There is only 3 rendering plants left in the L.A. Calif area; ever wonder what happens to the diary cows after they fall over? L.A. County tried to put one of those companies out of business a few years earlier and dead carcasses started to pile up on the farms.

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Los Angeles Times: Outcry Over Pets in Pet Food

[url]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000001483jan06.story[/url]

THE NATION
Outcry Over Pets in Pet Food
Rendering: The practice of boiling down euthanized dogs and cats for industrial
fat and protein causes an uproar in St. Louis.
By STEPHANIE SIMON
TIMES STAFF WRITER

January 6 2002

ST. LOUIS -- It started with footage of Blacky and Scoop, melt-your-heart dogs
with no one to claim them, alone at the city pound--and due to be put to death
within hours. "No one wants them. Alive, that is," the reporter said.

The film then cut to a rendering plant that boils down the city's euthanized
dogs, along with dead pigs and cows from local farms and leftover bones, hooves
and innards from slaughterhouses. The end products are used to make cosmetics
and fertilizer, gelatin and poultry feed, pharmaceuticals and pet food.

It was the pet food that got people. The report last month by KMOV-TV's Jamie
Allman--headlined "What's Getting Into Your Pets"--suggested that dead dogs and
cats from local shelters were ending up in kibble. As proof, Allman aired
footage of a tanker truck entering the rendering plant, a truck emblazoned with
the motto "Serving the Pet Food Industry."

Pet owners went nuts.

Thousands turned to KMOV's online polls to register their disgust. Scores more
called animal control departments to demand an end to the practice. The St.
Louis Post-Dispatch ran a cartoon showing a mangled collar poking out of a bowl
of dog food. "It was unbelievable, the amount of reaction we got," Allman said.

The Millstadt Rendering Co., a small family business that for decades had been
taking the region's euthanized animals free, in what the owners thought was a
public service, reeled in the face of so much rage. "A disaster for the
industry," groaned Clifton Smith, a consultant to the firm. "There's too many
people out there who think their pets are like children."

Hoping to free themselves from the public-relations fiasco, the rendering plant
announced just before Christmas that it would stop accepting euthanized dogs and
cats.

But the local animal shelters couldn't stop euthanizing. And so in counties and
small towns throughout the region, animal carcasses began to pile up.

"We were taken flat-footed," said Chris Byrne, an animal control official in St.
Louis County.

-- continued --

Every solution was pricey. Hauling the animals to the nearest industrial-scale
crematory would cost the county more than $57,000 a year. Building a crematory
would cost up to $100,000. And there would be the contentious question of where
to put it.

In the short term, with freezer space limited, the county has been forced to
send its dead dogs and cats to a landfill. The city of St. Louis has taken the
same route, arranging for a refrigerated trash truck to pick up the carcasses.

This makeshift solution has prompted still more concerns. If the landfills are
not properly lined, the decaying corpses could leach into ground water. If
they're not promptly covered, scavengers can pick off the dead dogs and cats.
And, as some have pointed out, chucking Fido in a dump scarcely seems a more
dignified end than cooking him in a vat with dead cows.

It's a conundrum for animal control officers like Richard Steveson, who has to
find a way to dispose of up to 3,500 animals a year in St. Louis. "I like for
everything to be done as humanely as possible, even though the animal has
already expired," Steveson said. But, given the alternatives, he figures
rendering was as good a method as any. He didn't know that the rendered material
could end up in pet food, he said. "But even if I had, I don't know what I would
have done about it."

Lost in all the emotion have been the facts about rendering--and about pet food.

Rendering has long been considered one of the most environmentally friendly ways
to dispose of animal carcasses, because it recycles them into useful fat and
protein. By far the bulk of rendered material comes from slaughterhouses. But
some plants also mix in road kill, the trimmings from supermarket delis, dead
farm animals and euthanized pets from shelters. Los Angeles city and county
shelters send more than 120,000 dead dogs and cats to be rendered in a typical
year.

Members of The Pet Food Institute, who make 95% of the dog and cat food sold in
the United States, use rendered material from livestock in their chow. But they
insist there are no ground up pets in their pet food.

"It's a matter of good business," spokesman Stephen Payne said. "We've decided
that if this is upsetting to people--and it clearly is--we should take
extraordinary measures to make sure it never happens."

Still, it is not illegal to use rendered material from dogs and cats in pet
food. And while no one keeps official figures, there's some evidence it happens.

The Food and Drug Administration has found "very, very low levels" of sodium
pentobarbital--the chemical used to euthanize animals--in some brands of dog
food, said Stephen Sundloff, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary
Medicine. The agency is investigating whether the traces are "of any
significance at all," Sundloff said.

-- continued --

Overall, experts see little health risk in rendered pets entering the animal (or
human) food chain, because the high temperatures used in the process kill most
agents of disease.

As for the Millstadt Rendering Co., its owners are trying to get back to
business as usual.

They maintain that the TV report unfairly linked their product to pet food (the
tanker truck with the pet industry logo, they say, was headed to a separate
rendering plant that handles restaurant grease). Still, they acknowledge they
have no idea where their product ends up. It's sold to brokers who sell it to
manufacturers. The way they look at it, they don't need to know the details--and
the public probably doesn't want to.

"We don't have anything to hide," Smith said, "but people really don't want to
hear about rendering. It's an ugly thing."

For information about reprinting this article, go to http://www.lats.com/rights

All this and we've got MILLIONS of starving North Koreans.  Hell, they'll eat anything right about now.  Anybody got a load configuration for a C141 cubed-out with kitty and doggy carcasses?

"Soylent Kibble is... DOGS!"

One of the reasons I don't eat Jello (gelatin).

It's made from fingernails.....okay, hooves mostly.

You should see people faces when they realize I'm not bee essing them.

As far as "Your Euthanized dog" that you took to the vet. They freeze em. Then take em to a plant that incinerates them. Had a neighbor who was a vet. Walked out to get my paper and several cats (not dogs) were in the back of his truck where he had forgotten and not stopped at the incineration plant after a late night. Cats were eating cats and dogs now thawed remains.

He told me what he did with euthanized animals.

Damn Billy Cosby! [puke]


Damn neighbors! [puke]

Mmmmmmmmmmm...Altoids use beef gelatin, and so does tasty gelatin.

And you wondered what the "other" ingrediants for hot dogs are?  We have uncovered the mistery!

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/037/Up/YX/7a/GQ75318.jpg[/img]

"Taco Bell"?

Out to the landfill.  Of course, we have maybe 5 a month, and some owners elect to have their animal creamated, but most don't.

I didn't want my dog incinerated so I paid for a burial $1000+!

There used to be a place in Petaluma CA called "Royal Tallow".

They had a grinding maching you could seriously fit an 18 wheeler in to. Farmers dropped dead cows there, road kills were dropped there and often dead sea lions and elephant seals found on beaches too.

They were all ground up together, boiled and the fat turned in to soap. The rest of the "stuff", I have no idea what they did with it.

That was when I lived in the PRK way back when.

Check the label of your favorite brand of soap before your next shower, could have a little of ol' Bessy in it if tallow is listed on the label.

When I was growing up we had a local with an alligator farm.  If ole bessy fell over from bloat she became gator chow.  Worked pretty well.

Hey now, it's my right to be a cannibal.

oh yeah... Recycle your pets.

Thank you.

The problem is that traces of both the euthanasia drug, as well as the poison in flea collars has also been found in dog food.
Apparently some plants don't even remove the collars from the dead pets before grinding and tossing them into the mix.
Bits of metal ID tags and buckles HAVE been found in some commercial dog foods.
Many concerned pet owners have taken to feeding home made foods to their animals, with astounding results in health, vigor, and longevity.
They cook rice, ground meats, vegetables and even fruits, and many dogs' illnesses and symptoms disappear.
We may very well be poisoning our pets with commercial foods.
Isn't this also how Mad Cow Syndrome started?
Grinding diseased carcasses for feed?
Prions can survive cooking, you know.

How was your Thanksgiving Turkey?  It was probably a cannibal if you bought it in a store.

Locally, the slaughter house takes the remains of the bird to a rendering plant.  The remains are ground up and boiled, steemed and sterilized through heat.  Then the remains are fed back to turkeys.

Road kill and farm animals used to be tossed into the mix too.  It is not allowed any more.

These plants have TONS of harmful bacteria everywhere, they are breeding grounds for it.  One truck driver had a tooth socket get infected through breathing the air and poor hand washing.  IT KILLED HIM.  The infection spread to his brain like wildfire.  

my $.02 [puke]

Once I saw on a PBS documentary on Mad Cow, the prions can't be "killed," even though they are actually not living, by conventional means of boiling, chemcials etc.  The scientist even buried in his backyard and come back 6 months it is still active. Prety scary huh?

Uuhhh........ever hear of Burger King?........[dracula]

2 of the 4 animal shelters in the Las Vegas Valley have their own crematory, the other 2 have thiers taken to the landfill.  Also, it is legal to put dead dogs or cats, but no large animal in your trash pick up.  This is done by cheap and uncaring owners.

I worked a summer job at the humane society one summer. They threw the carcasses in the dumpsters after putting them to sleep. They only killed the ugly and diseased ones usually. They tried to keep the cute ones longer for adoption.