The pet food recall is a scandal.

Nobody knows how many dogs and cats have died of kidney failure. Menu Foods says 10. Other sources say thousands. How hard would it be for the appropriate department in each state to contact veternarians, and simply ask how many animals have died within the last month because of kidney failure? This isn't rocket science. Sadly, I suspect the truth is, nobody really wants to know. Except we pet parents, and we don't seem to count.

To make matters worse, it appears that Menu Foods has been -- how shall I put this -- economical with the truth. They became aware of the problem on February 20th, when a number of people lodged complaints saying their dog or cat had died of kidney failure after eating the pet food. But Menu Foods didn't even begin testing their potentially deadly product until February 27th. They waited a whole week. Why?

And how many more pets died during that week?

When Menu Foods finally did conduct tests, which involved feeding the contaminated food to between 40 and 50 cats and dogs, seven of the animals died. Pretty conclusive, I'd say. But apparently Menu Foods didn't think so, because the recall wasn't issued until the middle of March.

Meanwhile, beloved pets continued to die.

Contrast this with Purina, who learned on March 30th that their manufacturing plant in Crete, Nebraska had received some of the contaminated wheat gluten. Purina issued its recall on the same day, March 30th. No stalling. No messing around.

Accidents happen. People make mistakes.

But Menu Foods management knew it had a problem, and these people just sat there while more and more pets succumbed.

That was no accident.

I hope someone sues the pants off them.