Anyone hear anything about Chicken Soup testing on animals?

Someone on vegpeople.com (a vegetarian/vegan site) said that they loved Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul formula, but it was too bad that they tested on animals...does anyone know if this is true??

I've been feeding the food for a few months now and my 3 cats are doing really well on it. I usually switch foods every few months, but I wanted to stick with this for a while. Is there any reason why it is so much cheaper than a lot of other brands that are of the same quality?

I just want to feed my cats the best food that I can.

Chicken Soup is made by Diamond...I've never heard of them being associated with any type of cruel animal testing. They do AAFCO feeding trials which are considered by PETA as animal testing so I am curious if this might be the "testing on animals" that the person could have been refering to. Maybe you can ask them for more details?

I feed the Wellness and Royal Canin cat foods to my kitties and have considered trying out the Chicken Soup as well as Newman's Own because the ingrediants are what I want for my kitties. I think I may have read somewhere on this site about Chicken Soup doing animal feeding trials, but must admit that didn't bother me in the least. I don't really know what exactly goes on, but imagine it to be kind of like when I make a soup or casserole from scratch without a recipe then serve it to my husband and son. They either like it or they don't and if they don't I know not to make it again.

Do you think it is wrong for the pet food companies to test their new products on cats? Presuming that they aren't using some new chemical additive or questionable ingredient, I would think that several cats would need to be offered the product to ensure that cats will eat it.

How would you suggest the pet food companies ensure the quality, palatability, etc. of the product prior to marketing?

Chicken Soup For The Pet Lovers Soul wrote this:

We do some animal testing on our products. We are required by the FDA and by AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials) to perform certain trials with live animals to be able to register our diets and label them for a particular life-stage. We do not keep the animals ourselves. We do choose laboratories based on their reputation and their dedication to feeding research. Feeding research is much less invasive than other types of biomedical research. The animals do have to have some blood tests run to ensure that they are receiving adequate nutrition. The blood is drawn by registered technicians and overseen by a licensed veterinarian. The labs we use are toured by us prior to a study to ensure that the animals are receiving the best care possible. We make sure that they have spacious living quarters and that they have social or play time and exercise daily.

Because we are concerned about the welfare of the animals, and require the laboratories that we hire to be equally as concerned, we believe that the value of the research far outweighs the negative press that is associated with animal research.

Many advances in animal nutrition have been made because of research. Without research, we wouldn't know about the requirement of taurine for the health of our cats. We also wouldn't know about special diets for diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, etc. People seem to think that we already know everything there is to know about how to feed a pet, but this is far from the truth. We investigate new ingredients that we might add to improve the lifelong health of all the pets eating our pet foods.

I switched my boys back to Natural Balance, not for this reason though. Companies like IAMS do cruel animal testing, Diamond pet foods just run blood tests and take stool samples. It's true, without some sort of animal testing, we wouldn't know if the food we're feeding our cats is actually doing anything for them.

IAMS was unaware of the cruelty testing going on by an outside company. They hired a person to investigate, the minute they heard about the questionable tactics. The person hired had another agenda(IAMS did not know this) The person documented, filmed and allowed the cruelty to continue so that another organization could make a splash about it.

IAMS no longer employs that outside company to test their products and they are monitoring the new one to be sure it is on the up-and-up. So please stop the rumors about how IAMS is cruel to animals. It is NOT true!

Hissy,

I am sorry that I approached the subject of animal testing again, but I was very concerned when someone on the other site said something about Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul. It's a food that both of my cats are doing so well on and it is affordable as well. I wanted to see if anyone knew anything about Diamond pet foods...I didn't mean for all of the Iams stuff to come up again. I understand that it was a third party with Iams, but I wasn't trying to shed light on that event.

I don't think there is a problem with me asking if anyone knows about the practices of diamond pet foods. I'm also not so sure if there is really a problem with people have question about Iams...I think we are going to have to deal with a lot more questions as more and more newer members hear rumors.

Why are people believing that Iams didn't know about cruel testing practices !! Why the defense of them ? They are a big, knowledgeable company, not little, new and innocent. Sounds like some people have an investment in IAMS.

I've never heard anything about cruel animal testing and Diamond. All I know is that my cats do well on the Chicken Soup and my dogs do well on Premium Edge, so unless something strange happens, I will continue to feed them.

Originally posted by hissy
IAMS was unaware of the cruelty testing going on by an outside company. They hired a person to investigate, the minute they heard about the questionable tactics. The person hired had another agenda(IAMS did not know this) The person documented, filmed and allowed the cruelty to continue so that another organization could make a splash about it.

IAMS no longer employs that outside company to test their products and they are monitoring the new one to be sure it is on the up-and-up. So please stop the rumors about how IAMS is cruel to animals. It is NOT true!

Click to expand...

From what we read in Ann Martin's well-researched book published in 2003, "Food Pets Die For," it seems Iams recently stopped testing animals, but that excludes possible testing -- including questionable experiments -- done by other laboratories that are hired by Iams. And of course, Iams is only one of many companies that has been criticized:

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Page 83:
One pet food company in particular, Iams, has attracted a lot of negative publicity in the last few years because of the research the company has undertaken. The Sunday Express, a British newspaper, reported on these atrocities in May 2001, "Our investigation has revealed that hundreds of animals suffered incredible agony in experiments desiged to perfect Iams. A huge dossier of research papers exposes how scientists deliberately induced kidney failure and other conditions in dogs and cats. Some experiments involved performing operations on healthy animals that were later killed." (Lucy Johnston, Health Editor, "Iams-Pet Food Cruelty Exposed," Sunday Express, May 27, 2001. Article isn't at Sunday Express website, but is available on Internet, e.g., www.moggies.co.uk/html/iams.html)

Page 86:
Procter and Gamble (P&G) purchased Iams in September 1999 and issued a code of ethics. Animal People, an on-line organization devoted to the health and welfare of pets, reported in June 2001 that P&G stated its intention to phase out animal testing as fast as alternatives can be developed and approved by regulators. According to P&G, "The new code of ethics reflects the decision made two years ago by Iams to start no further studies which required euthanasia of cats and dogs. It applies to all Iams research in the development of pet food, regardless of whether it is conducted by universities, our own scientists, or others." (Animal People Online, "Pet Food and Procter and Gamble," June 2001. Article heading listed on page but article is currently inaccessible: www.animalpeoplenews.org/01/67/roster0601.html)

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Although P&G has stated that the company will phase out animal testing, this does not cover the testing done by outside laboratories. P&G claims it has no way of knowing exactly how many animals these outside labs might use in various experiments for the company. P&G contracts out animal research to various labs when the company does not have enough technicians available. Outside labs "would only report to us the number (animals) used in a final protocol," states Katherine Stitzel, Associate Director at P&G, also claiming that P&G would not know how these tests were conducted. (Katherine Stitzel, P&G Associate Director, interview in UK with Animal People, June 26, 2001.)

Page 87:
Be assured that Iams is not the only pet food company that undertakes animal experimentation. According to the Animal Protection Institute (API), based in California, "Other large pet food manufacturers, including Hill's, Waltham's, and Ralston Purina among others, have funded, sponsored or conducted many studies that caused significant pain, discomfort or distress, used invasive procedures and/or resulted in the death of the subject animals." (Lawrence Carter-Long, "Stop Torturing Animals for Pet Food Research," Animal Protection Institute, Press release, August 6, 2001. www.api4animals.org/1058.htm)

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The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection has uncovered alarming evidence of animal testing by pet food manufacturers not only in the United States but internationally. (Search for: "Shocking exposÃ[emoji]169[/emoji] - pet food companies experiment on cats & dogs (23/6/00)" at www.buav.org/f_presscentre.html)
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SHOCKING EXPOSÉ
PET FOOD COMPANIES EXPERIMENT ON CATS & DOGS

Disturbing evidence of animal testing by the international pet food industry has been uncovered by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). Pet owners across the country will be shocked to learn that well known companies that promote themselves as caring about the health and well-being of our pets, have carried out, collaborated with or sponsored research that subjects cats and dogs to procedures that will inevitably have caused suffering.

Worldwide the pet food industry is estimated to be worth a massive $25 billion. The main players have included Hill's Pet Nutrition (owned by Colgate-Palmolive), Alpo Petfoods (NestlŽ), Ralston Purina and Pedigree Petfoods (Mars). A large proportion of the research has taken place within the USA, but some has also taken place in other countries including the UK. Furthermore, products by US companies are available on the UK shelves.

Examples of experiments
In the USA, 15 obese cats were starved by only being offered food that was completely unpalatable (referred to as 'voluntary starvation'). The cats lost 26-40% of their body weight and developed severe muscle wasting, dehydration and damaged livers. When finally offered normal food, 11 were unable to eat and had to be tube-fed. (supported by Alpo Pet Foods)


In the USA, 42 puppies fed a zinc-depleted diet for 2 weeks showed severe signs of zinc deficiency, including lethargy and anorexia. They were then divided into groups and given an experimental diet with varying amounts of zinc. 5 out of 6 pups kept on a zinc-free diet had to be removed from the tests as zinc deficiencies were so severe. At the end of the test, dew claws, one canine tooth and testes were removed from all the pups for zinc analysis. (Hill's Pet Nutrition)


In New Zealand, 10 healthy dogs had a tube surgically implanted into their stomachs and were then 'fed' a formula, designed for humans, directly by the tube, wither intermittently or in small continuous amounts, for 10 days. (supported by Ralston Purina)

In the UK Mars PetCare carries out animal testing at the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition. In 1997 Waltham claimed to have carried out studies on over 25 breeds of dogs. These ranged from Yorkshire terriers to Irish wolfhounds. Some of the dogs were even purchased from outside breeders registered with the Kennel Club - breeds included beagles, Labrador retrievers and large munsterlanders.

Waltham claims its experiments are non-invasive. However, the procedures carried out have the potential to cause suffering or distress, and like experimental tools, cats and dogs may be repeatedly subjected to them over a number of years.

For example:

the forced isolation of dogs for at least 24 hours & sometimes longer - dogs are highly sociable animals

endoscopy (tissue samples taken from the colon via the anus)

giving enemas & inserting flexible tubes into the colon

application of a skin irritant

frequent changes in diet - dietary changes can cause digestive distress

regular anaesthetics - in 1998 one dog was anaesthetised 5 times in 13 weeks

taking blood samples

plucking 50 hairs from the base of the tail
In one test 6 'sensitive' (known to be sensitive to diet) and 6 'robust' dogs were given a food known to cause diarrhoea in the 'sensitive' dogs. While sedated, the dogs were then given an enema and dialysis bags made of flexible tubing were manually inserted through the rectum.
Waltham supported one researcher at Bristol University in an experiment where cats were kept isolated in a plastic chamber 30x45x30cam for 6 hours or longer. Each cat underwent this procedure 4 times, once whilst fully conscious.

Prior to granting a licence to experiment, UK legislation dictates that the Home Office shall weigh the likely adverse effects on the animals concerned against the benefit likely to accrue as a result of the experiment. The BUAV believes that the granting of licences for pet food companies cannot be justified under this cost/benefit assessment.

Furthermore, some of the individual researchers who had sabbaticals at or collaborated with Waltham, have performed much more severe tests, often funded by other pet food companies.

Michelle Thew, BUAV Chief Executive, says:
"It is outrageous for animals to suffer in tests carried out or funded by commercial pet food companies. Just like the happy looking cats and dogs portrayed in pet food advertising, all companion animals should be treated with respect, free from any deliberately inflicted suffering. Pet owners will be shocked to discover that behind closed doors, these same companies are prepared to inflict suffering in order to sell their products."