Many pet owners are rightfully upset and concerned about the pet food recall over the past month after many cats and dogs have gotten sick and died from eating contaminated canned and pouched “cuts and gravy” styles of a very long list of brand names. The complete list of these products can be found online at www.menufoods.com. Relevant press releases and toll-free telephone numbers are also available at this Web site.

More than 60 million cans and pouches have been recalled. They were manufactured between Dec. 3, 2006, and March 6, 2007. Not only house brands of many food and department chains are included, but also some fancy high-end pet brands with associated high prices.

The tainted products come from two manufacturing plants in the United States owned and managed by Menu Foods, a Canadian-based company.

Dogs and cats are not out of the woods yet, and there are predictions of a much higher pet death count as this tragedy plays out. Additionally, human ingestion of pet foods by the homeless or by poor, fixed-income seniors, a reality often not discussed in polite circles, may well cause sickness or deaths.

It appears that the cause of the contamination is “aminopterin,” a rodenticide used in many countries but banned in the United States. This rat poison is often placed around foreign facilities that process wheat gluten and other products, but is never spread on the food product itself.

Menu Foods does import wheat gluten and other products for inclusion in its pet foods. How the poison got into the pet foods is unknown at this time. The extent of this contamination both in terms of the number of animals affected or the length of time before the crisis is over is unknown.

Since the contamination happened at two separate locations, intentional poisoning is not now suspected. Pet owners around the country and right here in Maine are very concerned about their pets’ commercially prepared foods.

Here are a few suggestions to assist pet owners:

. Go to the Menu Foods Web site and determine whether the food you are feeding is identified as a recalled brand label, type and size of container. This list is broken into cat food and dog food. If you are feeding a food listed, stop immediately.

. Retain containers and write down production numbers printed on the can or container.

. Closely watch your pet for any unusual behavior, including going off food, frequent urination, and drinking large quantities of water.

. Contact your veterinarian immediately should your animal exhibit any symptoms.

. Consider feeding dry pet food only or home-cooked people foods, but consult with your veterinarian to assure a complete and balanced diet. Some pets will surely be very unhappy with their owners.

Pay close attention to press releases, the Menu Foods Web site, and the news as investigators get to the bottom of this unfortunate situation. Consult regularly with your veterinarian about symptoms, information and pet food changes.

This author’s large menagerie of cats and dogs seem to have dodged this bullet. Although they are primarily fed commercially prepared dry food, they each get a dollop of canned cat or dog food on top as a treat. The department store brand labels listed for recall were on that list, but the size of the containers and the “cuts and gravy” excluded them as suspect.

Be that as it may, our 14-year-old terrier mutt, Carmen, did come down with her first urinary tract infection just before the recall was announced. She seems to be responding well to antibiotics, but we’ll have our concerns added to the veterinarian’s pet chart just as a precaution.

There is no doubt that this mystery will be solved and remedied. The end result should be a safer commercial pet food industry where this type of contamination risk can be eliminated. In the short term, Maine pet owners are justifiably jittery about the safety of what their beloved canines and felines are eating. As life stewards of their well-being, we humans have responsibilities that cannot be ignored.

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