Are you implying that people will fraudulently claim their pets were harmed by the food and file to get play money? I really doubt that people affected by this are happily and frivolously dreaming of IPODS and LCD screens.

And I think anyone with evidence that their pet even ATE this food at ALL regardless of damage should qualify. They all were endangered, everyone worried, everyone ran their pets in for tests, etc. (I was fortunate not to be feeding any affected brands).

This is what they should do -- cover everything . It's all futile though unless they change how they do things to make sure it doesn't happen again.

My Krista used to eat those Nutro packets almost every day. It's only by the grace of God she didn't get sick, especially considering that the month before the recall she had to have a broken tooth extracted and couldn't eat dry food at all for almost two weeks.

It cost about $90 for labwork at the vet's to make sure her kidneys weren't damaged. I will certainly seek reimbursement for that.

We need our government to step up and insure (to the best of its ability) that food for animals and people is safe...oh yes and toys for children, too. It's too bad that making money is the priority.

Why wouldn't somebody make up a claim to get free money? Look at all the fraud that is still going on with hurricane Katrina...

$900 probably will come reasonably close to covering our expenses, (though I suspect I've managed to misplace a fair number of the lesser invoices over the past sixteen months).

However, in all fairness, this has nothing to do with $900 being a reasonable figure and everything to do with the fact that our (extraordinarily kind and generous) vet basically ate any profit she could (and should) have potentially made off T's untimely encounter with a tainted Menu product. (T spent five days in the hospital on IV fluids- engaging in copious amounts of "cursing" at the techs, nonetheless- and I think I was charged for one of them... if that. I don't think we were charged for any of the many exams he's received, either.)

If we'd been forced to take him to the emergency clinic, our bill would have easily run into the thousands within a day or so... and $900 would have been a joke.

At the height of the recall, there was a sweet elderly man whose appointments always seemed to coincide with T's. The feral colony he was caring for had been decimated, and all five of his cats had been poisoned. Two had died, and the others weren't doing well. (As the weeks passed I came to dread bumping into him in the waiting area, as he would always inquire as to how T was doing, and I could tell that it pained him to watch my cat recovering while his were not.) He was operating on a fixed income, and the expenses must have been brutal. $900 a year and a half after the fact is not going to help him... (and I'm sure he must have been given every freebie the office could possibly manage as well).

While I'll be pleased to finally receive some form of reimbursement, Menu will never be able to give me what I really want. They'll never be able to restore T to what he was prior to my decision to bring home that fateful "treat" on 3/14/07. They can't assure me that he will live a normal life. (Has he really made a full recovery, or just recovered enough kidney function to eke out a normal result on the blood panel? Will he live to be fifteen, or lapse back into renal failure at five?) And what of the thousands who didn't make it?

Clearly this settlement will never be enough to do those affected by the recall justice. I can only hope that it's enough to make pet food companies and their suppliers think twice before cutting potentially dangerous corners in the future. (The cynic in me suspects that this won't be the case, but I'm trying to exercise a little optimism.)

Bah.