Hi Everyone
I'm Ruth from Tails Unlimited and yes, the pet rescuer referred to in the postings in this thread. Having followed closely what has been written, I feel it's time that forummers hear it from the horse's mouth on the actual situation.
Firstly, a couple of my cats have exhibited symptoms similar to the sick cats in Australia and that was what got me very worried. All my cats were on orijen, except that for the senior cats, I mix with Acana light food while I still had the stock at that time. That was why, I asked dongdong to find out in cari.com whether anyone else has cats eating orijen that showed similar symptoms. He went further and brought this issue to this forum which was not what I intended, reason being that I did not know about the existence of this forum, otherwise I would have done it myself since this is an English forum and I'm Chinese illiterate. Maybe, he had been misunderstood since English is not his first language, but whatever it is, I know his intentions are good and he has no spiteful motives towards anyone. What is wrong with seeking other people's views?
I think Mako in his post on 28 November sounded very pompous and high-handed referring to him as 'just a college student'. He must have got this information from his boss who had met one these 'college student' when he was at our place but dongdong was not the one. I hope mako realises that many pet rescuers like us depend on students to do voluntary work and that is what dongdong and his university mates have been doing. Let me just enlighten him that it was 'college students' who built a big cat playhouse FREE OF LABOUR CHARGE for our cats. I'm sure they have more enjoyable things to do during their semester break. It is also 'college students' who bathe our dogs and take them for walks, plus a host of other tasks which people may consider too menial for them, including cleaning poo-poo, burying dead animals, minor repair works, etc. It is also 'college students' who actively promoted orijen food on cari.com, especially the 6 fish formula. Would mako be interested to know what other tasks 'college students', which he belittles, are willing to do for animals? I wonder if he would have done 1 percent of what they did. Mind you, not a single cent did they ask. In fact, dongdong and his mates have even helped to get funds to enable us to pay some big medical bills for the animals. I could go on and on........
Oh yeah, if this 'college student' is no vet, neither is mako. My suggestion is mako takes his own advice. The 'college student' takes care of his studies, he takes care of his sale of orijen and acana. I'm sure he'll have to work extra hard to get more sales.
Secondly, I
resent and am
very offended at being referred to as a breeder (I abhor breeding) and told that '... i don think any breeder in right mind will feed 170 cats with only orijen ....' He is a marketing personnel, therefore a representative of his company; I shall indeed heed his words and get back to my 'right' mind. Thanks, mako, for those words of caution. I believe you know best indeed. Great to know that you don't think much of the very people you service - is it that you think they can't afford to feed orijen or they are people who don't give a damn what they feed as long as they get maximum profit?
It's indeed a pity 'cos to me Orijen is an excellent food. Isolated cases do not make a food bad. EVEN IF this is the cause, I still say that Orijen is very good but, indeed, I do not want to be thought of as not in my right mind by feeding orijen. Too bad, as I have just started feeding some of dogs orijen too. Since my 170+ cats thrive on it, I thought why not the dogs. Fortunately, I've just started so the dogs won't suffer from withdrawal syndrome if I stop.
Thirdly, the issue at hand. The first cat that exhibited similar symptoms to the ones in Australia was taken to the vet before we knew about the recall. The vet couldn't diagnose his condition. As usual, it was a guessing game. Maybe this or maybe that. According to Dr Georgina Child from SASH Australia, symptoms will appear weeks, maybe months after they have started eating the food. I contacted her last week. She wanted us to send a movie of the sick cat but it was too late as that poor fella died last Sunday. Since then, 2 more have died and surprisingly, the wobbly small kitten (wobbling all over) survived. At first, the vet said it could be a virus he got from his mother. He seems more steady now except that he always cocked his head to one side. Now, the vet said it could be some ear infection that causes the imbalance. I give up. What next? More guessing games. I've another cat, which according to the vet, is suffering from thiamine deficiency. He was on eagle pack until we changed to orijen. When he was sick, we fed him wet food. The vet suggested to give him vitamin B and a no fish diet. He was doing very well for some months. He could walk and jump. Then, we partially changed him back to kibbles. At about the time that my first cat showed the symptoms, he started to have stiff limbs. He couldn't walk at all. Now, he's in a paralytic state. We stopped his kibbles and went back to wet food. We're waiting to see if it helps.
Anyway, I've requested for an autopsy to be done on 2 of the dead cats as I want to know the cause of death -
not to find fault with any product but for the sake of my other cats. But I believe in Malaysia it is easier for the camel to go through the needle's eye than to get the results of the autopsy, given the lackadaisical state of things towards animals here. I'm speaking from previous experience on a biopsy done on my cat that had since died. Incredible but till today, I have yet to get the report. Not surprising, if we're unable to have the autopsy done, knowing how things are. But, we will most certainly push our vet for it.
Incidentally, I hope the marketing personnel of Artemis and Sigma 7 won't think that I'm not in my right mind since I'm feeding these 2 brands to all my cats and dogs. As dongdong has made it very clear, we feed top grade food to our animals because we want to reduce visits to the vet. Rather spend on good food and supplements than on antibiotics. This is the reason we operate a petshop; so that we can get the best food, supplements and accessories for them at a lower rate. Sometimes, it's tough especially when sales are slow but thank God, the animals have never lacked in anything. We feed them well and we try to give them a good life. After all, why would we want to rescue them if not to treat them well?
Having said all this, I hope that in future, mako will not make assumptions that pet rescuers or breeders will not feed top grade food to their animals, even if they have a big number.
I want to end by inviting anyone who is interested to see what we do for animals to pay us a visit. You can also contact dongdong. Oh, by the way, we
DON'T SELL ANIMALS.
That is glad heard from you Ruth.It has been brought to you attention about this matter. I can saw it was total differ story told about the pet rescuers by mention pet foods salesman. If not all people pointing Dongdong wrongly. Now here I able to get the picture and understand who is right and fake.
Thanks again for the justification.