Don't Buy Dog Food from Hank Petchow

Back in 1995 or 1996, long before there was the kind of "Fake News" we now see everynight on Comedy Central, Saturday Night Live ran a fake dog food commercial starring Will Ferrell.

The visuals were a killer (pun intended) and showed a huge bag of kibble with an emormous picture of Shep the Huskie, and the words "PetChow" written in large letters underneath.

In very small letters, underneath that it said "Rat Poison."

I cannot find the video anywhere on the internet, but here's the script of the spot:

[Open on Hank Petchow running through the snow with his dog Shep ]

Hank Petchow: Come on, Shep! Here we go!

Voiceover: Like most dog owners, I really enjoy playing with my dog.

[ cut to interior, Petchow household ]

Hank Petchow: Hi! I'm Hank Petchow. I love my dog, and I love taking care of him. But as much as I like feeding ol' Shep here every morning, there's some animals I'd rather not feed - rodents, mice, rats. I hate them. That's why I developed this. Petchow Brand Rat Poison. Petchow's the only rat poison deadly enough to carry my name - Petchow. And Petchow's the most powerful rat poison on the market. In fact, it's so strong, it could easily kill an animal much larger than any rat you'll ever see - instant. And rats love Petchow's big meaty pieces. [ Shep jumps up to the bowl of rat poison ] Whoa, no, Shep! That's rat poison! [ moves Shep ] Just add water for a hearty poison gravy that no rat can resist. He'll be dead on the spot. Right, Shep? [ Shep barks and moves closer to the rat poison gravy ] Whoa, Shep! Down, boy, that's not for you! [ laughs ] So, if rats are your problem, choose a name you can trust. Petchow. Just look for the rat poison with a picture of ol' Shep on it.

[ show two dogs sitting on each side of the Petchow package ]

Jingle: "Petchow. Arf arf. Petchow. Arf arf. Petchow. Arf arf. Rat poison."

Announcer: Petchow. The one they can't resist.

Terrierman Banned in China?

I do not know what I have done wrong, but it must be something, because the Terrierman.com web site has been banned in China according to a web site that tests for such thing.

Perhaps the web page entitled "Rat or Ratatouille?" was not quite sensitive enough for them?

In my defense, I really did try to be sensitive. I tried really hard.

No matter.

I will wear this distinction as a badge of honor. How many other people can say they have built a web site that the Communists have deemed a menace?

Playing in the Gutter on the Blog

I have been playing in the gutter on the blog. A few additions:

• I have enabled comments on the blog -- something I disabled a long time ago when spam comments were really thick. Now there is (supposedly) new code that will discourage this.
  
  
• I have added a counter that notes visitors by country and city. I have had an invisible counter on the blog and web site for a while (over 250,000 visitors so far), but this is more interesting. The counter simply notes where your nearest ISP node is located -- it does not (and cannot) capture email or real addresses, so the paranoid can relax (a little).
  
  
• I have added a computer-generated translator.
  
  
• I have added little icons at the end of each post. Kindly click on them to increase traffice each from Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us and others.
  
  
• I have added two Amazon links to my book (of course) and the Ames Pony D-handle shovel, which is my prefered tool for field work (along with a decent bar and a posthole digger).
  
  
• I have added a feature that shows a "preview" of the linked web page.
  
  
• I have added my email. Putting in "at" instead of an "@" both discourages spam and is a small intelligence test.
  
  
• I have added several new blogs to the permanent links: Diary of a Mad Natural Historian and Birds Etcetera and Blue Crab Boulevard as well as the more "corporate" web sites The Straight Dope and Snopes / Rumor Has It and Skeptics Dictionary.

PETA, Pet Food and Wheat Gluten

Over at the Pet Connection Blog, Gina Spadafori is reporting some pretty distressing numbers, with more than 3,000 pets already dead due to over 60 million pounds of rat-poison and melamine-contaminated dog food being shipped around the country.

Some reporters seem to have taken to quoting PETA about this dog food tragedy -- never mind that PETA knows nothing about dog food or nutrition, opposes ownership of both pet dogs and working dogs, euthanizes more than 85 percent of the dogs given up to to it, and steals dogs from shelters in order to kill them.

The poor quality of the reporting on this dog food story is amazing. For example, in all of the writing, no one has taken the time to ask a basic question: What the hell is wheat gluten, and why is it in our dog food?

Here's the answer: Wheat gluten is synthetic meat made from processed wheat.

In vegetarian cuisine, this stuff is called Seiten, and if PETA had its way, not only would your dogs and cats be eating nothing else, but so would you.

The picture at the top of this post is a Taiwanese can of "mock duck" made from 100 percent wheat gluten.

To the right is what the contents of this same can looks like when it is dumped out into a bowl.

Mmmm Good!

Does that look like the "chicken and chunks" you have been serving your pooch?

That's not an accident. Along with "Mock Duck" you can find wheat gluten carefully shaped to look like "mock" beef, mock turkey, and almost anything else.

Wheat gluten is imported from Asia because it is made in massive amounts over there, where is used as an alternative to soy-based meat substitutes such as tofu.

Wheat gluten is cheap and it is a realistic-looking meat substitute. In and of itself, it is not necessarily bad for you, but since most wheat gluten is imported from overseas, almos none of it is inspected by the FDA.

It turns out that folks who thought they were giving their cat or dog "real meat" were -- more often than not -- giving them a little bit of meat and a whole lot of wheat gluten produced overseas by the lowest bidder in a non-FDA-inspected factory.

OK, let's go to a second point: How and when did the dog food companies finally realize that their pet food products really were heavily contaminated by poison?

Early reports from customers were the first sign, of course, but the definitive evidence came from routine "live feed trials."

In a live feed trial, kenneled animals are systematically fed food samples from the production line. When about a third of the cats and dogs in a Menu Foods feed trial subsequently died, that company knew it had a disaster in the making.

What no reporters have mentioned in all their articles about this mess is that PETA is against testing any pet food on any live animals. In fact, in the middle of this pet food recall, PETA actually produced “a list of dog and cat food manufacturers that don’t test on animals.”

Talk about missing the message.

"Don't test on animals"??? That's a good thing??? Not in my house.

Please God, let's keep testing dog food on live animals.

And while we are at it, let's also test prescription drugs and vaccines too. Our children are worth it, and so are we.

As for this dog food mess, let's remember that's while it is primarily caused by poor corporate management, human greed, and an incompetent FDA, you can also find the hand of Seitan at work.

And no one loves Seitan more than PETA.

Groundhog Fortress

Mountain opened up a few times just inside the tree line, and when I got over to her I realized she was inside a large tree trunk -- with the quarry.

Gazing down a hole in the truck I found a groundhog pressed against the inside wall of a large maple, with Mountain also inside the trunk, but below the groundhog and unable to reach it. We got Mountain out and let this groundhog go for another day.

First Hog of the Day

Pearl says she's not quite finished with this one, but she is wrong. This little fellow was let go, as were the other groundhogs we worked this day. This was the first hog of the day - a tight pipe, but otherwise unremarkable.

Second Hog of the Day

Blister follows the scent.


Went out yesterday with Chris and his new Russell bitch that he picked up from Rane.





This is the second groundhog we got this day -- and the second we let go unharmed. It was a beautiful day, and this was nice dig on a spring groundhog in a tight pipe on good land.




This was Blister's first hog (she had bolted a fox the week before) and she obviously did fine with only a small nick to show for her troubles.




A bit later in the day Blister followed Mountain exploring the length of an empty pipe.