It's not making the news anymore, but the pet food recalls are continuing.

The latest brands (all dry foods) of dog and cat food to be removed from shelves are products from Doctors Foster & Smith, Shop Rite, Shep, Bulk Lamb and Brown Rice Formula Dog Food, Lick Your Chops Kitten and Cat Food and Evolve Kitten.

And if you've got a friend who's got a ferret, 8 in 1 Ferret Ultra-Brand Advanced Nutrition Diet is also affected.

Go to www.nationalpetfoundation.com for details, and -- if you're still feeding your pet commercial pet food -- sign up for their free, email alert service.

We obviously can't rely on the conventional media to keep us informed concerning this issue. As far as the media is concerned, they've "done" pet food recalls. It's old news. And it will remain old news, unless some film star's dog dies of kidney failure.

This latest recall was initiated by Chenango Valley Pet Foods. Bags of rice protein concentrate supplied to them by Wilbur-Ellis were found to contain melamine. (One of them was actually stencilled, Melamine) Wilbur-Ellis has been importing the concentrate from Binzhou Futian Biology Technology since July 2006 and have already distributed 155 metric tons of the stuff to pet food manufacturers -- who, as it should by now be obvious, are not the companies who advertise and sell the stuff to us.

Have you noticed all the unfamiliar names that have been turning up in the course of this nightmare? Had you ever heard of Chenango Valley Pet Foods? Or Wilbur-Ellis? Or Binzhou Futian Biology Technology? We were brought up to "trust" brand names. Well, it looks as if those days are gone forever.

Much as I hate waste, I've gone ahead and chucked out everything that contains any of these manufactured proteins. Wheat, soy, rice, the lot. And I've gone back to grilling Bao's meat for him every night. It doesn't really take much longer than opening a can of dog food, and surprisingly, it's less expensive. It's also safer.