Total Recall

Oh how I hate my job on days like today. I opened this morning, which was bad enough in its self. I started to get sick Friday night, and wasn't really feeling too great this morning.

I was there by myself, when the local newspaper called me to ask if I knew of any pets who were sick from the recent food contamination. I had no idea what the lady was talking about, but I didn't want to look stupid. I told her I didn't. She wanted me to call her back with any names if I heard of anyone. She wanted to do an interview with them. Right, because I can legally give out names of people without their permission.

Anyhow, the day started, and I forgot about the call. Then, we got another call. This time from one of the local TV stations wanting to interview the doctor for the news. She agreed, and I remembered that I wanted to ask what was going on.

For those not familiar, there is a huge recall on certain types of dog and cat food. Most major brands have been affected by it. Apparently, something was put in with the fillers that can cause kidney failure. Not a good thing. Especially when the animals start to die, as has happened with some of them.

Anyhow, the paper ran a story on it today. What was great about it was that they were quick to list all the brands of food, and how deadly it can be, but they didn't print the phone number people were supposed to call with questions. We spent the day talking to every owner of every sick pet in the area today.

At first, I tried to be nice. What bothered me was that everyone who read the paper seemed to pick up on the fact that in a few cases, the mess up turned deadly. What no one noticed is that it has to be canned food or food in pouches. About 90% of the people had nothing to worry about because they either hadn't fed the tainted brands or were feeding hard food. It got really old, really fast. Especially when I had to listen to people describe their pet's diarrhea to me in detail for more times then I care to count, and my job isn't even to answer the phones.

As it turned out, the doctor didn't need to do her interview today. The news was able to find a local woman who's cat was on the verge of death from eating bad food, and decided her story was more informative then going with an educated person who actually could tell people what to look for and what types of food were compromised. What struck me as being the most funny about changing the interview was that there have been 10 confirmed cases in which a pet actually died in the US from this. The odds that this lady's cat was actually going to die from eating this food were slim to none. That doesn't stop the news from spreading its propaganda to the masses though. Whatever makes for good TV.