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SECRET SALE!!
And By The Way, Happy Valentines Day!
We’ve almost made it to spring! What a tough winter this has been, and we're all just hoping that we’re done with the worst of it and can enjoy the budding flowers and trees! We have so many reasons to be grateful at Green Dog right now, and almost all of them have to do with you, our customers. (Did you know - gratefulness is not just “nice”, it turns out that it’s important for managing depression. According to the book “The Upward Spiral”, MRI studies have shown that even casting about in your mind for what you might be grateful for shifts your brain chemistry away from depression.)
We won Spot Magazine’s Reader Poll for Best Neighborhood Pet Supply Store, and Best Food Consultant! We couldn’t have done it without you, and we are so grateful that you took the time to vote for us.
Our winter coat drive for humans and dogs was a great success. Carloads of hats, scarves, coats for both humans and dogs, sleeping bags and other items were dropped off to us and given to two great organizations (The Pongo Fund and Safe Dogs by the River) who are working on the street and can place these items into the hands of people who need them. We are so grateful to you for taking the time to find these much needed items in your homes and bring them to us.
We loaded 442 pounds of food into the cars of volunteers from The Feral Cat Coalition, to be shared with people who are trapping and bringing feral cats in for spay and neuter surgeries. We are grateful to them for their hard work on behalf of feral cats, and also of course to those of you that purchased bags to donate. Soon, we’ll be able to order the 3000+ pounds of food that you helped us raise for The Pongo Fund. Woo Hoo!
We also want to thank the people who came out and bought gift certificates to help us through some tight times after the snow and ice storms. It’s an amazing feeling when you reach out and people respond. We’re so grateful for our community.
To that end, we feel like it’s time for a Secret Sale! This Saturday, February 18 from 10-6, please come in and take 15% off all regularly priced items that aren’t pet food. For those of you that are new to the list, Secret Sales are just that - they are a way for us to thank you, our regular customers, for your business. We don’t advertise these sales to the public, so you have to mention the sale at the register to get the discount. It’s a great time to stock up and save on products that you know you’ll need, like supplements, treats and chews, and it’s also a great time to get that bed you’ve had your eye on, or a pretty new collar and leash set for spring. (Pet food is what you would put in their bowl. Other edible things like treats and chews are all on sale). See you Saturday!
Please see the article at the bottom of this newsletter for Evanger’s information. We are removing this brand from our store
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| Thanks for sending your great dogs in the snow photos! We always love to see photos of your pets enjoying life or one of our products. Keep them coming!!
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| | FUN RUN!!!Foot Traffic and Green Dog are teaming up for a Fun Run in the neighborhood for people and dogs on Saturday March 4th, to benefit Dove Lewis’ Stray animal and Wildlife Fund. Dove Lewis describes the purpose of this fund: “Dove Lewis is always open and never turns away injured or ill stray animals or wildlife. Hundreds of injured strays, lost pets and hurt wild animals come to Dove Lewis from county shelters, Good Samaritans, police officers, and firefighters each year. We also regularly care for injured wildlife when the Audubon Society is closed in the evening. It is not uncommon for the cost of emergency treatment for lost, stray, and wild animals to rise above $200,000 every year. And thanks to our generous donors, we are here 24/7 for stray animals and wildlife needing emergency care.”
The details are not quite ready to share, but route will start at Foot Traffic in the morning (likely 9am) and be somewhere between 2 and 3 miles long with several potential stops along the way, ending at Green Dog. We will be giving every dog that participates a free ice cream and each participant will get a free entry into our prize raffle. More details will follow, but please tell your friends to put March 4th aside for this event! You can walk or run the course, and there will be no rules as to whether you complete the whole course, but we hope you will join us that day for this fun event for a good cause. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for details! We will definitely have signs up in the store and posts on social media. |
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OTHER NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS
Beeswing Cafe- A Longtime neighborhood pub proprietor has teamed with two local restaurant veterans to open a breakfast and lunch spot at the intersection of Cully Boulevard and Skidmore Street in the Cully neighborhood. Looks Yummy
Portland Trail Blazers Basketball, Hawaiian Style!
On February 28th from 4-7pm, Pride Financial will be hosting a fun event at Noho's on Fremont. Dinner will be provided while you watch the Trailblazers face off against the Detroit Pistons! RSVP by Feb 21st or ask questions at 503.828.9447 or email info@pridefinancialpartners.com
Repair Cafe and Fix-it Fair
On Feb. 25. 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. volunteers will be fixing small appliances and mending garments. Pre-registration is encouraged, but not required. No bike repair at this event. Visit www.repairpdx.org for more info. Madison High School, 2735 N.E. 82nd Ave Note: this event also includes an amazing array of free lectures/workshops on many topics, such as Home Emergency Kits on a Budget, Clear the Clutter to Refresh Your Space, Home Repairs for Aging in Place, Resources for Living on a Budget, Seed Saving Basics, Creating Parking Strips for Bees, and more. See list here
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Evanger’s Canned Foods
I apologize for the length of this article, but I think it’s important stuff, and hopefully addresses many of the questions you may have about the recent Evanger’s dog food recall and the concerning events preceding it.
When we first announced that we were pulling Evanger’s off of our shelves, one of our customers asked us a question. She asked, “I’ve been cooking food for my dog more and more because I assume the worst of what would be considered "pet food" grade. I am super skeptical of pet food labels because my understanding is there aren't really any regulations for pet food. Isn't pet food all unregulated?”
Our answer to this question: “Yes and and no - it's complicated actually. There are definitely laws in place to protect the safety of our pets, but many of them are not enforced by agencies like the FDA. (They in fact have laws like the one that disallows the use of animals that died by any other means than by slaughter, like death from disease, or euthanasia using drugs like pentobarbital, but in their very own guidelines it also says that if these materials are found to be used in pet food it will not be actionable). I would also hazard a guess that regulation and enforcement are likely to in fact decrease for the large corporations involved in pet food manufacturing during the course of our current administration, further protecting the giant corporations that rely on these ingredients to keep their prices low.
So you're right in a way, which is actually a big reason we opened the store. We wanted to make a place where we did the homework so people could feel comfortable choosing products without having to worry so much. I’ll admit, it’s challenging.
Though there are many problems with commercial pet food, the good news is that there are good companies who put animal health first, who value transparency, and who choose additional voluntary 3rd party inspections and other safety measures because it's the right thing to do. We try to find these companies. We have strict criteria for the quality of the foods we sell, and when we feel a company is no longer meeting it we take action. For example, when we found out Castor and Pollux was sometimes substituting farmed salmon for wild in their "Organix" line, we spoke to the president about why we felt it was inappropriate and misleading to consumers to present a food item as being organic and free of dangerous ingredients while using farmed salmon (which can contain carcinogenic PCBs, antibiotics, and other dangerous substances, as well as being highly polluting to the environment). They didn't listen, so we dropped them. They also lied to New Seasons (a big account with a no farmed salmon policy) about the percentage of farmed salmon they were using, giving them different information than what was told to us. We were not surprised when Castor and Pollux ended up being purchased by Nestle Purina - not exactly a small batch operation.
There are, however, some good companies out there. Look in the freezers next time you're in and read those ingredients!”
Well, I’m here to tell you that we’ve found ourselves at another one of these crossroads. To be very honest, this is not the first time we have had concerns about Evanger’s. In 2008, the FDA ordered Evanger’s Dog & Cat Food Co. Inc. to obtain an emergency operating permit after an FDA inspection uncovered “…significant deviations from prescribed documentation of processes, equipment, and record keeping …”. Evanger’s insisted this wasn’t true - telling us that this was miscommunication, saying, “The FDA news release is highly inaccurate and misleading. Evanger’s Dog and Cat Food Company is not under emergency permit and is currently manufacturing and distributing its products worldwide with FDA approval”. Turns out that was a lie. They were made to fix their records and get their permit back. Later there was a very bad discovery by the FDA when DNA tests of two flavors of cans showed that they didn’t contain the species that were on the label. We should have dropped them at the time, but it was hard to know what to believe when they again disputed the FDA’s findings, saying their own independent lab in fact found there to be duck in the cans; this turns out to be another “alternative fact”. We’re only now finding out that they had in fact submitted an entirely different duck canned product for testing than what was tested by the FDA. We regret not discontinuing their products at the time, but their fraudulent lab results and indignation were convincing at the time and FDA did announce that the problem was resolved. There were later complaints of filth outside of the plant, but they had many excuses and claims of unfair treatment due to conflicts with the city. We were going to get out then, but they had started construction of a brand new plant - we heard fantastic things about what that was going to be like, and that would clear up any conflicts with the city or doubts about the old site. It didn’t sound like it was going to be long. We were wrong. In the meantime it was very hard to address what were essentially rumors, when they had such a good list of third party inspections, etc. There was even an arrest of one of the owners for some ethically very bad behavior concerning the way their facility was being run and for bribing a witness. Holy cow. But still, they achieved another round of third party inspections and certifications, which we have to rely on to help us make these decisions, and we decided to base the decision on the data available about the safety measures in place, not on rumors. We swore that if we ever had cause in the future to question the integrity of the food, we’d be out in a hot second. We did have a few reasons to continue with Evanger’s, but the biggest complication and the reason that we’ve tried so hard to work with them and to focus on the good things is the difficulty of finding replacements for those cans. Many of our customers rely on these cans for their price point that is hard to match while still using human quality ingredients. It seems that other foods in the same price category come from companies we really don’t trust and are most likely sourcing condemned meat (think grocery store brands), and/or using legal ingredients that we just don’t allow (by-products, carageenan, soy, beet pulp, wheat, farmed fish, etc etc.) Simple formulas with human quality ingredients are very hard to come by. Having a good price point makes it impossible it seems.
Unfortunately, the worst kind of news has happened. There was a report in early January that 4 dogs had consumed Evanger’s Hunk of Beef canned food (something we’ve never carried) and become ill, and one of them (“Talula") died. The owner had a necropsy done at Michigan State on the dog that died and its stomach contents showed very high levels of pentobarbital, a euthanasia drug. Granted, as Evanger’s says, there were no other reports of illness associated with this food (though consumers so often do not report problems linked to food to food manufacturers or the FDA and a vet would never think to test for pentobarbital in a dog that vomits or appears woozy, so any illness would simply be written off as one of those unexplainable events). We were super disappointed that there were accusations against the people reporting the owner’s necropsy results as using “fear tactics” and of being conspiracy theorists. We decided not to wait for the FDA test results to get out of dealing with this company, but this just in: In fact, Food Safety News spoke to a FDA spokesperson who said that “testing carried out in the agency’s Forensic Chemistry Center and Vet-LIRN labs detected pentobarbital in Talula’s stomach contents, in an open can of food collected from the dog’s owner, and in closed cans of food collected from the dog’s owner and from the retail location where the food had been purchased”.
We’ve of course decided to discontinue the Evanger’s brand of canned foods, and our apologies go out to you that it has taken this long for us to do it. We are here to help you during this transition, and there are in fact some good options in our current inventory for many of the formulas that will be missing. We are working hard to find more options for suitable replacements (there may be good news on the horizon from both First Mate and Nutrisource - we’ll keep you posted), and we are always here to answer any questions you may have.
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| | | | Located in Beaumont Village 4327 NE Fremont Street, Portland, Oregon 97213
Telephone: 503-528-1800
© 2007 - 2015 Green Dog Pet Supply. Green Dog Pet Supply® is a Registered Trademark. |
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