Diamond Pet Food recall

Brands Affected By Recall

• Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul
• Country Value
• Diamond
• Diamond Naturals
• Premium Edge
• Professional
• 4Health
• Taste of the Wild

List of States and Canada

• Alabama
• Florida
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Kentucky
• Massachusetts
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Mississippi
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Virginia
• Canada

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At least 14 people in nine states have been sickened by a rare strain of salmonella linked to contaminated dry dog food, government health officials reported.

Some of the human salmonella Infantis infections appeared to be tied to at least three recalled brands of dry dog food produced at a single South Carolina plant operated by Diamond Pet Foods of Meta, Mo.

People could have become ill after handling the contaminated dry food or after contact with animals that had eaten the food. Anyone who may have become sick after such contact should consult a health care provider, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised.

Diamond Pet Foods’ first recall was issued on April 6, when company officials voluntarily pulled select bags of Diamond Naturals Lamb Meal & Rice dry dog food.On April 26, certain bags of Diamond Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul Adult Light Formula dog food was recalled, followed by a recall on April 30 of select bags of Diamond Puppy Formula dry dog food. At the time of the recalls, Diamond Pet Foods officials said that no human cases had been reported. Michigan agriculture officials detected the contamination in April in an unopened bag of the lamb meal dog food during a routine retail testing of dry pet food, according to a CDC report.

CDC investigators later took evidence of the rare salmonella Infantis strain -- which is typically reported three or fewer times per month -- and then checked for human cases that matched the genetic fingerprint of the bacteria.

Interviews with ill people showed that seven of 10 ill people said they had contact with a dog in the week before getting sick. Of five ill people who recalled the type of dog food, four identified Diamond Pet Foods products.

Among ill people for whom information is available, illnesses began between Oct. 8, 2011 and April 22, 2012. Victims range in age from less than 1 year to 82, with a median age of 48. Among nine patients with available information, five were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

Victims include three each in Missouri and North Carolina, two in Ohio and one each in Alabama, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Consumers should check their homes for recalled dog food and discard the products promptly.

Pet owners should wash their hands thoroughly after contact with pets and their food.

Symptoms of salmonella typically include vomiting, diarrhea, cramping and fever. They usually resolve within a week, but in serious cases, some patients require hospitalization.

The CDC estimates that for every case of salmonella reported, 29.3 go undetected. Using that multiplier, at least 410 people may have been sickened by the contaminated pet food.

LINK

The Road Warrior

Kinloch Wynn is my upcoming star. I got him from Angie Driscoll (Kinloch Sheepdogs) in the UK. Angie has some of the nicest dogs and she knows what I am looking for in a dog. So when she decided to sell Wynn and Kiwi, she told me and I snagged them. What a great move! Their dam is Meg, a stellar and powerful bitch. Meg is Angie’s main trial dog. She can move anything and I remember her as a pup, full of herself and keen as a knife. Their sire is Bobby Dalziel’s Joe. He has quite a long list of accomplishments too! I have been wanting pups like this breeding so it was like a dream come true when I got them. I love the Joe line and want to keep adding more of that in my kennels. I appreciate that Angie sold me Wynn and Kiwi. Beside she is their God-Mother!

Wynn has been with Scott Glen since his arrival to North America. He was matured from a tentative pup to a young star, full of confidence and style. Wynn saw a good thing, when he first arrived, and immediately suckered up to Jenny Glen. She did spoil him for me. I think Scott pretended not to see that.

Since he has been here, he has grown into a young, stylish Nursery prospect. He has a good feel for his sheep and acts very mature for his age. He is serious but has a good sense of humor. Wynn is not a joker but appreciates a good joke. He great along with all of the other dogs and has a great temperament.

He has wonderful outrun and a nice pace. Wynn in fully trained on whistles and this is his year for the Nursery Finals.

Scott and Jenn took Wynn on the spring/summerroad trip to the Midwest and east coast. He is getting to be a road warrior. I think he is collecting patches from each state he has been in and by the time he gets back to Alberta, this summer, he should have quite a stash. As long, as he doesn’t get a tattoo though!

photo: Jennifer Glen - Alta-Pete Stockdogs

I was super excited to hear of how well he did on his first time out of the gate. The first day in Nursery, he placed third, even with a crossover. It was honest outrun but he got sucked in but he gave it his all and that was good. On his second day, he placed second and got his first Nursery leg. I was jumping up and down for joy. The outrun was longer and tough as the grass was high. The drives were also tough as they were quite long. For the first time out, he did quite well. He is teaming well with Scott and it’s refreshing to have such a talented youngster in the best hands! Trust me, if Wynn was running under me, he would be buying a bus ticket to go back to Scott’s!

His next trial is this upcoming weekend and I hope he improves with each trial. I am so thankful that Scott and Jenn have taken him under their wings and showcasing this talented rock star. He is going to be running at quite a few trials and we wish him luck from the PNW.

Have fun and good luck, Road Warrior!

Young Italian Shepherds

As Italy’s unemployment rate topped 10pc this week, it emerged that young people are flocking to become shepherds. Traditionally the preserve of older men, the profession has recently attracted 3,000 young Italians, according to agricultural body Coldiretti. They are choosing a simple life in the great outdoors because their aspirations to become doctors, lawyers or engineers have been thwarted by Italy’s negligible economic growth, which has been compounded by grinding austerity measures.

Davide Bortoluzzi, 25, has a degree in surveying from a technical institute but, unable to find a job, now keeps a watchful eye on a flock of 400 sheep in the Dolomites of northern Italy.

“I’m happy with the choice I’ve made,” he said. “I started out by following other shepherds and learning the ropes from them. It was not easy. But, day by day, I made progress without becoming too discouraged, sometimes working in pouring rain and at other times under a burning sun."

Coldiretti said the unexpected influx of shepherds under the age of 35 was helping to rejuvenate a sector of Italian agriculture that had become the preserve of older farmers.

In nearly 80pc of cases, young shepherds had introduced more advanced animal husbandry techniques and improved the quality of the meat, wool and cheese they produce, Coldiretti said in a report

ARTICLE

Darcy the cow, orders a Quarter Pounder with cheese

Staff at a McDonald's restaurant in the US were stunned - when a cow wondered up to the drive-through window.

The dairy cow, named Darcy, had escaped from her farm in Brush, Colorado, and gone for a stroll. Farm owner Sandy Winn said: "We got a call from dispatch asking if my son had a dairy cow.


"I said yeah, he has a dairy cow, and she told me that it was up at McDonalds.".


Darcy had somehow managed to open her gate and hoofed it half a mile to the restaurant.


"I think it was for some fries and a strawberry milkshake," added Mr Winn.


But she would have no interest in burgers: "Not making any orders. Maybe visiting relatives but not making any orders," he added.





Oh, I was just kidding. Darcy did not order a Quarter Pounder with cheese.

Oh Hell, Dell Computers

I usually don't rant on my blog but I will make an exception today. First of all, my Dell laptop has been a great machine. It is the laptop that brought you the Finals blogs, with over 10,000 hits for the five days. It's robust and I love it. Now I get over 500 hits a day on my blog.

My mouse has been working funky off and on for the last few months. If I juggle the receiver, sometimes that will fix it. It's something wrong in the USB receiver. It's not the driver or the software the the physical unit. Sounds simple enough, huh?

So I have been a loyal Dell customer for years. My family, in fact, are loyal Dell customers. We have bought numerous Dell systems over the years and have recommended them as  well. My Apple friends have been urging me to buy a MAC but I have resisted......but, last night, my experience with Dell made me rethink this. SERIOUSLY.

I bought an extended warranty from Dell for my system. It came with a warranty but Dell called me up and offered a extended warranty for a few more years. Dell said it was for the entire system that I had bought and it covered hardware, tech support. It also covered the hardware in case, I spilled pop on the keyboard, dropped it and so forth. In other words, any damage or non-functioning of the system. With my luck, I would drop my laptop and be screwed so I decided to go for it.  The system that I purchases was a laptop and a mouse. The warranty was not cheap and it was the first time I ever bought an extended warranty  so it was a gamble.

I have had my keyboard die on me twice and Dell was super quick to send me a replacement. So at this point, I was very happy with their warranty. It was hard to understand the Dell agent as they had THICK ACCENTS, spoke fast and were from India. Every time I would have to have them repeat what they said and I would repeat it back to them, what I thought they said to make sure I had heard it right. I realize that Dell is trying to save a few bucks by outsourcing to India but for crying out-loud, think of your customers. A couple of times, I was lucky enough to get Dell customer service in the USA and they rocked. One guy was a FIVE STAR service, probably the best customer service that I have encountered.

Back to my story, last night my mouse died and my laptop was again hard  to work on. I called Dell and got a customer service rep, we shall call him, "Andy" since I could remember his name. He was very fast in his speech and  his voice was very low so I had to ask him to repeat himself a lot.

Then he didn't believe me that I told him the mouse was bad. I felt like he treated me like a idiot but I let it slide, hoping he might be able to fix it or whatever. Andy had to get control of my laptop to troubleshoot the issue. He couldn't get the mouse to work. He went into my msconfig area and turned off a bunch of app- Google and Apple. I asked him why and he said I didn't need them. Seriously, this is my laptop and not yours and who are you to determine what start-up apps I need? He didn't turn off any Del apps. OK, I figure maybe those apps might be interfering with the mouse issue so I let he go on. He also chastised me for not having all of my documents and jpegs all backed up. He deleted the mouse drivers as well as other drivers.

He claimed that I had hundreds of bad files and viruses on my laptop so he ran a scan program. At the end of the program, it stated no issues found. So much for all of those 'hundreds of bad files and viruses". Then after he did that, he hung up, without telling me what else to do. He did reluctantly agree it *MIGHT* be a bad mouse. Wow, so much for customer service and a waste of about an hour of my life. I paid for this tech service?

So I called back and asked to talk to a hardware person. I told him my mouse was bad and he wanted to do the same song and dance as the previous guy. I humored him and did the mouse part again. He wanted me to run the mouse to another computer to make sure it wasn't the mouse. I did that after the call later and it still failed. So he did finally agree that it was the mouse, this was hours later after the first call.

So I asked for a replacement per my warranty. He said I never got the mouse from Dell. I told him to look at my order. I told him I bought a extended warranty package that covered my system. He did finally find the mouse on my original order. He was quick to doubt me that I had bought the mouse from Dell.

Well, it turns out that Dell LIED. Apparently the extended warranty covers only the Dell products. So if you buy any other item and get a warranty, you are screwed. I told him that I had gotten the warranty and the agent told me it covered ALL of my order and did NOT say it only covered part of the order. So, I asked him what he could do, since Dell lied to me and I was not happy.

He offered to sell me a mouse at full price, tax and shipping and would not charge me a "FEE" of $7.00. I kept asking him what this fee was and I never have heard a more  evasive answer. Was it a handling fee, was it a stock fee, was it a mouse fee, what type of $7 fee was it.? He kept saying it was a $7 fee. I could NOT get a straight answer out of him. So basically, Dell was going to charge me full rate and "be kind" and not charge me this mysterious $7 fee. I went to the website and it did not have the mysterious $7 fee so I ordered a new mouse. I finally got something out of him that this $7 was a fee that Dell charges if you order on the phone. SERIOUSLY, DELL, you charge an extra $7 if people want to order a product from you on the phone? 

Plus, you sell an extended warranty and neglect to tell your customer that is doesn't cover everything when your customer service agents says it does? Then your agents are quite condescending as well as rude. Not to mention, I can't understand what they are saying most of the time. Plus you charge a mysterious fee of $7 for your customers to order on the phone.

What ever happened to the Dell of old, the Dell who cared about their customers and reputation? Did it fall by the wayside when you sent your customer service overseas? My laptop is working but limping along like a three legged, blind horse in a race.

Oh, I mentioned to the to rep that I think my fan is going out on the laptop as it sounds like a jet engine.  Will that be covered?

I need to get a new laptop soon, and maybe my Apple friends might be correct, after all.


Oh, I sent an email to Michael Dell and will keep you posted.