There are actually 7 diseases which are classified as sponigiform encephalopathies. Scrapie in sheep and goats, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or "Mad Cow Disease") in cattle, transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME), chronic wasting disease (CWD) in elk and deer, kuru, familial insomnia, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. Scrapie, TME, CWD, and CJD have all been reported here in the US. Plus TME has been shown to be infectious to ferrets in an experimentally setting. Most of the pet foods use chicken and/or fish as the protein source, so mad cow disease should not be a problem. Plus mad cow disease has not been reported here in the US. Hope that clears things up, Jerry Murray, DVM [Posted in FML issue 3411]