It’s been a horrible week for us. We don’t know if you’ve heard as most of you are from the States but here in the UK, there has been a pet food recall after lots of poor kitties became extremely ill and some died from a horrible and potentially fatal disease called pancytopenia that is thought to have been caused by contamination at the following manufacturing site in the UK.
FOLD HILL FOODS LTD IS RECALLING A NUMBER OF PRODUCTS IT MANUFACTURES ON BEHALF OF PARTNER BRANDS Food Recall Alert We are voluntarily recalling the dry products we manufacture for the brands detailed in the link below as a precautionary measure. We are supporting an investigation by the food and veterinary authorities into a possible safety issue affecting cats. Products include selected ranges from AVA (Pets At Home), Applaws & Sainsbury’s. If you have bought any of the above products as detailed above, do not feed them to your cat. Instead:• Check if you have bought the affected products and batch code(s) / «use-by / best before» date(s)You can do this by taking a picture of this notice or writing down the batch code(s) / «use-by / best before» date(s) for reference at home.• Return the product(s) to the store for a full refund (with or without a receipt). For more information:If you have bought an AVA product contact www.petsathome.com and fill out the contact form on the help page or livechat. If you have bought an Applaws product contact www.applaws.com/uk/contact-us If you have bought a Sainsbury’s product contact www.sainsburys.co.uk/help or their Customer Careline on 0800 636262 Date of publish: 15/06/2021Updated: 18/06/2021 (updated with FSA update: Update 1: Fold Hill Foods recall several cat food products because of safety concerns | Food Standards Agency
I may have eaten some of that food back in April so Mum has been in a state of shock all week. She took me to the vet on Friday afternoon to be checked over. I had a blood test and the results came back normal.
Tricked and trapped, waiting to be taken to the vet
Mum will take over now, but bear with her because this is how she writes when depressed and she wrote most of it while in panic mode.
I am absolutely heartbroken reading about people’s beloved cats on social media and what has been happening to them because of this and I’m absolutely in a state of shock that I may have poisoned my own baby.
I had been feeding Athena her usual brand for a few years and she was fine on it. Then for some mad reason back in April, I decided to change her regular dry food to Applaws and now I am terrified I may have poisoned my beautiful fur baby. God, if I’ve poisoned my sweet baby girl I shall end it all. I won’t be able to cope.
I bought a 400g bag of the Applaws Chicken Senior in April from Fetch to try it out. Athena seemed to like it and the so-called food was easier for her to chew, I thought. Now the reason I switched from her regular is that I thought the sound of her crunching was loud and I figured maybe it was a bit hard work for her 10-year-old teeth to bite into. I also felt the regular food was causing her to put on weight.
Stupid, stupid me then ordered a 2kg pack from Zooplus in May.
Oh, I don’t care if she’s putting on weight, I just want her to be healthy!
So from the end of April, she was eating Applaws until Tuesday 15 June when I heard about this awful illness affecting cats.
I stopped feeding it to her immediately and went back to her old food (Arden Grange) which I still had.
GB218E5009 is the reference code for the manufacturing site but I can’t find it anywhere on the 2kg pack that I ordered from Zooplus. I must have cut off the top to put food into a plastic container so haven’t got the number to see if it's the dreaded demon numberGB218E5009
UPDATE: Zooplus have since assured me that my order was not the affected pack with the said site code number as some of the products are also manufactured in France.
I am still worried about the first pack that I ordered from Fetch though. I don't have the packaging to see what code it has on it and when I contacted them they said they couldn't tell me if it was the affected batch that I had delivered to me. I will contact them again to ask.
UPDATE 21/06/21: Fetch informed me this morning that the 400g pack was the affected one. I am now even more terrified :(
Anyway, I took Athena to the vet on Friday, and as they do the bloodwork in-house, the vet called with the results about half an hour after I got home from the appointment and said the blood work was normal.
But the thing is, I am watching Athena all the time. Like the vet told me to. You see things can change quickly with this, and if the first pack I bought from Fetch was an infected one, I am still panicking as she consumed the contents of this pack by May.
I am so scared.
I don’t know if my baby has eaten poison. The thought is constantly on my mind and I'm more stressed than ever.
And you know what?
I think someone did this on purpose. Some sick bastard wanted to poison sweet beautiful furry babies. The most beautiful animal on earth - the cat.
Fuck, I hate humans. Most are disgusting only thinking about money.
And another thing I’ve noticed - these “celebs” that go on about being animal lovers, etc, where are they?
This thing is huge but it is not trending anywhere on social media. Celebs are staying quiet. So strange.
I’m not into following celebs but I do follow some famous animal lovers but they don’t seem to give a shit. Not even those famous vets. Why aren't they raising awareness of this horror?
I don’t know what to feed my baby anymore - I don’t trust what these companies put into our pets’ food.
I love cats. I love animals. I am here to be their voice but I know that if anything happens to Athena I am leaving this planet. I’ve had enough.
Update 22/06/21: I'm actually going crazy researching pet food online and it's so scary. I really don't trust what they put in our pets' food anymore. Since stopping Athena from eating Applaws (which as I said she has been eating since late April until last Tuesday), I've switched her back to her regular brand - Arden Grange Light Fresh Chicken. I was in a panic this morning, questioning whether this too may have been produced at the same factory as the recalled brands so I contacted Arden Grange and they assured me that their products are not produced there. In fact, I checked the batch number on the packaging and did my own research, and found out that this is true. But I don't just feed Athena dry. I would prefer it that she would eat more wet food. I've been giving her Bozita Indoor and Sterilised Chicken Tetra Pak each morning for a few years now but she won't eat much of it. I really wish she preferred it to dry.
Credit: Which? Please check out the following links for more info if you have concerns about your cat regarding this matter.
Hope you had a good week. Mine got off to a bad start.
Monday morning went like this:
Yeah, you guessed it. About 20 minutes later I found myself at this new vet clinic called Vets4Pets. New because it's the first time I've been there since moving to our new home in Essex. This vets practice was a lot bigger than our old one in London, but then I noticed it wasn't really big. It is actually inside Pets at Home, which is a large retail store for pets. This pet superstore provides everything that pets need to be happy and healthy.
Mum didn't buy me anything from the store. But that didn't concern me whilst there.
Vet reception desk/area
We waited at reception for our 11am appointment. The good thing was that dogs wait on one side and the cats and small animals on the opposite side. The dogs are scary, but there was one tiny one that really thought he was something special. However, I'm bigger than him/her and if I hadn't been in my prison carrier I would have shown him who's boss.
In the photo below I'm in my carrier in the middle seat between Mum and Granny. You can see a bit of Granny in this pic. Look at all that kitty stuff on display. Some people really spoil their pets!
With Gran at the Vets
No need to explain what's going on in this photo.
Later:
I'm pleased to say that my consultation with the lady vet didn't last long. She checked me a bit and I hissed a little. She was a bit scared I could tell. Mum said that I wasn't dangerous and held me and stroked me to calm me down and I soon felt calmer. Mum spoke quietly and sweetly to me, kissing the top of my head. I tried to escape by sneaking behind the tap. But Mum caught me and put me back on the table. Then the booster needle went in 🙀 Ok, it didn't actually hurt that much and it was over in a second but I still wondered what would happen next. I panicked that Mum might leave me behind. So I tried to get away again as I didn't trust being inside the carrier. But Mum told me we were going home and I knew from her tone of voice that it was true. The vet lady said I have to lose weight. Really, she had the nerve to call me fat and even said my head's too small for my body! And I thought she was quite nice up until she said that 😼 Mum agreed that I needed to lose weight! She told vet lady that she will be careful not to feed me too much from now on. And that there will be more exercise and playtime. No more treats then 😿 I'm not worried though as I have means and ways of getting my own way. I know Mum is a soft touch when it comes to me. For our Caturday Art today, Mum made me into a Comic Hero with this cowardly photo of me looking so scared. The theme is Comic Heroes from PicMonkey and the effect is Sketch
Before you go, check out this Instagram photo of me after we got back home. No words needed really.
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