food advertising, perhaps because no one has yet launched a campaign against it. Never mind that quinoa appears fairly low down on the ingredients lists of these foods. For example, in Merrick’s Chicken variety, it appears 10^th on the ingredients list, well below peas (3^rd), brown rice (5^th), and barley (6^th).

Some dogs do better on grain-free foods than on a diet that contains grains, but this isn’t true of all dogs. I wouldn’t give grain-free foods a blanket recommendation for all dogs; I don’t think they are a superior diet, except for dogs that have a specific problem digesting grains. Other dogs might have difficulty digesting the carbohydrate sources that are in the grain-free foods!

How about you? Are you feeding grain-free? If so, why? Have you seen any changes in your dog’s health or digestion since using these diets?

Note: We published a great article on the issue of grain-free foods in 2010. Check it out!

Yesterday, I had a long list of things that I needed to do and had committed to doing – things for myself, my job, my husband, a friend, and the shelter where I volunteer. The list was so long that just contemplating it made me feel tired.

Not even on my list, but in the back of my mind, was the knowledge that the dogs haven’t been out for a good long run in days and days. Nine-year-old Otto can cope with that; while he loves going out for off-leash runs, his behavior doesn’t really change if he doesn’t have that opportunity.

But Otto’s counter-point is one-year-old Woody, whose behavior gets increasingly gravity-defying with each day that goes by without a run. The carpet runners in my hall start piling up at either end, as he finds he can no longer walk through the house; he has to dash down the hall and slide into the room at either end. He starts greeting guests with airs above the ground. Wooden things (like the redwood bench on my deck) start getting chewed anew.

My son’s three-year-old dog, Cole, who is staying with me for a couple weeks while my son travels, is somewhere between my two. He can maintain good behavior when he’s not getting daily runs, but his neuroses start increasing. (Like a lot of coonhounds, he’s a sensitive soul and inconsistently demonstrates weird behaviors, such as spinning before mealtime, trembling and panting while riding in the car, hiding if anyone raises his or her voice, especially if another dog is getting reprimanded).

So when I realized that the sun was going down on a rain-free day  – and we haven’t had many of those lately – I gave up on the thought of ticking off a few more of the things on my to-do list in favor of taking the dogs out for a run in our favorite place.

This particular place will close to off-leash dogs in just a few days, and stay closed until the end of June, for the nesting season. It’s a “wildlife area” – not a “wildlife refuge,” as several of my friends have mistakenly called it – but an area that is nevertheless managed by the state fish and wildlife department for recreation and hunting.  Migratory ducks and geese nest there, as do native pheasant, quail, doves, and countless other non-game species of birds. All the so-called “game birds” are hunted there in specific seasons, but from March 1 through June, the birds get a break from predatory humans and their off-leash dogs, to lay eggs and hatch their babies. So this run was probably the last one that my dogs will have in the tall, green, open fields until next year. (They can run there again when the grass is all California summer brown, and the birds are all back in the air.)

They needed it – the chance to stretch out and race each other across the fields.

All the dogs had a good time running, but none more than Woody. He runs and ducks and swerves and does these great kangaroo bounces, seemingly for the simple joy of doing them. It looks like he’s chasing a rabbit or running a race, but mostly, while Cole and Otto are munching on the tender spring grass or sniffing the small game trails, Woody is doing these great, looping laps of the field, all by himself, running for the joy of running.

As much as Woody and the others needed a chance to race around outdoors, what I remembered once we were out there, and I was laughing so hard I nearly peed myself at Woody’s antics (and couldn’t concentrate on making sure my camera was taking proper exposures), was that I totally needed it, too.

After the past week of pressure from the rain and the constant threat of another evacuation or flooding, and helping with evacuated shelter dogs who are being housed by half a dozen of my friends, on top of my own work and family obligations, I didn’t realize how tense I was, how shallowly and tightly I have been breathing all week. As I walked outside under a wide open sky, through the deep, wet, green grass, surrounded with birdsong and geese calling each other overhead, and led by three vibrantly healthy, exuberant, responsive dogs, I felt my tiredness float away. I felt my lungs start to work again; I breathed deeply, taking in all that color and oxygen and joy.

If it hadn’t been for the dogs – for trying to get the dogs tired – I’d still be exhausted! But that walk filled me up, and I’m happily plowing through my to-do list again, even as they sleep.

For the millionth time, thank you, dogs!

This article was originally published in early Feb. 2017. Updates are in bold below.

On February 3, 2017, the FDA announced that Evanger’s Dog & Cat Food had recalled five lots of its canned Hunk of Beef dog food, for a “potential contaminant,” pentobarbital. One dog has died after eating the food, and three others were sickened. All four dogs belong to the same family, and ate food from the same can of food. [Note that various media outlets, including the original television broadcast with the owner on camera, have reported that the family brought four dogs to the veterinarian and one died. The FDA has been reporting that the family brought FIVE dogs to the vet and one died.] The dog that died was necropsied, and some food from the open can of food was tested. The results: both the dead dog’s stomach contents and the open can contained pentobarbital, a drug commonly used to euthanize animals.

Given that the Hunk of Beef food – an incomplete diet meant for supplemental or intermittent feeding – contains nothing but beef chunks, Evanger’s is blaming its supplier of the beef used in the batch of contaminated food. The company has announced a voluntary recall of that batch of food, as well as four other batches of food produced the same week with beef from the same supplier. [UPDATE: Evanger’s also makes a food called “Against the Grain,” which is not overtly labeled as an Evanger’s product. The “Pulled Beef With Gravy” variety of Against the Grain has since been recalled by Evanger’s.]

The company says it has terminated its relationship with the meat supplier for both products, despite a 40-year history of doing business together.

No other reports of dogs being sickened by this or other Evanger’s products have emerged.

That’s the short, simple version.

But this is a weird tale, and I suspect it’s going to take a long time for all the details to come out – if they ever do.

Weird thing #1: The owner of the dead dog has exchanged only one brief communication with Evanger’s.

The dog that died and the others who were sickened belonged to a single owner in Washington State. They were all Pugs, who were fed a single can of Evanger’s Hunk of Beef food as a “topper” on their usual dry food on New Year’s Eve (Saturday, December 31, 2016), as a treat. The owner of the dogs claims that within 15 minutes of the meal, the dogs began acting strangely, acting dizzy or “drunk,” and falling over. She took all the dogs to an emergency veterinarian, where all of them were treated, but one dog died.

We have not yet contacted the dog’s owner to verify the exact chain of events, but it would seem that the owner published a post on Instagram some time on Sunday, January 1, blaming the Evanger’s food for her dog’s death.

At 3 am on Monday, January 2, someone forwarded the Instagram post to Evanger’s. The company immediately began trying to contact the owner.

It would appear that on Monday, the owner posted an account of her story on the crowd-funding site YouCaring, asking for help with her dog’s vet bills. Evanger’s, still trying to contact the owner, paid the full amount that the owner was asking for on the YouCaring post, and asked the owner to please contact them.

A local television news station, KATU, interviewed the distraught owner discussing the event and picking up one of the surviving dogs from the veterinarian on Monday morning. This report was broadcast on Monday evening, January 2.

To date, Evanger’s says it has had only one direct communication with the dogs’ owner, a single short email.

The YouCaring page has been taken down. The dog owner’s Instagram page is now private.

Weird thing #2: Meat supplier is as yet unidentified.

Neither the FDA nor Evanger’s has revealed the name of the company that supplied the meat in the recalled lots of food.

In the case of most food-based recalls, whether the product is meant for consumption by humans or pets, if a specific ingredient in the food is suspect, the ingredient is generally traced to its source. What if the adulterated ingredient was used in other food products, elsewhere?

We contacted the FDA and asked why the meat supplier involved in this case has not been named. FDA spokesperson Anne Norris responded: “FDA’s investigation is ongoing, and the agency is committed to providing additional information as it becomes available,” and promised that she would be in touch when she is able to provide us with additional information.”

UPDATE: On February 17, the FDA released the following statement:

In its recent press release announcing a limited product recall, Evanger’s Dog & Cat Food Company, Inc. stated that the beef for its Hunk of Beef product came from a “USDA approved” supplier. However, the FDA reviewed a bill of lading from Evanger’s supplier of “Inedible Hand Deboned Beef – For Pet Food Use Only. Not Fit For Human Consumption” and determined that the supplier’s facility does not have a grant of inspection from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. The meat products from this supplier do not bear the USDA inspection mark and would not be considered human grade. USDA-FSIS regulates slaughter of animals for human consumption only. Testing by USDA-FSIS of Evanger’s Hunk of Beef confirmed that the meat used in the product was bovine (beef).

The investigation by the FDA is ongoing and includes examination of the suppliers of beef to Evanger’s and Against the Grain to determine a possible cause for the presence of pentobarbital. The FDA is also coordinating with the USDA to address any possible areas of shared jurisdiction at the suppliers.

Weird thing #3: Dog owner has communicated with bloggers.

A site I would describe as a conspiracy theory pet-food blog seems to have been in contact with the dog owner, and has been publishing highly inflammatory posts about the case. The site also published the necropsy report for the deceased dog, thanking the dog owner for supplying the report and allowing her to publish it.

Further, the blogger published an “updated” (yet undated) post claiming to have received information from a fellow blogger that she “received confirmation from an [unnamed] FDA spokesperson” that FDA testing carried out in the agency’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation Response Network (Vet-LIRN) detected pentobarbital in “closed cans of food collected from the dog’s owner and from the retail location where the food had been purchased.” There has not yet been what we would consider credible evidence that this is true, nor has the FDA confirmed this.

UPDATE: In the press release on February 17, the FDA stated for the first time publicly that “unopened cans of the product from the pet owner and retailer that sold the products (from the same production lot), were tested by FDA’s lab. All of the samples tested positive for pentobarbital.” We have to ask: Why, if this information had been released to a pet food blogger some time ago, could this not have been confirmed and made public sooner?

Most important weird thing (#4): The presence of pentobarbital in a pet food.

The conspiracy theory bloggers and the pet owners who believe them are convinced, despite any credible evidence to the contrary, that euthanized dogs and cats are used as ingredients in pet food, and that any pentobarbital found in pet food proves this.

Pentobarbital is, in fact, commonly used as a euthanasia agent in pets and horses; it is also sometimes used to euthanize livestock – not on commercial food animal production facilities, but on family farms. I, myself, had a veterinarian euthanize my family milk cow with pentobarbital when it was “her time.”

However, no animal euthanized with pentobarbital should wind up in any facility that makes any product that will end up in pet food. There are Federal food safety laws that do not permit dead pets to be rendered in facilities that produce fats, meat meals, or bone meals that will be sold to pet food makers.

Pentobarbital has been detected in dry pet food in the past. The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine began looking into the issue in 1998, and conducted tests on pet foods that year and again in 2000. The FDA issued a “white paper” about its findings in 2002, concluding that euthanized cows and horses that had (illegally) found their way into pet food, but that the levels of pentobarbital found in some pet foods were so low, that they would not pose a risk to the health of dogs and cats that ate those foods. The FDA also stated that every food in which pentobarbital was detected was subjected to tests looking for dog or cat DNA, but none was found.

Off the record, old-timers in the pet food industry will admit that more than 20 years ago, euthanized pets probably were occasionally used by unscrupulous pet food producers as a source of “meat and bone meal.” However, every industry source we have interviewed claims that this could not happen with today’s food safety laws and oversight. Any company that risked such a thing would be setting themselves up for swift financial suicide.

Cows or other food animals (pigs, sheep, chickens, etc.) that die before they can be killed at a slaughtering facility are, by Federal law, not allowed to enter the slaughtering facility, but must be diverted to a rendering plant that makes ingredients for non-food products, such as fertilizer, biodiesel fuel, soap, and candles.

If an animal that was euthanized with pentobarbital was slaughtered and its meat sold for pet food, it would be a serious violation of Federal food safety laws.

We will be reporting further on current Federal laws governing the rendering industry, and explaining the differences between rendering plants that produce meat meals and fats that may be used in pet foods, and the rendering plants that utilize “4D” material (dead, dying, diseased, disabled).

Who is liable?

Pet food companies are technically liable for ill effects caused to an animal by their products, but in point of actual fact, any pet food company whose product harmed an animal will be trying to determine if someone else was at fault. Start the clock on the filing of lawsuits, counter-suits, and finger-pointing.

When a company’s food is actually made by a contract manufacturer, it’s likely that the company whose name is on the label will try to blame the co-packer, saying, “We did not authorize that ingredient/source to be used in our food…it was used without our knowledge.” And the co-packer will shoot back, “The company absolutely knows what we put in their food; here are the ‘run sheets’ that they signed off on, proving they know what was in the food…” They typically sue each other, and then settle out of court, with the case sealed so that the public never learns who was truly at fault, the company whose name is on the label, or the co-packer.

In this case, the food was made by the company whose name is on the label. Evanger’s makes its own food in its own plant – and the food (according to its label) contains nothing but beef. What could they do but blame their meat supplier?

We’ll continue reporting on this story as it develops.

In the winter of 1997, the town where I live now, Oroville, California, had a big flood. I didn’t live here then. But that year, the Feather River, which (usually) flows tamely right through my town, was threatening to massively flood the town. There is a dirt levee that separates the river from the main streets, and it seems like an historic artifact most of the time – a thing that was built by pioneers to try to keep the Feather from flooding the town again and again. It seems quaint now, because since 1968, the town has been more significantly protected by the Oroville Dam, with a huge reservoir (Lake Oroville) behind it – the combination that meters out the Feather at a safe and sane rate, protecting the town and much of the Sacramento Valley below from flooding. But with truly historic rainfall, like in 1997, the operators of the dam can’t help but let out so much water that the river swells to capacity, and suddenly our old historic levee is important once again, holding back the Feather from flooding Oroville.

In 1997, with the Oroville Dam letting out maximum quantities of water, and the Feather crazily high, the levee started seeping. County officials called for an immediate evacuation of Oroville. If the levee burst, they said, the town would be covered with 12 feet of water.

The local animal shelter lies about a mile and a half from the river, in the prehistoric flood plain of the Feather. Wild-eyed police officers gave the then-director of the shelter 15 minutes to get her staff and herself out of the shelter. Faced with the prospect of every animal in the shelter drowning, and with no way to evacuate 60-some animals that quickly, she made the horrible decision to euthanize every animal. Every staff member was pressed into helping. The animals were left dead in their enclosures, the doors locked, and the staff fled.

But the levee held, and the town didn’t flood.

It was a horrible, traumatic day for everyone involved. And the horror was burned into the memory of at least one of the kennel workers, who still has nightmares about it. Today, that former kennel worker is the director of the same shelter, now located in a newer facility about 300 yards from the old one. And today, on any given day, the shelter holds about three times as many animals as before.

This last week, as you may have heard, the town of Oroville was evacuated again. Northern California, on the heels of a long drought, is being inundated with rain. The mighty Feather is again roaring, and the Oroville Dam is holding it back. But the structure recently suffered catastrophic damage: A huge hole suddenly developed in the main spillway, where floodwaters can be dumped out of the lake when inflow exceeds outflow. Even with the lake filling fast, the dam operators had to shut off the outflow, to ascertain the extent of the damage. The lake neared the brim, the point at which the water of Lake Oroville would start to flow over the top of them never-once-used “emergency spillway” – basically, the engineered lowest spot on the downstream edge of the lake, positioned at what seemed like a safe distance from the dam itself.

The current director of the shelter, who still tears up and starts trembling at the thought of that horrible day 20 years ago, wasn’t going to sit still and wait for the police to give the staff 15 minutes or even 15 hours to evacuate. With the lake nearing full, and given the damage to the spillway, she pulled the trigger on a precautionary evacuation, days before any other official in the county thought it was necessary.

On Friday, February 10, as water started pouring over the “emergency spillway” on the dam, the director started reaching out to every animal rescue group the shelter has ever done business with, and asked if they could come take some animals. Hound rescue, Lab rescue, small dog rescue…you name it, they were called. She announced a “Dam Good Adoption Event” – every adoptable animal could be adopted for free. And she called on all people who foster animals, if they lived outside the evacuation zone, to come and take some animals.

I live three blocks from the levee, definitely in the potentially flooded zone. But I helped get dogs to friends’ homes. One friend took two dogs; another took six puppies, from several different litters. All the cat cages were loaded up into trailers, and taken to the homes of shelter employees who A) lived in a safe zone and B) had a warm barn or garage where they could care for the cats safely. (Fortunately, all of the cat kennels are mobile, and can be rolled about in sets of nine cages, making it super easy to move the cats with bowls and litter pans in place.)

Another friend hitched up her horse trailer, and late Friday evening, transported 10 large dogs in crates to my friend Sarah Richardson, who owns and operates The Canine Connection, a training, daycare, and boarding facility. After we got those 10 situated, Sarah asked how many dogs were left, and offered to take more. We took a second trip with six more, and the woman who was driving the shelter took six more to her home.

On Saturday, with only a handful of dogs in the shelter (the ones that the county animal control officers had picked up as stray in the past couple of days, and that the shelter did not have authority to move), the director directed the staff to start a deep cleaning of the shelter. May as well stay busy! In the meantime, up at the dam, workers were growing concerned about severe erosion being caused on the face of the hill next to the dam from all the water pouring over the emergency spillway.

On Sunday afternoon, the shelter was closed, with just a small number of dogs that county animal control would not let us move. And then came a mandatory order to evacuate the town of Oroville – immediately. The order said there were indications that erosion on the hill below the emergency spillway was undercutting the gates that control the flow of water over the main spillway. If the gates failed, the lake would begin to flow in an entirely uncontrolled fashion over the hill next to the dam, essentially carving a new river channel next to the dam. The dam operators estimated that the thing could collapse within an hour. And if it did, a 30-foot wall of water would be right behind it, leveling my town.

When the emergency evacuation order was broadcast, on radio, TV, and cell phones, I was helping my friend Sarah with the 15 evacuated shelter dogs in the next town over, completely safe. I had my dog Woody with me, but my husband, our dog Otto, and my son’s dog Cole (who is staying with us while my son is on a trip to New Zealand), were at home, right in the path of danger. My husband’s stated goal for the day was to mow the weeds (all that’s left of our lawns after several years of drought) and trim some trees. So he was outdoors, running loud equipment, and with his cell phone in the house. I called and texted him numerous times, getting more and more panicky by the second. I called and texted every friend I knew who was also in the danger zone; they were all packing and driving away.

I had started driving toward my town, scared stiff that at any second I was going to hear on the radio that the lake was headed to town, shaking and crying, and begging my husband to call. The traffic on the other side of the highway, headed out of town, was getting thicker and thicker. I didn’t want to drive into a wall of water, but I had to get my husband and dogs.

Thank goodness, my neighbor over my back fence heard my husband in our yard and yelled at him when the mower shut off. “THERE’S AN EVACUATION!” she told him. That’s when he finally picked up his cell phone and saw that I had sent him a half dozen texts and voice mail messages to “PLEASE GET THE DOGS AND GET OUT!” He grabbed a few things, and was tying the dogs in the back of his truck, even as police drove by twice, each time yelling over the megaphone at him to “LEAVE NOW!” Only when he was in the truck and driving out of town did he call me to say he was on his way out. When the call came, I was right at the last possible exit where I could turn around and also head back in the direction of safety. I waited there for him, and we shifted the dogs from the back of his truck into my car, and then we joined the traffic back to a nearby safe town.

The police wouldn’t allow the director of the shelter to go to the building and evacuate those last 15 or so dogs.

That night, we all watched the news, held our breath, and said prayers.

The next morning (Monday), the chief of police, likely feeling a little bad for pooh-poohing the shelter director days earlier, kept vigil while she oversaw the evacuation of the last few dogs from the shelter. At last ALL the animals, some 200 dogs, cats, birds, and a pig or two, were safe.

On Monday and Tuesday, the weather was sunny and warm and beautiful. My husband and I (and the three dogs) stayed with a friend in a nearby town. I had no computer, just my phone. I spent most of my time at my friend Sarah’s place, trying to help care for the evacuated dogs – and with Sarah promoting them on her Facebook page, adopting six of them out!!

Conditions at the dam improved, and midday on Tuesday, the Sheriff downgraded our evacuation to an “evacuation warning” – meaning, we could go home, but we should keep our cars packed, radios on (and mowers off, maybe!), be ready to evacuate again. The shelter director is keeping all the evacuated animals in foster care. Until the Sheriff moves the prisoners that he’s in charge of back into the county jail, also in the evacuation zone, we’re not moving animals back into our shelter, either.

As I write this, it’s Wednesday morning, and a storm is moving in. If the lake water rises rapidly again, and conditions deteriorate, another evacuation will be called. This time I will be more ready, with my computer and all my dogs with me, and I’ll duct-tape my husband’s cell phone to his to his body, I think. But no matter what happens, the shelter animals will be safe, thanks to the efforts of many local animal lovers AND, most significantly, to the hyper-vigilance and experience of my local shelter director, Lorraine “Rainy” Green. That’s really her name! She avoids the spotlight like the plague, but I hope she will take a bow when this is all over.