Q. How can I know if my pet’s food is safe?

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A. The melamine incident was a fluke, and as long as a company is making efforts to be sure something like that doesn’t happen again and is transparent about their ingredients sources, pet food is fine. If you’re using commercial pet food, you should read labels and talk to the pet store to make sure that they’re paying attention to these issues. Some stores and brands are very clear if they’re taking responsibility. They’re changing suppliers, examining and improving the quality of ingredients, testing ingredients and building laboratories. On some companies’ websites they tell you what they did. And if they don’t tell you, you can be as suspicious as you want.

I think pet owners should insist on a better regulatory system, national standards, labels that say where ingredients come from and nutrition information.