How to Find Out About Dog Food Recalls

If you're a dog owner, you should be closely monitoring potentially deadly pet food recalls. Many dogs have died from eating contaminated dog food in recent years. Most recently, Pedigree dog food was recalled due to salmonella contamination. In the following weeks, more than a dozen other brands of dog food and cat food were recalled, including Special Kitty and Ol' Roy. Keep reading to find out how to stay informed about pet food recalls.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Computer
• Internet Access
• The Name of Your Dog's Dog Food Brand

1. GET YOUR DOG FOOD BAG: You'll need to know the full name of your dog food brand and variety. You'll also need to know the manufacturer (i.e. Mars PetCare U.S. manufactures Pedigree, Ol' Roy and Special Kitty, among others).

2. LOG ONTO THE GOOGLE ALERT PAGE: You will need to visit the page where you sign in to create Google Alerts. I have included a link below in the "resources" section.

3. SET UP GOOGLE ALERTS: Next, you will set up a series of Google Alerts, which can be e-mailed to you or sent to an RSS reader. You will want to create Google Alerts for more general terms like "Dog Food Recall" and "Recalled Pet Food Brands" and more specific terms, like the full name of your dog food brand and the dog food variety. Also set up a Google Alert for the name of the company that manufactures your dog's food.

4. BE SURE TO PUT QUOTATIONS AROUND THE PHRASES! Otherwise, you'll get hits for one or two words in the phrase instead of the entire term. Instead of getting a hit for "Pet food recall," you'll get hits for "pet food" and "food recall" - useless for our purposes.

5. SELECT THE TYPE OF GOOGLE ALERT: You'll want to select "comprehensive" under the pull-down menu for what type of alert you'd like to create. You'll also need to decide if you'd like your Google Alert results sent to an RSS feed or to your e-mail. If you select e-mail, you can decide how frequently to receive the alerts - as it happens, daily or weekly. When you're done, save the Google Alerts.

6. MONITOR THE GOOGLE ALERTS: You can then monitor the Google Alert results. Every time Google indexes a new web page, the page is checked to matching Google Alert terms. So if your pet food company makes an announcement online about a dog food recall, you'll receive an alert with a link to the page.

7. MONITOR YOUR PET FOOD MANUFACTURER WEBSITE: Once a week or so, visit the manufacturer's homepage for the dog food that you purchase. This way, you'll be one of the first to know in the event of a dog food recall.

8. MONITOR THE FDA WEBSITE: The FDA's website also posts announcement on some of the larger pet food recalls. Please note that the FDA website does not always announce the smaller, less widespread pet food recalls, so don't rely on it as your only source of information on tainted and contaminated pet food cases.

9. MONITOR COMPREHENSIVE PET WEBSITES: There's many pet websites that offer up-to-date information on pet food recalls. The Suite101 Pet Care page is one example of a page that provides regular updates on pet food recalls (see the link below).

Tips & Warnings

• Read all your Google Alerts! Don't get complacent. Many Google Alerts will contain information that you don't really need (i.e. info on another brand of recalled pet food.) But once in a while, you'll get a hit and the information could very well save your dog's life.
• ALWAYS SAVE YOUR DOG FOOD BAG!! When a dog food recall is issued, it will be issued for bags with certain lot numbers or for bags with a certain "best by" date. If you don't save your bag, you won't know if your food has been recalled! In some cases, the "best by" date and lot number are right near the UPC code, so you can clip that part and throw out the rest. Save your dog food bag until the dog is finished eating the food. When you buy a new bag, throw the old bag out - you'll thank yourself if a recall is issued.

Resources

• Set Up a Google Alert
• Pet Care at Suite101.com
• A Pet Food Recall Page

[elyria]

on 5/8/2009 I have a little puppy and this is priceless information to know. Thank you!

[lwitkop]

on 1/13/2009 Important information for pet owners.

[tylamac]

on 1/13/2009 Great article! I never would have thought of using Google Alerts for this. It's a shame that there are so many pet food recalls to keep up with now.

[Bfastattiffanys]

on 1/13/2009 Thank you! Wonderful article. *****

[Vanillatte]

on 1/13/2009 Excellent article! Important to stay on top of the pet food recalls.