Pet news from Reuters this past week lifted eyebrows on the Street as Procter & Gamble surprised many with the purchase of Natura brand pet food. They were the company that years ago bought Iams/Eukanuba and put it onto supermarket shelves. Ever since, the market has waited for them to shed the sector. Instead, P&G closes this deal early next month and with that will have a stake in the high end holistic pet food niche. Brands include Evo, Innova, California Natural, Karma, Healthwise and Mother Nature.
Today is the 14th annual day of protest against P&G for its unrelenting animal testing practices, in effect since 1989. Their Dawn dish soap product is used to clean oil-coated wildlife after disasters like the recent oil well breach on the Gulf of Mexico’s ocean floor, an odd confluence of P&G events! The story by Stephanie Feldstein is here.
Speaking of oil, there was an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal about hair mats, not the kind in your hair when you wake up in the morning, but the kind that look like you might wipe your feet on them. They are made of pet hair and other materials and are used to soak up oil spills – yes, you read that right. Check out the video – the demonstration is pretty amazing. It’ll make you want to ask your groomer to ship off all her hair clippings!
There’s a lot of news about dog food this week in the form of bringing to the forefront arguments as in the article here “The Fight Over Pet Food vs Pet Food Safety “about the different choices of diet, what’s in pet food and what shouldn’t be included. Edie Jarolim takes a look at kibble in her The Friday Five: In Defense of Kibble exploring the alternatives from the boutique type diets to the supermarket. Her blog is “a guilt-free zone for good dog owners”, so check it out with fear of pain and recrimination! Jim McBean at Doggybytes.ca has some fun poking at the FDA and their recent sprint away from responsible research in the blanket summary dismissal of feeding bones to your dog in “FDAs Top Ten Scary Reasons Bones Are Unsafe for Dogs“ And Peggy Frezon a free lance writer over at Peggy’s Pet Place started the week with a “Welcome to Dog Food Month” where she will feature guest posts on this topic for the entire month.
The other day I was driving home and saw no less than five dogs in a two block trip, all of whom were walking their people! If this sounds familiar, here’s a great tutorial on 7 Ways to Improve Walking your Dog on Leash from Eric Goebelbecker, CPDT trainer and owner of Dog Spelled Forward training school. Take a look around for more useful training videos and articles.
The contest is over for heavenly Benevolent Biscuits, the only dog biscuit I know of that is hand baked by Monks. Congratulations to the winners (prizes will be sent from the Abbey via UPS on Monday.) Stay tuned, there are more contests coming up!
Enjoy your weekend!
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Wow. Your first item is a shocker. I guess we'll have to wait and see but I'm not confident that the Natura brands will retain their integrity — or, I should say, their roster of high-quality ingredients. But the best case scenario is that this is a PR move by a company that wants to burnish its image among better informed dog consumers, people who know that Iams/Eukanuba are not embraced by the canine cogniscenti. And if that's the case then maybe they'll leave well enough alone.
Thanks for the mention of my dog food post and for all the other interesting links you provided here.
By the way, I love the idea of monk-based biscuits being sent UPS from an abbey! Talk about a collision of worlds…
Hi Edie, and yes, it was a little unnerving. Bet there are other mega companies thinking of how they too might make sense of slicing off a piece of a seemingly teflon pet industry money-maker.
"Canine cogniscenti" Ha, love that! I got the lead on Jim McBean's piece and the fact that Peggy Frezon was doing something on food from your post and Peggy's comment there – informative and useful! Can't get much better than that! And thanks for the comment on the Monks – fun to think there are islands of peace, quiet, and industrious work minus the frenetic noise experienced in everyday life.
Quite interesting about the use of human and animal hair to sop up oil. I just read yesterday about a material called Aerogel that Nasa originally developed to catch comet dust. This stuff is the least dense, most insulating substance on earth and has practical applications for cleaning up oil spills. Unfortunately Aerogel is not yet being manufactured on a scale big enough to help with the Gulf oil spill.
Thanks for the mention Mary. =)
Well *that* is interesting, Jim! There's Aerogel, and I wonder whatever happened to guy who had an organic solution to oil spills where microbes or enzymes or something in that category would eat up the oil. Maybe that wouldn't work on a large scale, but it sure sounded exciting a year or so ago! But dog hair…these dogs just keep on helping their humans. And you're welcome!
Pretty annoyed with the purchase of Natura. Innova was one of the kibble brands in my "rotation."
I was wondering about the microbes for eating up oil spills too.
Thanks for the shout-out!
Hey, Eric – You're welcome! I guess Natura got an offer they couldn't refuse. I hope P&G don't mess with the ingredients, but when have you met a mega corp that didn't think they knew better than than the original founders, applying cost cutting measures to accelerate ROI? If you see any changes, give me a shout, would you?
Yeah, where is that guy with the microbes when we need him??
The article on: The Friday Five: In Defense of Kibble was a very interesting read, this reminds me very much to one of your posts (The Fight Over Pet Food vs Pet Food Safety ). This has been a highly debatable topic but I believe that more and more dog owners (pet owners in general) are becoming more aware of the negative effects that kibble has on your dog's long term health.
It tears a dog's digestive track to shreads little-by-little. I for one am all for organic, all-natural and homeade dog food recipes as you already know from my response to your recent post regarding this topic
Hi and welcome! Yes, the post arose from a comment I made somewhere re a discussion of which feeding regimen was best and I was frustrated with the back and forth squabbling when the one thing we all actually agreed on was the dreck that is the basis of many dog foods was not healthy. The moderater didn't publish it, which is fine, but it bugged me so much I had to make a post out of it. It is fun when other bloggers have similar topics on the radar – you can see the different approaches and questions that are out there.
Tears the dog's digestive track? The acid in a dog's stomach takes care of even many bones, so am not sure what you mean.
Your article was excellent! I don’t blame you for posting, the word needs to get out loud and clear about the harm that many commercial dog foods can do to your pet.
Studies have shown that kibble can contribute to gluten intolerance, which also contribute to obesity and type two diabetes since it doesn’t digest very well.
Hey, Marsha, good to put a name to the boutique:) Piercing the public consciousness is a really tough thing to do, especially if people feel this is an elitist argument instead of one that will help them keep their dogs healthier and possibly extend their lives. But as long as we all keep talking, it'll get through eventually. Recalls accelerate this process.
I'm really not happy with Procter and Gambler buying Natura. I've been avoiding P&G products for a while now (because of the relentless teasting on animals) but I like Natura too. So, this will be a difficult choice to make!
Thanks for linking to the article on the P&G Boycott Day. It was definitely disappointing to hear about Natura acquisition while writing about their history of cruelty around Iams/Eukanuba. I have to say, I’m in the camp of skeptics that the brand will retain any integrity under P&G.
I also wrote about the hairmats on Change.org…What an amazing (yet simple!) innovation! It’s nice to have some positive news around the oil spill.
Hi, Stephanie! Yes, everybody is all over the hair story:) It is a good story, especially with the PetCo donation, and a diversion from the absolute horror of this oil mess. I remain astonished that a company could be allowed to perform this kind of operation without having a solution to leaks. They liken this to space travel, but they don't send up astronauts with no hope of fixing leaks in the system. On the P&G acquisition, I don't hold out much hope. There's something in big companies that just can't resist changing businesses they buy. Thanks for stopping by!
I do agree that P&G is a big company interested in profit and they certainlly would have not bought Natura if there was no profit in this niche. So this is my main concern, P&G will try to maximize the profits but the question is will this effect the quality of Natura products?