Ohio May Ban Dog And Cat Remains In Pet Food | Care2 Causes - Care2.com

Pet owners across the United States were recently shocked to learn that 60 percent of the canned Gravy Train products tested by ABC7 in Washington, D.C. contained traces of sodium pentobarbital, a drug used to euthanize animals.

Pentobarbital ends up in pet food when the carcasses of euthanized animals are rendered into ingredients.

What’s even more shocking is that those animals can include euthanized dogs and cats that were picked up by rendering companies from animal shelters. According to a 2013 Slate article, the City of Los Angeles sends about 200 tons of dead pets to a rendering plant every month.

Federal law prohibits what it defines as “adulterated ingredients” – those from animals that were not killed by slaughter – from all food for human and animal consumption.

However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s canned pet food compliance policy states that pet food “consisting of material from diseased animals or animals which have died otherwise than by slaughter, which is in violation of 402(a)(5) …will be considered fit for animal consumption.”

Since standards for pet food are not effectively enforced on a federal level, it’s up to individual states to regulate what’s in these products. For example, unlike many other states, California requires rendered pets to be labeled as “dry rendered tankage” instead of “meat and bone meal” – but it still allows those dogs and cats to be sold out of state for pet food.

Fortunately, Ohio may become the first state to ban the use of rendered dogs and cats as pet food ingredients.

State Representative Laura Lanese has introduced House Bill 560 in the Ohio General Assembly. It would ban the remains of dogs and cats from use in pet food and would also prohibit pet food from containing the remains of any animals euthanized by drug injection.

“Hopefully it will give [pet owners] some assurance that they are not feeding their dog Fido from down the street,” Lanese told Fox 8.

Although euthanized animals are considered unfit for human consumption, Ohio law doesn’t currently prohibit those animals from being sold to pet food manufacturers.

The result? “Veterinarians have reported for years it seems to be harder and harder to put down an animal,” Lanese told Cleveland.com. “And it’s because some of them might be building up a resistance due to the dog feed.”

After J.M. Smucker Company, the parent company of Gravy Train, recalled several brands of dog food in response to news reports about them containing trace amounts of pentobarbital, it stated that testing showed the drug was found in the animal fat sourced from cows, chickens and pigs.

The company says that a third-party DNA test ruled out the drug source as any other animals, including dogs, cats or horses. J.M. Smucker Company will now test all its pet food products for pentobarbital.

Take Action

Please sign and share this petition asking Ohio lawmakers to set a precedent for the rest of the country by passing HB 560 to stop the state’s dogs and cats from being used in pet food.

If you don’t live in Ohio, also contact your representatives and urge them to consider a similar law.

Image via Thinkstock.