It now appears that I was incorrect in thinking that I was giving Boots safe food because I was giving her Alpo or Pedigree.  I learned this morning that Purina has recalled Alpo Cuts in Gravy because one of their plants obtained wheat gluten from the same Chinese source as Menu Foods.  They claim to have traceability of ingredients and are able to limit the recall to specific date/plant codes.  But when I heard about it this morning I just tossed all of the Alpo food in the house.  Fortunately I saw it on the morning news before I had a chance to feed Boots.  I wasn’t going to take a chance of fiddling around with date codes.

The wheat gluten was found to contain melamine, which is an ingredient in some plastics as well as used as a fertilizer in parts of Asia. 

So now I guess it’s back to Pedigree.  Although I got an email on my last posting that claimed Pedigree is horrible and that a vet told them that it’s like feeding your dog chocolate.  Frankly, I can’t help but think that many vets do this sort of FUD to try to sell their overpriced special food.  I’ve fed Boots Pedigree for years now and she’s shown no ill effects and all of her vet visits have been fine.  So I’m not buying the anti-Pedigree snobbery.