FDA Says Violations at Pet Food Plants ‘Likely' Contributed to Hundreds of Sick, Dead Dogs

The agency said it is aware of more than 130 pet deaths and more than 220 pet illnesses that are possibly be linked to brands of pet food manufactured by Midwestern Pet Foods

Violations of federal protocols at manufacturing plants that produce multiple brands of pet food, nearly a dozen of which were recalled earlier this year, likely caused hundreds of pets to become ill and die.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced it warned Midwestern Pet Foods, Inc. in a letter that inspectors found the company's food safety program to be inadequate, discovering salmonella and toxic levels of aflatoxin at four of its plants in Chickasha, Oklahoma; Waverly, New York; Evansville, Indiana; and Monmouth, Illinois.

To read more on this story, click here:  FDA Says Violations at Pet Food Plants ‘Likely' Contributed to Hundreds of Sick, Dead Dogs

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Hyattsville City Police Department's K9, Rudy, Has Received a Bullet and Stab Protective Vest Thanks to a Charitable Donation

Hyattsville City Police Department’s K9 Dog, Rudy, has received a bullet and stab protective vest thanks to a charitable donation from non-profit organization Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. The vest was sponsored by an anonymous sponsor and is embroidered with the sentiment “In memory of Mindy”.

  

Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. is a 501c(3) charity located in East Taunton, MA whose mission is to provide bullet and stab protective vests and other assistance to dogs of law enforcement and related agencies throughout the United States. The non-profit was established in 2009 to assist law enforcement agencies with this potentially lifesaving body armor for their four-legged K9 officers. Since its inception, Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. provided over 1,600 protective vests, in 49 states, through private and corporate donations, at a cost of over 1.5 million dollars. All vests are custom made in the USA by Armor Express in Central Lake, MI.

The program is open to dogs actively employed in the U.S. with law enforcement or related agencies who are certified and at least 20 months of age. New K9 graduates, as well as K9s with expired vests, are eligible to participate.

The suggested donation to provide one protective vest for a law enforcement K9 is $1,050. Each vest has a value between $1,795 – $2,234, and a five-year warranty and an average weight of 4-5 lbs. There are an estimated 30,000 law enforcement K9s throughout the United States. For more information or to learn about volunteer opportunities, please call 508-824-6978. Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. provides information, lists events, and accepts tax-deductible donations of any denomination at www.vik9s.org or mailed to P.O. Box 9 East Taunton, MA 02718.

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Have You Ordered Your 'I Rescued My Best Friend' T-Shirt?: Let The World Know That You Are Proud To Have Rescued/Adopted Your Pet - Only 50 Will Be Made - Ends May 21st, So Order Yours Today

If you have ever adopted a pet, you may not know it…but YOU saved a life! Adopting is also know as 'rescuing' an animal. Some people adopt animals but never realize that they are saving the animals life. When you adopted your pet, you gave them a home, love and a second chance at life, a chance to be part of a family.

There is an animal shelter, called, Animal Allies, Inc., located in Fairfax County, Virginia.  They are a non-profit organization that relies solely on donations and volunteers to operate. They are dedicated to rescuing homeless and abandoned animals. They could use your help to care for the animals. Please help by purchasing this great T-shirt for $17.  All funds will go directly to Animal Allies of Fairfax, Virginia. Thank you.

I have setup a fundraiser to help Animal Allies, Inc., with the care of the animals. 

My fundraiser is called, Animal Allies of Fairfax Fundraiser, and I am selling t-shirts that I designed. The t-shirts are in both men and women's sizes. 

To learn more about my fundraiser, click here: You Can Help Raise $850 For Animal Allies, a Volunteer No Kill Organization Dedicated to the Rescue of Homeless and Abandoned Animals, With Your Purchase of a 'I Rescued My Best Friend' T-Shirt

The limit is only 50 t-shirts, after that, no more will be made.

To place your order now, click here: I Rescued My Best Friend

From the Author:

This is Jonas, a shih-tzu/yorkie mix. We adopted/rescued him from the Washington Humane Society, Washington, DC, on September 24, 2013, at 9-months-old. Needless, to say while he is adorable… he can be a little 'stinker' sometimes! Lol

Now, at almost 2 ½ years old, he is the 'love' of our lives! Yes, he is spoiled.

My husband I will proudly wear our shirts when walking Jonas, shopping, etc. We want to get the message out that it is better to 'adopt than to shop' for animals.

Animal shelters all over the United States are flowing over with animals in search of a loving home. As an animal advocate/lover, I am willing to help animals in anyway that I can. 

Please consider purchasing your t-shirt today. Your donation will help all of the animals at Animal Allies, Inc. and I am sure they will appreciate it.

If you would like to make an additional donation, there is a place on the fundraiser page for that.

If you have adopted/rescued a pet, may God bless you for saving a life!

Please share with friends, neighbors and co-workers. FOLLOW US!

Do You Have a Pet That You Adopted?: Only 11 Days Left to Get Your 'Adopt Don't Shop' T-Shirt - Help Out a Worthy Cause

 Did you adopt or rescue your pet? Please consider purchasing the 'Adopt Don't Shop' T-shirt. This t-shirt is being sold as a fundraiser to help Animal Allies, Inc., a worthy organization that rescues homeless and abandoned animals.

Wear your t-shirt proudly to let others know that you saved a life! 

There are only 150 in this limited edition. The last day to purchase is April 18, 2015.

To learn more about this fundraiser, click here: 
Have You Adopted a Pet? Did You Know That You Saved a Life? Get Your 'Adopt Don't Shop' T-Shirt - Show Everyone How Proud You Are: Limited Edition of 150

Thank you and please share!

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Have You Adopted a Pet? Did You Know That You Saved a Life? Get Your 'Adopt Don't Shop' T-Shirt - Show Everyone How Proud You Are: Limited Edition of 150

If you have ever adopted a pet, you may not know it…but you saved a life! Adopting is also know as 'rescuing' an animal. Some people adopt animals but never realize that they are saving the animals life. When you adopted your pet, you gave them a home, love and a second chance at life, a chance to be part of a family.

There is an animal shelter, called, Animal Allies, Inc., located in Fairfax County, Virginia.  They are a non-profit organization that relies solely on donations and volunteers to operate. They are dedicated to rescuing homeless and abandoned animals. They could use your help to care for the animals. Please help by purchasing this great T-shirt for $17.  All funds will go directly to Animal Allies of Fairfax, Virginia. Thank you.

I have setup a fundraiser to help Animal Allies, Inc.

My fundraiser is called, Animal Allies of Fairfax Fundraiser, and I am selling T-shirts that I designed. The T-shirts are in both men and women's sizes. 

On the top left front of the T-shirt is a dog and cat logo, with the words, "I rescued my best friend." On the center back is the same logo, with the words, "Visit your local animal shelter…and save a life, 'Adopt Don't Shop'.

They are made of Gildan Ultra Cotton, and come is sizes: YXS - XXXXL

This fundraiser ends on April 18, 2015. You have 2 weeks left to order yours!
Your shirt will be delivered about 2 weeks after closing.

The fundraiser also has a section on the form if you would like to make an additional donation.

Ready to Order? click here: Adopt Don't Shop T-Shirt

About Animal Allies:

Animal Allies, a nonprofit, all-volunteer no kill organization dedicated to the rescue of homeless and abandoned animals. We are a registered 501(c)(3) organization incorporated in the State of VA. Founded in 1984, Animal Allies is devoted to curbing the irresponsible breeding of pets in an effort to end the overpopulation of homeless animals. 

Animal Allies volunteers work to rescue lost, abandoned, or stray animals and find loving homes for them if possible. All animals in our system are vetted to check for disease and spayed and neutered to stop the cycle of unwanted animals. 

Through a detailed process, we do our best to make sure each animal goes to a suitable home where they can enjoy love and shelter and the necessities for the rest of their lives, and provide their human companions with love in return. Our organization is funded solely through the generosity of the public and countless hours put in by our volunteers.

Visit their website at: Animal Allies, Inc.

Order your shirt today! After April 18, 2015, they will no longer be available!

Please share with family, friends and co-workers who have adopted/rescued an animal.

Thank you for adopting your pet and saving a life!
Administrator, The Pet Tree House

Please Share!

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Puppy Mill Rescue Teams Are Finding More, and More Designer Dogs in, Farms Where Dogs Are Kept In Misery: Labradoodles

A couple and their four children, wanted a dog in the worst way. Not just any dog, but the type more popular today than any of the dazzling breeds at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

They wanted a labradoodle.

With luck and money, they found one not far from where they live in Connecticut. The breeder claimed the dog came from several generations of labradoodles, who in turn were carefully bred from miniature poodles and Labrador retrievers in Australia, where labradoodles were popularized 25 years ago. A ball of chocolate fluff, the puppy cost $2,800. That's more than it would have cost the family to adopt every single dog at their local shelter. But it was not outlandishly priced for a labradoodle.

The family installed an electric fence inside the house to keep the pup contained, paid for obedience classes from a trainer, and were set.

Only they weren't. Theirs is a cautionary tale, an increasingly common one, of what can happen when a dog becomes too popular for its own good.

 The Heartbreaking Truth About Those Cute Doodle Dogs
The puppy did not have the docile temperament of a lab, as advertised. He was high-strung, as poodles can be sometimes, especially miniature poodles. He was not good with children; he competed with them as if they were littermates—scolding, wrestling, biting them. He was not, as labradoodles are marketed, low-maintenance. Like both a poodle and a labrador, the puppy craved constant company. Being confined to two rooms by an absurd, zapping, invisible "fence" drove him crazy. So did the children and the nanny, who were inconsistent with their attention and discipline.

Like more and more labradoodles, and their cousins, the golden doodles, a golden retriever-poodle mix—this pup was dumped. He ended up at the Doodle Rescue Collective, Inc., based in Dumont, New Jersey, which fields calls from doodle owners all over the country desperate to dump their dogs.

Since the Doodle Rescue Collective began rescuing doodles in 2006, it has helped over 1,200 dogs and counting. And it is not alone. There are dozens of other poodle-mix rescues, including rescues for cockapoos, or cocker spaniel-poodle mixes; schnoodles, for schnauzer-poodles; chi-poos, for chihuahua poodles; maltipoos, for maltese-poodle mixes; and so on. The rescues often spend thousands of dollars in healthcare and rehabilitation for these so-called designer dogs, mutts actually, whose owners spent months on breeder waiting lists to get them, and thousands of dollars to buy them, only to abandon them within a year or two.

Of course, not all labradoodle breeders run puppy mills. Gail Widman, president of the Australian Labradoodle Club of America, said that all members of the club must adhere to strict breeding standards, using DNA tests as proof, register with the source group in Australia, and guarantee the health and temperament of their dogs.

Given all those qualifications, Widman said, for people who might not be able to have a dog otherwise because of allergies, the true labradoodle, she claimed, "is the perfect dog."

"You'll be hard-pressed to find a real Australian labradoodle in a shelter," Widman said. "They have wonderful temperaments, no smell, no shedding—they're brilliant dogs and they simply do not get given up."

But it is true, Widman added, "That a lot of breeders call their dogs Australian labradoodles and they aren't."

These dogs have become victims of their hype, rescuers say. It's a phenomenon that happens to many breeds of dog. Every time a type of dog captures the public's imagination, the clamor surrounding it creates new backyard breeders, a new product for puppy mills, and new owners swept up by the hype. Dalmatians were all the rage after Disney's 101 Dalmations was released. Cocker spaniels had their day after Disney's Lady and the Tramp. Paris Hilton made teacup Chihuahuas dressed up in tutus a fleeting fad.

Each time a breed becomes too popular, it gets inbred and overbred, causing severe health problems or behavioral issues they dogs' guardians don't want to pay for or live with. Labradoodles and other poodle mixes are marketed as hypo-allergenic, non-shedding and odor-free, attracting some people who have never lived with a dog before, but like the idea of one that sounds low-maintenance.

Labradoodles attract some people, in short, who probably shouldn't own dogs.

Meanwhile, dogs,or cats that might be a better fit languish in shelters, or are euthanized for lack of space. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) estimates that out of the six to eight million dogs and cats animal shelters care for each year, three to four million healthy, adoptable animals are euthanized.

Puppy mill rescue teams are finding more and more designer dogs in farms where dogs are kept in misery— in cages, usually in filthy conditions, in every state in the country. Such dogs are often in poor health. Breeding females are treated like puppy factories, pregnant at every heat for years on end. A breeder may use the same miniature poodle—or cockapoo, which looks like a miniature poodle—to breed labradoodles, maltipoos, schnoodles, affenpoos (affenpinscher-poodles) or jackipoos (Jack Russell terrier-poodles).

The HSUS announced it had investigated a large suspected puppy mill in Arkansas, and posted a picture of one of the 121 dogs it rescued, a severely matted goldendoodle.

Kathleen Summers, director of outreach and research for the Humane Society’s Stop Puppy Mills Campaign, said the HSUS is finding designer dogs in half of all the puppy mills it investigates.

“The hybrid breeds are very attractive for the puppy mills to produce,” Summers said. “They really cash in on the whole ‘hypoallergenic’ sales pitch that there are some dogs that don’t shed and that won’t aggravate some people’s allergies. Puppy mill breeders try to sell the notion that anything mixed with poodle is going to be hypoallergenic.”

While people research their breeders on the Internet, what they don't know, Summers said, is the amount of false advertising presented in the marketing of the dogs.

"Most of the websites for puppy mills that we've shut down for horrific conditions," Summers said, "say things on their site like 'We don't support puppy mills.'"

No one has lamented the popularity of the doodles more urgently than Wally Conron, who created the first labradoodle. As the puppy-breeding manager at the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia, Conron was trying to fulfill the need for a guide dog from a woman in Hawaii whose husband was allergic to dogs. He bred a standard poodle with a Labrador retriever for this couple. But there was more than one puppy in the litter, and no one on his three- to six-month waiting list for guide dogs wanted a crossbreed. So, "We came up with the name labradoodle," Conron said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. "We told people we had a new dog and all of a sudden, people wanted this wonder dog."

With all the breeds and crossbreeds in the world, Conron says, he is horrified at the proliferation of labradoodles and the other poodle mixes. He blames himself for "creating a Frankenstein.” Instead of breeding out problems, he said, clueless and unscrupulous breeders are breeding them in.

"For every perfect one," he says, "you're going to find a lot of crazy ones."

The gold standard for labradoodles remains the Rutland Manor Labradoodle Breeding and Research Center in Australia, which now calls its dogs "cobberdogs." Rutland Manor claims the true Australian labradoodle has developed over two decades of careful breeding into a breed in its own right. Its hallmarks, the Rutland Manor website says, "are a highly developed intuitive nature, a love of training and a yearning for eye contact. It has a 98 percent record for allergy friendliness, a reliably non-shedding coat and is sociable and non-aggressive."

But at the Carolina Poodle Rescue, outside Spartanberg, S.C., Donna Ezell, who has been rescuing poodles for 15 years, said that labradoodles and other poodle mixes she sees are not only unpredictable in size, shape and looks, but also in temperament.

"If you have a purebred poodle or a purebred boxer from a reputable breeder," she said, "you know what you're going to get. You know what it's going to look like. You have a pretty good idea of its temperament. With the doodles and maltipoos and all these others, they don't breed true. You can't predict what they'll be. They all look different. They have different temperaments. And some are non-shedding, some are not."

Jacqueline Yorke of the Doodle Rescue Collective, said poodle-mix owners are often surprised to find that they are still allergic to their "hypoallergenic" dogs. "They may be allergic to the dog's saliva, or the skin it sheds or the fur it does shed," she said. "And they've also found out that non-shedding does not mean no work. If the fur doesn't shed, it grows and grows. They need to be mowed down and groomed every six to eight weeks."

Yorke said the rescue has taken in dogs with fur so matted the dogs were unable to relieve themselves; their feces were stuck in their fur.

Time and again, the rescue has fostered dogs with the same health conditions, including hip dysplasia, cataracts, torn anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, injuries which require expensive surgery, and megaesophagus, a potentially life-threatening disease which causes the dog to choke on its food.

But the primary reason doodles end up in the rescue, Yorke said, are issues with children."We just got three more," she said. "Every one listed 'aggressive with children.'"

The poor dog featured at the beginning of this article ended up being euthanized after he attacked and bit Yorke and was evaluated by veterinarians and trainers who deemed him dangerous. But that kind of extreme situation, Yorke said, is rare.

One bit of good news, Yorke said, is that doodles and other designer dogs are so popular rescues have long waiting lists of potential adopters.

 "We have hundreds on our list," Yorke said. Most will not make the cut when vetted by the group. The rescue will not adopt out doodles to families with small children, for example. The goal is to provide the dogs a permanent home, Yorke said, and not see them back at the rescue.

"We get hate mail all the time from people mad at us for not handing them a dog. They'll say, 'Well, I'm going to a breeder.'"

Her response? Buyer beware.

Labradoodles and other poodle mixes are very trendy, but is it ethical to get one?

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