Pet Food

Federal marshals with a search warrant visited the Joliet, Ill., distribution center of Petco Animal Supplies Inc. on Thursday, seizing animal food products that were allegedly contaminated. The seizure came one day after the government filed a lawsuit and obtained the warrant to seize products at the warehouse operated by the San Diego-based animal food and supply company. There are no known public health risks posed by the pet food and no incidents of human or animal illness have been traced to the products, U.S. Atty.

Re "Neighbors on coyote watch," Column, Sept. 4 Sandy Banks' column on watching out for the coyotes lurking in her Northridge neighborhood has some good suggestions but is a bit alarmist. Yes, people need to take precautions, as coyotes and unleashed dogs can be a real threat to our pets. But did you know rodent poisons are killing mountain lions as the poisons work up the food chain? Indeed, a neighbor's actions can be far more dangerous than a coyote. Hazing is a good way to keep coyotes afraid of us. Chances are high that when coyotes are bold, someone is feeding them.

The Los Angeles-based maker of Skippy dog food and Petuna cat food said Wednesday that it has agreed to sell its pet food business to foods giant H. J. Heinz for an undisclosed sum. California Home Brands Holdings, a privately held firm based in Terminal Island, said the sale would include pet food plants in Long Beach, Wilmington, San Leandro and Etiwanda, Calif., and Camp Hill, Pa. The plants employ about 550 people.

Pfizer Inc., the largest drug maker in the U.S., is planning to spin off its animal health unit into a separate company, named Zoetis, that will be partially owned by shareholders. Let's deal with the name first. Zoetis derives from the root "zo," which means "pertaining to life" and is found in words such as "zoo" and "zoetic," Pfizer said. The name is starting to draw comparisons to Mondelez, Kraft Foods' new name for its spinoff snacks unit. Both are kind of hard to say. Zoetis is pronounced "zo-AY-tis," while Mondelez, which means "delicious world," is "mohn-da-LEEZ.

$22.1 billion: Total U.S. retail pet food sales expected in 2015, compared with $18.4 billion in 2010 4%: Average annual growth rate for retail sales of all pet foods through 2015 12%: Average annual growth rate for retail sales of organic and natural pet food through 2015, when sales are expected to hit $2.8 billion Source: Packaged Facts

Curious about seaweed but not ready to jump into the waves? Here are a few ways to get your feet wet. Roasted seaweed. A low-fat, low-calorie snack food, sometimes with added flavoring, that some find yummy and others, not so much. Comes in packets that go easily into school or work lunch boxes. Seaweed bath: A seaweed-based formulation to be added to the water in your tub. Said to rejuvenate your skin and your spirits. Dried seaweed pieces: A garnish for salads or warm vegetables or, alternatively, a substitute for table salt.

Well, do I recall the time my kid, about 6 months old, crawled toward me across the kitchen floor then opened her sweet little mouth to reveal…a big wad of chewed-up wet cat food. I think it was around this time that I decided that sterilizing bottles would no longer be my highest priority.  (For my mother, decades earlier, the "Eureka!" moment came when she caught my younger brother eating an earthworm.) My kid was far from atypical, it appears, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health departments in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio that was published in the journal Pediatrics.

Charitable organizations providing aid to people evacuated from Southern California wildfires say that their greatest need is for cash gifts to sustain supply lines of food and to maintain counseling and relocation services. Donations of pet food also are being requested. Volunteers who want to help out at emergency shelters should contact agencies such as the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross before showing up at the facilities, officials say. The goal is to ensure proper training, maintain security and distribute staffing where it is most needed.

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission has approved demolition of the Heinz pet food cannery in Wilmington amid complaints that the building's most historically valued equipment was not passed on to the community. Three weeks ago, the Los Angeles City Council abandoned plans to designate the cannery, on South Fries Avenue, as a historical and cultural monument.

Something good has come out of the dreadful 2007 melamine pet food recall: The Pet Event Tracking Network was launched this week to allow the Food and Drug Administration and federal and state agencies to share information in real time about pet food-related incidents such as food-borne illnesses and defective pet products. Announced by the Partnership for Food Protection and the FDA , PETNet will allow members to post about suspicious incidents and product defects, alerting others who can then track the data and share more information.

Curious about seaweed but not ready to jump into the waves? Here are a few ways to get your feet wet. Roasted seaweed. A low-fat, low-calorie snack food, sometimes with added flavoring, that some find yummy and others, not so much. Comes in packets that go easily into school or work lunch boxes. Seaweed bath: A seaweed-based formulation to be added to the water in your tub. Said to rejuvenate your skin and your spirits. Dried seaweed pieces: A garnish for salads or warm vegetables or, alternatively, a substitute for table salt.

A century ago, cautious housewives demanded that the butcher grind their beef in front of them so they could be sure he didn't toss in offal or scraps of lower-quality meat. Not a bad idea for the modern grocery shopper who thinks that the way to get hamburger is to put a fine steak through a grinder. A modern package of ground beef is more likely to come from not one animal but several and, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, will probably include head meat, the esophagus and other internal organs.

Steve Garvey and Orel Hershiser have attracted more than enough financial backing to bid competitively on the Dodgers, the banker representing the former Dodgers stars said Wednesday. "It's a matter of picking the partners we want," said Darren Lowe of RBC Capital Markets, the investment banking arm of the Royal Bank of Canada. For the first time, one of those partners has identified himself. Joey Herrick, president of Pacoima-based Natural Balance Pet Foods, said Wednesday that he has agreed to become a minority investor in the Garvey-Hershiser venture.

Unwanted neighbors are vexing, but when they happen to be coyotes, eviction isn't always an option. Unlike bears that wander into neighborhoods, coyotes, by law, cannot be returned to a nearby wilderness. And they'll take a lushly landscaped block in Glendale, where residents reported a pack living in a burned-out house earlier this month, over the Angeles National Forest anyway. Coyotes thrive near humans, bedding down in bushes and feasting on garbage, low-hanging fruit, pet food left outside — and the small pets it's left for. Aggressive hunters, they can hop a fence and snatch up a small dog or cat and flee before a stunned owner can utter a word.

Something good has come out of the dreadful 2007 melamine pet food recall: The Pet Event Tracking Network was launched this week to allow the Food and Drug Administration and federal and state agencies to share information in real time about pet food-related incidents such as food-borne illnesses and defective pet products. Announced by the Partnership for Food Protection and the FDA , PETNet will allow members to post about suspicious incidents and product defects, alerting others who can then track the data and share more information.

Having a pet can be fun and rewarding, but it can also be expensive. Caring for a typical medium-sized dog will cost you about $1,580 the first year, according to the America Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, while a cat will run you about $1,035. Here are some ways to control pet-care costs: 1. Spay or neuter your pet. This not only protects you from the costs of caring for an unexpected litter of kittens or puppies, it also saves money by curbing serious health problems such as uterine, ovarian and testicular cancer, the ASPCA said.

When Gabriel, a 10-year-old rescue cat from Chinatown, tucks into his morning meal, you won't see any Friskies or Meow Mix in his bowl. Ahi tuna and duck are more the ticket. "I think there's more than enough pesticides and chemicals and that kind of stuff in human food," says Gabriel's owner, Jason Lanum, on a recent expedition to the Urban Pet, a Los Angeles specialty pet store. "I eat natural food, and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't give it to my cat. " These days, our pets may be eating better than we are. Big-box pet stores and precious pet boutique shelves are increasingly stocked with gourmet edibles that are corn-free, wheat-free, locally sourced, byproduct-free, free-range, minimally processed and raw. Many come with homey, inviting labels, and some look palatable even for humans.

Discount chain 99-Cent Only Stores formed a special committee to evaluate a $1.34 billion takeover proposal by members of its founding family and Los Angeles buyout firm Leonard Green & Partners, as well as other options. The City of Commerce-based company said the panel is made up of independent directors Lawrence Glascott, Marvin Holen and Peter Woo. The three were previously asked to evaluate a $19.09-a-share cash offer March 10 by Leonard Green Partners, the company said in a statement today.