PET PARTNERS (Kansas and Kibble Part 3)

 

Following the afternoon speakers, it was time to go visit the Hill’s Pet Partners.

These are the dogs and cats that test the food, both for taste and how it nourishes their bodies at different stages of their lives. I was not happy to know that 400+ dogs and 500 cats lived at the Hill’s facility spending their entire lives testing food. I was very skeptical as we approached the Pet Partner’s living quarters and not shy about voicing my displeasure at such a concept.

I was expecting a scene out of one of the PETA promos or something resembling a shelter. I envisioned long rows of cages in a one story concrete block building with outdoor runs having dirt floors. I was ready for the overwhelming din of hundreds of barking dogs…something like the shelter in my home county only 400 times as bad. I was so very, very wrong.

I limit my comments to the dog areas nd to the dogs in particular, because I don’t really know what makes cats happy or what they expect out of living quarters. I do know that dogs are pack animals and since these animals were part of a large group, living in areas of 20 dogs each with very spacious sleeping quarters and plenty of room to play, it was not surprising that they seemed happy. There were no metal fences, no cages, no squalid runs with dirt floors and even the barking sounded happy and communicative. Most of the dogs are beagles, why I never really understood, but they were lively, bright eyed, and active.

The indoor area was light filled, spacious, and clean. There were plenty of toys and play objects about and the dogs were enjoying using them. Each area is for 2 dogs…I don’t call it a kennel because it is large and unlike any kennel I’ve ever seen. They share a play area and a sleeping area. I found it interesting that even though a separate bed is provided for each dog in the “bedroom” area, they most often sleep together on one bed. Of course, my dog sleeps on the large part of a king-sized bed and sometimes I think she’d rather I sleep on the couch, so I can’t connect this behavior as them missing a human sleeping partner. The dogs get plenty of outdoor time, have toys that are replaced regularly, and eat from a two bowl test feeding station. The food is carefully weighed, and what the dogs eat monitored and recorded. The dogs live their entire lives here in this 40,000 square foot facility and may be adopted by Hill’s employees when it’s time to retire.

The outside “area” is huge with play structures as nice as any fancy daycare center. The dogs were active and comfortable with each other. They did not look starved for attention or affection and their shiny coats and “healthy hug” bodies certainly confirmed they weren’t going hungry either.

The dogs have yearly dental cleanings and any other vet care that’s needed. The hospital/vet care center isAAHA (American Animal Hospital Association) accredited. This organization sets high standards for animal hospitals and is nationally recognized. The vet hospital is equipped with all the best medical equipment and even one of those body fat scanners that top notch fitness centers offer. This is used to check the dog’s body fat ratio to determine the adequacy and effectiveness of the food.

Tracy and Napolean share a special moment.

So how do I feel about this now? From my own dog I’ve learned that dogs are creatures of habit…they like routine. In a perfect world as they say, every dog would have a home and every home would have a dog. We do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where hundreds of thousands of dogs are killed every year in what we call “euthanasia”. A world where people desperate to save dogs’ lives end up hoarding them, and poorly organized and under-funded “rescues” ferry dogs across state lines dreaming of “forever homes” at the destination that more often than not don’t materialize. County shelters are poorly funded and even more bereft of competent and compassionate staff, and dog food companies still exist churning out unhealthy and risky food for our pets with little or no oversight, research or testing.     In light of all of this, the dogs at Hill’s have a good life and since they come there as puppies, this is the only life they know. They get cuddled, played with, the best of vet care, and walked. They have names and identities within their pack. They never spend a night out in the cold, long hours on a chain or in a cage, face the uncertainty where their next meal is coming from or if their next day will even dawn. They live in clean spacious quarters and have a great outdoor area to play in. Lots of dogs have jobs and see the worst of humanity in war and in crime fighting. Other dogs like my dog live in a home with pet parents. The Pet Partners at Hill’s perform a vital job so that valuable research can be accomplished for all our pets’ nutritional needs. I think they’re doing just fine and not in need of rescue fromanyone or anything

Our last day in Kansas was spent at the dry food manufacturing plant in Emporia. After a safety session about the plant and putting on the required hard hats, lab coats, steel toe covers for shoes, and headphones, we set out on our tour. My first impression was surprise at how clean the plant was. And I think it was actually pretty quiet too…or it could have been the headphones. We really didn’t see that much…because it’s a closed manufacturing system where all the products travel through closed large pipes. Now, pipes is my word, as the system looks like large sections of conduit, but no matter what you call it…you don’t see the food actually being “made.” Over a half-million pounds of dry dog food are made every day at this plant. Nothing is made on Saturday or Sunday as the entire plant is cleaned then. We sent through all the different areas; where the raw materials arrive, where they are “extruded” in closed containers so again, we couldn’t see this, followed the overhead “pipes” to where the food is packaged.

We did see LOTS of finished product on pallets. Each bag and pallet is part of an intricate inventory system that can target down to the very moment if something goes wrong and pull that product out of the system. With over 140 ingredients it wouldn’t be surprising if something went wrong every day, but it doesn’t.     As a pet parent, my overall opinion of Hill’s was quite different than I thought it would be before the trip. The Hill’s employees we met appeared dedicated to creating a healthy food for pets and each of their roles in this process was quite different, yet they are a team. They believe in the mission of their company and in my estimation, benefit from that mission in their personal lives with their own pets. The mission of the company is sincere and one all pet parents can endorse.

You can’t help but being impressed with the qualified personnel on the Hill’s team…from the veterinarians…they employ the second largest number of veterinarians in the world (150)…to the business people…they talk passionately about their product and the lives of the pets that benefit from it. The scientists are top in their particular field of expertise and their enthusiasm and dedication to their field of research and its contribution to the finished Hill’s product is refreshing in a world where complacency is common.

Hill’s shares its knowledge and its product with veterinarians, shelters, and customers through various programs. The company demonstrates responsibility in the shelter program…providing food to 1000 shelters daily. Our last speaker of the day on Wednesday was Jan          , who is the CEO of two of Colorado’s largest shelters. She told how the food Hill’s provides to their shelters makes what they do possible.  Hills Food, Shelter, and Love Program  has helped find homes for5 Million pets and is working on 5 Million more.

 

      Good nutrition plays a key role for homeless pets. Getting them healthy is a first step to the road to a permanent home. Customers can call the company and get answers to questions about feeding their pet, and there is a special consultation line for veterinarians as well as the Mark Morris Institute and all its resources.

     Choosing good nutrition for our pets is vital for their health. I still seek what is ultimately going to be best for Sadie and it might be a Hill’s product, but for now I’m glad to know there’s a company that cares about what she eats…what your dog or cat eats…and after seeing it for myself  I am confident they’re on the right track and have been on it for many, many years, with a mission of constant improvement and above all:

To help lengthen and enrich the relationships between

People like me and their pets like Sadie.

                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food for Thought (Part 2 Kansas and Kibble)

 

Aerial view of Hill’s Pet Nutrition Center, Topeka, KS

After breakfast the next morning, we boarded a bus for the trip tothe Pet Nutrition Center. We arrived at a large commercial complex, which reminded me more of a college campus. We were ushered downstairs to the conference room a.k.a. Tornado Shelter. It was good to know that we wouldn’t be leaving Kansas like Dorothy had. The schedule in our folder listed the topics for the day and all the speakers. I didn’t expect to know much about the list of topics, but I was happy to see that Hill’s Mission was one I definitely related to. As a mission driven company their goal is:

To enrich and lengthen the special relationships between people and their pets.

     This mission was emphasized over and over again during the day and not in an abstract manner. This is Hill’s mission…what they strive to do with each piece of research…each new food developed…each dog or cat that eats their food and for their own unique Pet Partners, which I’ll tell you about in Part Three.

The day was started by Kostas, Kontopanos, President of Hill’sUSA. Kostas shared a photo of himself and his pet partner in real life, as did each speaker that followed during the day,   Later, when we toured the facility and the living quarters of the Pet Partners, the walls were lined with beautiful portraits of Hill’s Employees and their pets. Kosto’s overview of the company was overwhelming at best. Most of us have a difficult time understanding the food we eat let alone all the ins and outs of what is species appropriate for out pets. Hill’s research, their clinical trials, all their different products can make your head spin trying to grasp it all. Here’s what I got out of it as a pet parent and what I think is important to my readers.

Hill’s strives and obviously succeeds in providing top quality, easy to acquire and use nutritional food for both cats and dogs. Their market is global, their company a billion dollar industry that is part of an even bigger multi-billion dollar conglomerate…Colgate-Palmolive. But just because they aren’t Mom and Pop’s Dog Food stand, doesn’t mean they can’t accomplish the same goal…providing nutritional food that you’ll feel good about feeding to your pet.

With years of research that began with Dr. Mark Morris. DVM, in 1939 and is on-going today, Hill’s produces what they believe is the best balanced diet for dogs and cats for each stage of their lives. This diet is based on science, nutritional studies, and clinical trials. The Mark Morris Institute is dedicated to a program of global nutritional information for veterinarians.  Click on the link to their website to learn more about reading animal food labels. During our day at Hill’s, Bill Schoenherr, MS, PhD, who is Hill’s principal nutritionist, gave us the Cliff Notes version of better understanding what’s on pet food packaging. Yes, it’s even more confusing than human labels, but definitely worth getting a good understanding of the basics. Unlike human food labels that list the ingredients in order of quantity, pet food labels list them in order of weight. Just because chicken is listed first, doesn’t mean there is more of it than say rice…it just weighs more. That’s just one of the surprising things I learned about reading labels on dog food.

Dennis Jewell, MS, PhD, Diplomate ACAN, spoke about the heritage of Hill’s philosophy for their precisely balanced nutrition. Understand, decades of research have gone into this precisely balanced nutrition basis for all their food, and he only had 45 minutes to talk to us. In my understanding, its food specifically developed for each stage of a pet’s life that contains all the essential nutrients to provide optimum health for that pet. It’s easy to understand that a puppy needs different nutrition than an older dog, but it goes beyond that. Hill’s has 90 specially developed precisely balanced foods for as many different types of dogs as you can imagine. Additionally they have 80 therapeutic diets…the prescription foods… that can only be obtained from a veterinarian for specific conditions.

The first prescription food was developed in response to kidney disease for Buddy, one of the first guide dogs in the United States. Buddy had kidney disease and Dr. Morris developed a spcial food just for him.  What is now known as Small Animal Clinical Nutrition,  was the beginning of the Hill’s prescription diet food.

There were more initials thrown around during the presentations than letters following the names of all the Hill’s employees, but I was familiar with one set and that’s AAFCO, American Association of Feed Control Officials. I’d come across them when I began researching food for Sadie and her allergies.

The AAFCO is a non-profit organization that sets standards for animal and pet foods in the United States. Before a pet food manufacturer can label any food “complete and balanced” it must meet the standards of AAFCO. It’s easy to understand what these standards are by going to  Dog Food Advisor . I used this website to check out the “ratings” of the food I was considering feeding Sadie. AAFCO also requires that pet foods state on the package how the food was tested to determine the “complete and balanced” standard. There are two ways this can be done:

1. Laboratory Analysis
2. Laboratory Analysis and feeding trials with real animals.

Hill’s uses both methods and is therefore permitted to say so on their packaging.

One of the most fun presentations of the day was by someone with no initials after their name…Dave Baloga. Now if you look at his name quickly or type it fast, it seems like “bologna” which would make sense, because he deals with the science of taste. Seems when Sadie sniffed the carefully researched dinners I placed before her, only to walk away…she had a good reason. Dogs “taste” their food through what they “smell.” Now, Dave had a lot of very scientific reasons for this, but the most important one to me was…dogs just don’t have as many taste buds as humans do therefore the smell of their food…appetizing or not…determines if they want to eat it. What smells good to people is very different from what appeals to pets.

Dave used a simple demonstration to prove this fact. Using plain white bottles pre-loaded with certain scents, we were asked to sniff them and guess what the scent was. Turns out there’s a reason I eat everything I see…I didn’t do too good on the “sniff” test and would have eaten dirt if going by smell alone. Sadie definitely can’t depend on me to provide food with the greatest smells, but Hill’s devotes a great deal of time to test different smells and make sure that their food appeals to the pet’s sense of smell which makes it pleasing to eat.

We heard from Diane Loiselle, who is VP of Product Safety, Regulatory & Quality. After hearing all the hundreds of standards Hill’s uses to make its food safe, I asked her why then was Hill’s food recalled in the horrendous 2007 dog food recall? Her answer that it was an “intentional criminal act in China”, is true. The Unites States Attorney’s Office prosecuted two business owners, Sally Qing Miller, 43, and her husband Stephen S. Miller, 56, of Las Vegas. They pled guilty of selling adulterated food and one count of selling tainted food through their company, ChemNutra. They admitted to substituting melamine for wheat gluten in their products. They were only fined $5,000.00 each, given 3 years probation…a paltry sentence in light of the loss of lives of beloved pets and the destruction of innocent pet food companies.  They did contribute to a $24 million towards settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by pet owners in New Jersey (The Miller’s insurance company paid most of it and they paid the deductible). Their company was fined $25,000.00 and also contributed to the class action settlement. Read more: http://news.legalexaminer.com/pet-food-melamine-contamination-case-closed.aspx?googleid=265150#ixzz26SHj3Bny

I was a relatively new pet parent when this happened and was afraid to feed my dog anything commercial for a long time. What is important is that Hill’s no longer gets any ingredients from outside of  States and all are strictly tested. The company immediately took responsibility during this horrendous time and made necessary changes.

The last speaker before our tour of the facility was Julie Churchill, DVM,PhD, Dipl. ACVN who teaches pet nutrition at the  University of Minnesota. Her presentation was full of information on nutritional needs of pets and how they can be met, what standards deem a pet “healthy”, and other pertinent information for feeding your pet healthy food. It was time to go visit the Pet Partners!  Next up…Hill’s Pet Partners.

Kansas and Kibble

I’m not a veterinarian, a nutritionist, or scientist. I don’t write about technical subjects or issues that involve knowledge acquired through the study of any of these professions. I’ve been a teacher, am presently a lawyer, and above all…I am a Dog Mom in love with my dog, passionate about the well-being of all animals, and dogs in particular. I constantly seek information that will enhance the quality and length of my canine soul-mate’s life.

When I received an invitation from Hills Pet Nutrition through their public relations firm, Burson Marsteller, to be their guest for three days at the headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, I accepted. Hill’s has been hosting groups of writers to their facility to learn about their products, their company’s mission, and how their efforts in research can benefit cats and dogs. I believe they’re opening their doors to pet writers to get the good word out about Hill’s, dispel the numerous and rampant rumors about commercial dog food companies, and distinguish themselves from the pack of other pet food companies viewed as pariahs.

My report will most likely be different from the writers in my group. I was impressed our group consisted of nationally recognized writers, a few vets, cat writers, who by the way were more fun than I could’ve ever imagined not being a “cat” person, and even the CEO of two very large animal shelters. These people were very knowledgeable in the science and nutrition of pet food and asked far more intellectual questions than I did. I was personally interested in learning more about pet nutrition for my dog Sadie. She’s going through some very trying times with food and allergies. It’s no secret that I was ignorant of almost everything dog when I adopted Sadie, but I promised to care for her, so with her patience and the help of other dog parents, I learned. I thought the Hill’s event would be a great opportunity for me to add to my knowledge, find material to write about for other pet parents like me, and most of all benefit Sadie. I am happy to say, I was right.

I was astonished to learn that Topeka, the capitol of Kansas did NOT have an airport! All the writers flew into Kansas City, Missouri and were met by drivers in nice Lincoln Town Cars sent by Hill’s. The hour drive seemed remarkably short because I had a driver who was a good conversationalist, and two hilarious new friends in the car who were “Cat Ladies.”

Our driver dropped us off at the Hyatt Place Hotel where we would stay for the next three days. The desk clerk greeted all of us warmly, pointed out the food and beverages available to us in the lobby during our stay, and we were off to our rooms with time to get ready for our reception/dinner that evening at the Kansas Museum of History .

The reception was informal giving everyone time to mix and mingle and get to know each other. Hill’s arranged for a great dinner catered by local restaurant featuring some signature Kansas dishes which of course included beef barbecued ribs that were delicious. Our seating was assigned with at least one Hill’s employee at each table. Dr. Karen Johnson, DVM, and Luce were at our table. I can’t remember her title or her last name, but her friendly welcome and ability to make our table feel like we’d known each other for a long time won’t be forgotten. Luce shared with us that she was worried about her dog that night and a problem he was having which endeared her to me right away. Dr. Johnson discovered that she and one of the people at our table had graduated from the same vet school…the University of Pennsylvania…which is where I took my LSAT and off we went…talking like we had known each other forever.

After dinner each person was asked to tell something about themselves; what they write about, what they hoped to get from the Hill’s trip, and anything else they felt like sharing. It was a warm and comfortable evening, good food, new friends, and since the group was small, I felt like I knew at least something about everyone.

After dinner, we could tour the museum, or return to the hotel. I opted for the museum tour and was not disappointed. It was very interesting with historical artifacts and information about Kansas and the Midwest. There was a haunted locomotive with a few train cars we walked through, lots of civil war remnants, and a complete teepee and a woven grass house. I was disappointed not to see anything about the Wizard of OZ, but then again, it’s hardly a historical fact.

The gift shop did have some snow globes featuring various Wizard of Oz characters and my new friend Patrick, a veterinarian from California with a most interesting practice, shared a dark chocolate candy bar in the shape of the locomotive.

Our schedule for the next day started early, so even with an open bar, we returned to our rooms looking forward to seeing the Hill’s Global Pet Nutrition Center, meeting more of the employees, and in particular, I wanted to see how Hill’s tested food on animals and meet the dogs and cats whose job in life is to eat!