I’ve been thinking about cruelty-free pet food a lot lately, what with the ever-expanding pet food recall. For me, it’s important to buy cruelty-free pet food because I don’t want to buy food that has caused any other living-creature-with-a-nervous-system needless suffering. I’m not against animal slaughter, by the way, I just think that before being slaughtered, all animals should lead suffering-free lives.

I’m especially fond of cats and dogs, and it makes me sad to think of cats and dogs being kept in cages in laboratories — I think they should be kept in homes by people who love them. As anyone who has ever had a cat or a dog knows, cats and dogs are friendly, social creatures who love their owners — locking them in cages and keeping their contact with people to a minimum is cruel to them. (I realize I’m an extremist — if you don’t hold these views, that’s fine with me!)

Because of this, it made me very sad to read that Menu Foods deliberately fed their laboratory dogs and cats contaminated pet food on February 27th, 2007, a week after Menu Foods executives first heard that the food might be poisonous. Most of these dogs and cats then died (painfully) from kidney failure a few days later (original article here). I doubt Menu Foods employees gave them any pain-killers.

Now whenever I go to a pet store and see a pet food brand I know is made by Menu Foods (most of the available brands, it turns out), I remember those cats and dogs who died after being maliciously fed poisoned pet food on February 27th.

Categories : cruelty free, pet food