This would be a great panel!

Excellent idea!

Great Idea hopefully just in time

Great Idea hopefully just in time

This is a wonderful idea!

The Michael Vick case how demonstrated the interest and the strength of 'dog people'. Bloggers are vital to this cause. Texas should lead the way!

Go get 'em Christie! Without the various bloggers of Pet Connection, Itchmo, Howl911 and more, those of us who love our own dogs, and those of use who have double duty in selling pet foods were able to help our own friends, relatives and customers keep up to date. I can't imagine how many lives they may have saved, and how much incredible information the bloggers dug up well before any news media took the time to do the leg work!

A great idea!

A great idea!

Please add this panel. For many of us these are the only truly important sites in blog-land!

Terrific idea !

While dreadful, the pet food disaster and the attendant publicity that it got was an amazing example of what can be accomplished through online connections. While it is always just a few people who drive an issue, there are many of us out here who are paying attention and want to know the details. Christie and a others have done a remarkable job of setting up an online mechanism where people who have been affected by this can report their experience. The response was so overwhelming that the 'pet food disaster' could not be swept under the bureaucratic carpet.

The implications for other important issues are breathtaking. It just takes a few very dedicated individuals, and this extremely powerful tool, the internet.

This is a great idea!

Excellent panel idea. Blogs brought this to MSM.

val foley,
i am new to this and just want to say thank you to all who have made this possiable.people that love their pets are a force that will and can make change.

Thank you, Christie and others on this panel. You have made a difference in making sure the truth be told

Great panel idea!

This is a wonderful idea. After losing one of our pets to the poisoned foods, it was petconnection.com and the others that I turned to in order to try to keep my other pets safe.

A united front to make our pets' lives safer and make pet owners more aware of what is endangering our pets. Blog it!

Great idea. Pet Connection and Itchmo were invaluable life-savers during the pet food recall.

Because of the internet and bloggers, we get information at lighting speed. Just think how many other dogs and cats would have died if we waited for the FDA. Hooray Bloggers!

This is an important story. Bloggers have kept the pet food recall issues from being swept under the rug by the FDA and pet food manufacturers. They are keeping the heat on while recalls continue to occur. The issues go way beyond pet food and open our eyes to how corporate greed is sickening us all. As Margaret Mead said: A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

The bloggers were a better source than any other. National TV hardly mentioned it after two stories.

My cats are my kids. No one would let this travesty go if it was a case of poisoned baby food, but if it hadn't been for bloggers (especially Itchmo), this issue would not have had as much momentum and coverage. This issue needs to live on and should be a part of SXSW.

I was in the middle of a move to a new state when the pet food recall happened. Several of the "premium" brand foods that I switched to ended up on the recall list. I was very lucky that my two kids were ok. If it hadn't been for sites like Itchmo and Pet Connection warning us as soon as the foods were recalled I hate to think of what could have happened. Something has to be done to clean up not only our pets food but our food as well. For some reason the government and media don't seem too concerned. They can keep pretending it didn't happen but we are not going to drop this until changes are made.

Great panel and thanks to these Itchmo bloggers, they got the word out when it was not even on the news and hopefully saved many pets' lives.

Fabulous idea. Itchmo saved countless pet's lives this Spring during the pet food recall. I turned to them daily for updates and recalls and will be eternally grateful for their leadership!

Itchmo - wonderful. Not just the news about pet food recalls but also the implications of the recalls and follow ups. anyone with pets should stop by before serving the daily food ration to their pets. I'm sure they have saved many lives. AND...they have loads of new writers on pet issues - philosophical, political, funny, and practical

superb site. I check it daily.

I read and recommend Itchmo daily to family, friends and everyone I meet online. No better source of updated information anywhere on the web.

Great idea!

great site ! alway looking out for our furbabies. I love it !
everyone should read this site .

An absolute neccessity for people who love their pets, would be lost without it. Highly informative. Itchmo has been the website to find info that nobody else has. Please add this panel, it's a voice for the animals.

It's an excellent idea. Pet Connection and Itchmo and others were there from the beginning of pet recalls. They have continued to keep us informed on all the latest news.

it's really important that the pet bloggers participate in a panel. their insight would prove valuable as well as entertaining to SXSW attendees.

Sites such as Itchmo, Petconnections etc. Have been a godsend to me and other "Furbaby" partents. Through these sites I found much needed help on an illness of a furbaby with liver disease that my vet could not provide. If vets aren't going to go through the "trouble" of keeping up-to-date on happenings and alternative meds. and diets for sick furbabies sites like these will guide us parents. The mainstream news media don't begin to dig and report fully. When was the last time you heard about the recall on the "Nightly News"? I read about it just TODAY, 25 Aug 07, on Itchmo!!! One big heart felt thankyou Itchmo!!!

The corporately consolidated media fears bloggers because we report the real deal, *not* the government approved, corporately sponsored, fairly tale spin jobs. Power to the bloggers and even more power to the pet blogs. We are the future of reporting and with every traditional paper media outlet that loses revenue, they *know* it. Keep up the good work, bloggers and continue holding the government/corporate criminals feet to the fire to make them accountable. Americans are longer asleep at the wheel.

Great Idea!

Go go Itchmo and Pet Connection! Without them, we'd not know about the Chinese product taints and why our pets were and some still are dropping like flies. Consider them like canaries in the mines - a warning of the environment turning bad.

Great panel idea! PetConnection and Itchmo were my primary sources of info on the pet food recall--after a friend had one dog die and another in intensive care for weeks. Their live blogging of the weekly fda press briefing was classic. Perfect panel for anyone interested in the power of bloggers/citizen journalists and their impact on corporate America. This one would pack the house.

If our government and it's representatives were stand up people unafraid to go up against big business, lobbyists and woefully inadequate gov't agencies and telling the American people the TRUTH, which they gravely lack, we wouldn't need sites like Pet Connection and Itchmo doing their job for them. If you want the TRUTH you will get nothing less if you have Pet Connection and Itchmo on this panel.

Without these wonderful pet bloggers, many of us would have had no idea about the pet food recall in the early days as the mainstream media largely ignored the issue.

We also counted on them to keep us abreast of what was safe to feed our pets.

This is an excellent idea and about the only genuine help pet owners are getting from anywhere you'd expect help. Media dropped it. FDA releases recalls when the investigations are "closed" instead of when it occurs.. Darling International & Alltech, for example.

That brings up the fact that contaminated minerals are also being imported with "safe" declarations - similar to ChemNutra.

There has to be something in common with the grain & nograin pet foods making animals ill/dying - and it's not the wheat flour. Look at the supplements & premixes, please!!!!

great idea during the pet food crisis the information from the pet bloggers was invaluable.

I can't think of a more important panel than this, in light of the pet food crisis. Pet Connection and Itchmo undoubtedly saved many pet's lives.
The FDA certainly isn't keeping us informed, we need these bloggers that care enough about pets to do this.

Pet Food Recall = Blogging Coming of Age

What an amazing demonstration of free speech when those who most benefit from the "billion dollar pet business as usual" industrial complex tried to desperately keep the lid on.

Things will never be quite the same hopefully. Even our little website at PETitionz.org has heard from over 128,000 people from 131 different countries.

As one small indicator of the effect that the blogging effort has had, China is number 3 on our list of most visitors just behind Canada -:)

Huge vote of thanks to everyone who spent their precious time keeping the heat on and to Christie in particular for leading the blogging parade.

Good luck with sxsw - we are fans.

The PETitionz.org Volunteers

The bloggers have been so important to me. I have learned so much, such as what was good food for my cats, how to emotionally cope with all the needless death of animals, what was being done to make the food safer, and most of all what foods I should NOT feed my cats. Even though the Pet Food Industry hated the bloggers, I think the most important consideration should be the welfare of the pets. Hooray to animal lover blogs.

Therese Kopiwoda's website, PetSitUSA, was highly instrumental in helping professional pet sitters across the nation with the unique issues presented by the pet food recalls. Many of us were hard-pressed to advise our clients regarding their pet food, and they didn't know where to turn. Private bloggers sorted through the facts and the fictions that were being circulated on the internet, and helped pet owners to get to the bottom of the issue. These facts helped me in a personal way, as I was able to find unsafe pet foods that some of my clients had in their cupboards and pantries, and warn them that they should not feed them to their pets. In doing so, I may have saved the life of a pet or two. While that may not sound like a huge accomplishment, their owners certainly think it is. Pets are no longer chattel to most people in the U.S. They are family members. By blogging about the pet food recalls, we were able to protect those family members from health issues or even death. I would say that this is a benefit of MAJOR impact, and that blogging cannot be construed as simply a frivolous hobby anymore.