Jonathan Safran Foer, acclaimed author of “Everything is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (both books that I highly recommend) just released his latest book called Eating Animals.

It was an issue he’d never really thought about until he became a father and was responsible for someone else’s food choices. His research led him to understand the inhumanity of factory farming, the environmental impacts, and the effects on human health. People from Dr. Andrew Weil to actress Natalie Portman have been profoundly affected by this book and are blogging about how it’s changed their lives and views.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I think it’s powerful for a number of reasons. For starters, Jonathan Safran Foer has a way with words that’s both accessible and awe-inspiring. But even more important is that this book wasn’t written by someone with an agenda. It wasn’t sponsored by an animal rights organization or penned by a life-long activist. Not that there’s anything wrong with books that fall into those categories, but skeptics tend to approach those volumes with, well, skepticism. It takes a lot of bravery and honesty for someone new to an issue to take it on the way Safran Foer did, and I think that appeals to people who are a bit unsure about the subject. It will be interesting to see how, or if, his fiction audience follows him to this new territory.

 In a CNN column, he said, “I’m a novelist and never had it in mind to write nonfiction. Frankly, I doubt I’ll ever do it again. But the subject of animal agriculture, at this moment, is something no one should ignore. As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.”

“They would take the dogs in the garage during the day and you could hear them fighting.” That would be the garage behind the house that operated a licensed daycare.

When Cook County police raided a Chicago suburban home earlier this week, they found nine dogs in horrible condition and plenty of dog fighting paraphernalia on the property. Inside the home, they also found ten children entrusted to the care of these same people.

Let me make this clear: the problem here is not “pitbulls and children.” The problem is the people who can watch their animals mutilate one another for “entertainment,” who can neglect and abuse them for the hopes of profit, being allowed anywhere near children. There is a well-known (and documented) correlation between the way people treat animals and the way they treat humans. Even if these children were kept completely separate from the dogs, would you trust them to provide compassionate care for your child? Would you want to give them the opportunity to influence your child with their (lack of) moral sense?

The police had received multiple calls in recent years about this house, but were unable to find enough evidence to do much about it (which is, unfortunately, a common problem in prosecuting all sorts of animal abusers).  Odds are, this has been going on for years. This – and many other similar operations that don’t make the news or have yet to be discovered – is not some Michael Vick fad. The general public may not have known much about dogfighting before the Vick story, but it’s not a new thing and it has never been confined to some comfortable demographic of supposedly obvious suspects, like drug dealers and convicts.

This is an unfortunate truth-is-stranger-than-fiction moment. Many of my beta readers have questioned some of the characters associated with dogfighting in my novel – Would there really be parents and professionals at a dog fight? Wouldn’t the protagonist know if an acquaintance was into such a thing? All the dogfighting references in my book that have taken people by surprise do not add up to the facts of this latest bust to hit the news.

We all spend a lot of time and money to keep our pets safe – choosing high quality food, paying attention to recalls, buying the right toys that will keep him entertained and hold up to his teeth (at least for a little while). I mean, you wouldn’t let him chew on block of lead or an arsenic-filled bone any more than you’d let him play in traffic, would you?

But what if, despite all of your good intentions, your dog or cat is surrounded by toxic chemicals in their toys, beds, and collars?

There are no government standards for hazardous chemicals in pet products and, in HealthyStuff.org’s test results on over 400 items, it shows. One-quarter of the toys and nearly half of the collars tested had detectable levels of lead, many of them exceeding the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) limit for children’s products.

The tennis ball you bat around the court is less likely to contain lead than the one you bought at a pet store for your dog to put in his mouth.

Our pets are highly sensitive to chemical exposure. Just about everything in your house sheds chemicals, which become part of the dust that settles on the ground, where your pet sniffs, lays, and has probably eaten a thing or two. Even if your pet doesn’t eat things he shouldn’t (though he was a puppy at some point, so odds are that he has), his toys are designed for chewing. That’s what dogs and cats do. They also groom themselves, directly ingesting the chemical-laden dust.

If they’re in trouble, we’re in trouble…and not just because they’re a part of the family. Are you familiar with the Canary in the Coal Mine? Now there’s the Beagle in the Bedroom, the Siamese in the Sitting Room.

Some people argue that we don’t know exactly what these results mean for the health of our pets – whether the presence of a chemical means there’s exposure, or what the “safe” level might be for different size dogs. There hasn’t been much research done in this area, but bio-monitoring of cats has already shown the exposure to toxic flame retardants is 23x higher than humans.

When there are safe options available, why would we choose to expose our pets and ourselves to toxic chemicals?

What can you do? 

- Check out HealthyStuff.org’s database to help you make smarter shopping decisions and see what’s in your house. In addition to pet supplies, there are children’s products, clothing accessories, even cars. You can also let them know what you think should be tested next.
 

- Though the tags say to throw away a toy once it becomes torn, most of us let our pets destroy their toys until they’re unrecognizable or obviously hazardous. Sometimes the innards of toys hold the worst chemicals, like flame retardants in stuffing or lead in the parts that reinforce tougher toys. So, it might not be a bad idea to pay extra attention to what your critters are putting in their mouths and get rid of toys that have seen better days.
 

- Contact the manufacturers of your favorite products and let them know you want safe products for your furry friend (and let the ones with healthy products know you appreciate them!). The pet industry is huge – it’s our dollars that have gotten it there and it’s our dollars that can impact where it goes next.
 

- Go to the Take Action section of HealthyStuff.org to find out how to contact your elected representatives. You can’t tell just by looking at stuff whether it’s healthy, and Made in the USA isn’t a guarantee either. It’s impossible to test everything on the market and, ultimately, we need stronger laws to get safe products on the shelves.

As pet owners, we’re used to speaking for those who can’t speak for themselves. Now they need us again, so spread the word and stay informed!