Sheep Guarding Llama

New news from Channel 4 NBC here in New York City says that after receiving numerous complaints of animals becoming sick and/or dying after eating Menu Foods manufactured pet foods the pet food manufacturer conducted an in-house test in which they showed a 14% fatality rate among dogs that were fed their contaminated food products.  For weeks after this test Menu Foods continued to manufacture known lethal dog and cat food and providing it to the ninety-one companies that relabel and sell their food.  It was not until the FDA received complaints of ten connected pet deaths that they stepped in and forced a recall of the contaminated food products (remember that many people also eat these pet foods and this could amount to manslaughter on behalf of the Canadian manufacturer.)

Seventeen of the top twenty pet foods sold in the United States came from Menu Foods and include brands such as those sold by Wegmans, Walmart, Nutro, Iams, Science Diet and many others.  It also has come to light that these companies are involved in horrible animal testing practices as well.  And some of these brands, like Nutro, claiming to be high end pet food manufacturers are using the same low end fillers and ingredients as the cheap grocery store brands.

But the worst part is that these companies KNEW that they were going to kill your pets.  It took weeks from the time that they knew for sure that their products were lethal until the FDA forced them to recall the products.  That means that they knew at a minimum in the first few days of March if not in late February that pets were dying.  They didn’t care and not only didn’t recall their products and not only didn’t stop selling their contaminated stocks of bad food but they continued to manufacture more contaminated foods!  Since they were testing internally and were killing their own dogs by early March it means that they probably had to know about the bad food for at least a month before that. That means that at very least since January they have been knowingly endangering and killing your pets!

We learned this morning that the company that makes Oreo’s dog food, Nutro, has instigated a recall of the food because of unknown contamination that has already killed a few dogs. We went through all of the cans that we had and none of the ones that we had on hand matched the list that they had published of known bad batches. The company is Menu Foods and they have a page to check to see if your pets have been eating contaminated food. Menu Foods makes over 48 brands of pet food – if you have a pet please be sure to check and make sure that they have not eaten any of this food. They do not yet know exactly what the problem is but the result can be kidney failure and death. It is critical that all pet owners check this list as it covers dog and cat foods from numerous big name companies. Be especially aware if your pet begins losing its appetite or vomits more than usual. [On Monday a new list was released from Menu Foods with even more items on it. Oreo is one of the affected dogs. 🙁 ]

Shortly after getting up this morning I heard the distant strains of bagpipes coming from our open windows (yes it is really that warm) and so I got my shoes on as quickly as I could and grabbed the camcorder and ran down to the street. The Newark Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was coming down Broad Street right past our building. I managed to video tape the entire parade from beginning to end – at least I think that I did. I am not a consummate cinematographer at this point and noticed later today that I managed to record an entire vlog entry with the camcorder completely zoomed in on my nose. How did I do that? I have no idea. I didn’t have enough time to grab the tripod though. That would have made for a much better video. But at least I managed to get something good. I have been wanting to make a video of some Newark local events for a while and I was glad to finally have the chance.

We went out to Walmart to do some shopping today. We were running low on some basics – namely water. We picked up some television shows on DVD as we have run out of everything at the house. We finished watching Jack of All Trades with Bruce Campbell this morning. We got a good collection including the first seasons of Bosom Buddies, Beauty and the Beast and Family Ties. We also got Dukes of Hazard: The Beginning which is probably awful but at least it should be cute.

After shopping we hit IHOP for some lunch since we were already out and about in the car. Otherwise it is too much effort to get the car to go out anywhere.

Dominica did some reading in her Systems Analysis and Design text book today.  Her class at Empire State College starts tomorrow.  She is really looking forward to this class.  It was my favourite at ESC.

I did some additional work on my RIT class but not too much.  People don’t seem to have gotten into the class much yet and my book will probably not arrive from Amazon until next week.

We watched Bosom Buddier and Family Ties before going to bed.  We went to bed early as it is back to the grind tomorrow morning.  I wasn’t very tired though so I watched Donnie Darko on my Creative Zen Vision W.

Since we don’t have to pack and move everything in our Geneseo house this weekend Dominica, Oreo and I are just relaxing in Newark. We were able to get up early enough to walk over to Food for Life for breakfast. Dominica was feeling lazy so I just called over and ordered breakfast and walked over and picked it up.

The weather is much warmer today. Even though we got heavy snows yesterday today it is so warm that I can comfortably walk around outside in just a fleece. It isn’t “warm” but it is pretty mild for being cold.

Mostly we relaxed today. We never got the car at all to leave home. We just spent the day doing things around the apartment. There is plenty of work for me to do as the house closes in just over a week. Getting everything transferred over to Scranton is an ongoing challenge that is going to completely exhaust me this week.

This weekend we managed to finish watching Remington Steele. I loved the show for the first four seasons but the fifth season, I think, was really weak and didn’t help the show much. I am not sure if they changed the format because they had been canceled or it they were canceled because they changed the format but either way the final season was not a good conclusion for the show. The biggest issues were that the characters changed way too much and the format changed too much making the final season stand out as not really being a part of the real show. It was weird. It is too bad that they did that. It was like they had run out of ideas and didn’t know how to wrap up the show quickly enough and they panicked. Otherwise it was an outstanding series.

We also got a chance to watch The Guardian with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. Dad had told us that it was really good and that Ashton had done an amazing performance. I have liked Ashton since he was on That ’70s Show but he is definitely maturing and becoming a really incredible actor. I think that we are likely to see a lot of good stuff come from him over the next twenty years.

I found this hilarious Japanese instructional video on using the bathroom for small children. This is some seriously funny stuff. It isn’t translated but I think you can figure out what is going on.

Well the snow that we thought was gone for good is back with a vengeance today. We decided that there is so much snow going on between Newark and Geneseo that, once again, it would be foolish to drive all of the way back to Geneseo just to do one real day worth of packing and then come right back down here again. So instead we are waiting until next weekend. Dominica took Friday off so we know for sure that we are able to come up on Thursday night.

Dominica and Oreo left for work just minutes before I had to jump onto a call to support a production outage at the office. I was stuck on the phone for over three hours! That meant that it was going to be quite late before I would be able to go to work and it was decided that it would be best if I just stayed home and worked from there. So my weekend has sort of turned into a four day weekend which is pretty cool – if only I could have spent it packing instead of being stuck in Newark where there isn’t all that much for me to do.

I ran over to Food for Life around half past eleven to get some lunch. Then at half past one I drove up to Wallington to pick up Oreo from daycare so that Dominica wouldn’t have to do the extra driving to get him. It took me half an hour to get up there and half an hour to get back. The roads are really awful. It was quite difficult driving in the PR5 which only has summer sport tires on it. We really were not expecting another snow this year. And the suspension is about to go in the PR5 too, we think, which isn’t helping anything either. It is a really good thing that we are not trying to make it to Geneseo tonight. There is no way that we should be driving that far in that car.

Dominica was able to leave work just a little before three in the afternoon. They were letting everyone go early (Dominica is the last support person on in the evening) because of the weather. My office was clearing out too. No one wants to drive in weather like this during rush hour if they can help it and it is best to get the driving in while the sun is up as well.

Dominica got home safely and we decided to make it a relaxing evening. I had to work from home until about eight but then we got the chance to just relax for the rest of the evening.