Products: Food for Naught

Happiness may be a warm puppy. But too many puppies do not always bring happiness. Now, Carnation has a simple solution for people worried about having a population explosion in the family kennel: contraception in a can. The California company last week asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve its Extra Care Birth Control Dog Food. The product contains the drug ; mibolerone, which when consumed daily prevents the onset of estrus in female dogs. Says Carnation Spokeswoman Barbara Royer: “This is an alternative to spaying that is safe, effective, reversible, economical and available to everybody.” The market should be large because half of all female dogs have not been spayed.

Carnation and Upjohn, which makes the drug, said the only side effect they have found in laboratory tests on mature dogs, for whom the product is intended, is a tendency to develop silky coats. Birth control in a can, though, is not yet suitable for cats, since the finicky felines do not eat as regularly as dogs. If the FDA approves Carnation’s application, contraceptive chow will be on pet-food shelves by year’s end.