PetSugar

Major Pet Food Recall – Is Your Brand One of Them?

PetSugar — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:00:45 -0700

I'm kind of a stickler about pet food. North eats pretty well, and I personally wouldn't have it any other way. So if the last pet food scare had you up in arms, then you should take notice to this news. Fourteen brands of pet food were placed on a voluntary recall list after two people may have contracted salmonella poisoning since coming in contact with food that was made between January and July of this year.

One of these is a top seller - Pedigree! I know a lot of you stick to all natural pet foods (and some of you even serve vegetarian or raw foods to your pampered pets), but I know there will be tons of you that are affected by this recall, so listen up! To find out which brands are being pulled from the shelves, and how to determine if you have one of them, just read more.

Brands that are being pulled include:

Pedigree
Ol' Roy
Retriever
Paws & Claws
Member's Mark
Natural Dog Food
Natural Cat Food
Doggy Bag
PMI Nutrition
Red Flannel
PetPride
Special Kitty
Country Acres
Wegman's Bruiser
Wegman's Buju & Ziggie

All recalled foods were produced between January and July of this year. Look for these specific notations on the UPC bar code of your products:

For Pedigree brand pet foods, consumers should look for “PAE” on the bottom line - the sixth, seventh, and eighth digits. Sample:
PEDIGREE ® Small Crunchy Bites
Best Before 02/2009
808G1PAE01 12:00

For all other brands listed above, consumers should look for “17” as the first two digits of the second line.
Sample:
Best By Feb 18 09
17 1445 1

If you have a supply of recalled food from one of the brands listed above, return the food to the retailer for a full refund.

Source

Million Dog Mosaic

PetSugar — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:30:00 -0800

If your furry friend is still itching for his moment in the spotlight, the Million Dog Mosaic is a great way to get your pet's piccy out there! As part of the Pedigree Adoption Drive, the company makes a $1 donation for every dog photo that is uploaded into the mosaic (up to $20,000). Of course, I wanted to do my part to help the less fortunate animals, so I uploaded North's picture. Photos need to be horizontal with no people and I picked one of my lil' fella resting on an old laptop bag. After filling out some information about him, I received an email with a searchable code to zoom in on his mug and, about 48 hours later, my little guy was part of this piece of art. The finished product is that floppy-eared pup in the bottom right corner - it's fun to zoom in at random and click on other dogs to learn more about them. Can you find North in this shot?

Pedigree's also offering Dogs Rule apparel and gear and, if you're in NYC, today's the final day of the Pedigree Dogstore, a temporary center featuring adoptable dogs in an indoor dog park.

The Scoop: Charmin Wins Crufts!

PetSugar — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:00:51 -0700

Do you recognize this furry face? It's Cha-Cha-Cha, Charmin. (Sorry, I'm feeling punchy.) The Sealyham Terrier won the 2007 AKC/Eukanuba National Championship, captured the terrier group title for the 2008 Westminster Dog Show and now just won Crufts Best in Show!After last August's documentary claiming the Crufts Kennel Club allowed (or, at the very least, did not protect against) damaging breeding practices, both the RSPCA and major sponsor Pedigree pulled out of partnerships with this event, and the BBC television refused to air the show. I hope the organization evaluates and improves upon this issue going forward and, although I almost didn't cover this event at all, I decided that this stateside cutie deserves his moment to shine.

See more pictures of Charmin when you read more.

View 10 Photos ›

Source

Do You Own a Purebred Cat?

PetSugar — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:00:00 -0700

If you share your home with a kitty, I wanna know more about your cat. The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) has 39 pedigreed breeds that it recognizes (and allows to compete in shows) and I'm curious how many of you own a purebred feline. I know some of you have exotic pets like this Tonkinese belonging to DearSugar's mom, while others have cats with lineage that's a bit harder to trace. After all, many times a rescue like a domestic shorthair still resembles pedigreed breeds like the American Shorthair. As always, feel free to share which type of cat you own in your comments below!

27 Dresses . . . and Too Many Dogs to Count

PetSugar — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:00:00 -0800

Katherine Heigl and hubby Josh Kelley certainly have a pack of pooches to take care of! Three of their pups took an adventure yesterday to the vet's office in Los Angeles. Now, even though I thought she had four dogs, I keep stumbling upon a very recent quote where she says she has five. Hmmm, I smell a mystery.

Just so I won't be the only one unable to follow the picture trail of her dog ownership, let's go back in time, shall we? Now, off the bat, I remembered she was a judge for the nationwide Old Navy mascot search and I found a magazine blurb describing the announcement of the contest (on April 28, 2006) that said she owned three dogs including a Shih Tzu named Maggie and that she recently adopted a German Shepherd mix named Anderson. Sweet, I thought. Three dogs down, two to go.

Buuuuuut . . . flash forward to Feb. 19, 2007 when she appeared on Martha Stewart to talk about the fund-raising work she was doing with Pedigree. While on air, she shows that black-and-white pic and describes her pets "from the top left: Weezer, Stella, Romeo, and Piper (a rescue)." Eeks! No Maggie and no Anderson. Four pups down, two missing, and one to go.

I'm no stranger to changing a pup's name, but even in black and white, that dog looked pretty dark to be the same "Anderson" from that earlier article. And, while it seemed possible that Maggie could have passed away, I couldn't imagine Anderson being gone as well. But, since I've seen photos of a black pooch called Anderson, I was at a loss, and beginning to think it was possible that Anderson and Piper were in fact the same dog. (If you're as interested in solving this mystery as I am, read more.)

Nope, that would be too easy. I was still banking on hearing her name off dogs as the most legit source I've got. As I looked back through photos in the gallery, I was once again thrown for a loop. Check out her hubby holding the leash of two large dogs, which bear uncanny resemblances to Piper and Anderson. Because Maggie's last appearance (that I could find) was in early 2006, I was more willing to bet this pooch was out of the picture than I was to deny the photograph.

So, I'm gonna venture a guess and say that she in fact does have five dogs (Weezer, Stella, Romeo, Piper, and Anderson) and assume that the black dog is Piper and the shepherd-looking pup is Anderson. If Anderson resided with Josh before they were married (she could have "gifted" him like the pup she adopted for co-star/ BFF TR Knight), he wouldn't technically be her dog when she was on Martha, and, now that she's newly married – they're up to a collective five. I'm hoping, if she does in fact decide to star in Lost and Found, that she'll once again share and confirm her pooches' names. Until then, we'll just have to come to our own conclusions!

Bauer-Griffin

Katherine, Josh, and Furry Crew Take a Walk

PetSugar — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:30:08 -0800

The sunshine has returned as Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley bring a gaggle of pups to accompany them on errands around L.A. yesterday. A well-known dog lover, Katherine has lent her smiling face to many animal-related causes like the Pedigree Adoption Drive. With pit stops at the vet's office, Fast Frame, and Mustard Seed Cafe, the newlyweds were smiling the whole way and the whole day.

Follow their adventures in a gallery when you read more.

View 7 Photos ›

Bauer-Griffin