David Pang, who said his 6-year-old dog Kuma died after eating tainted pet food, fought back tears yesterday while describing his dog's slow death.

"First, he couldn't eat the dog food, then he couldn't drink water and then he started wasting away," said Pang, a 68-year-old retired flight attendant and coffee farmer who lives in Kailua. "He was my hour-by-hour companion. He protected me and my family. My dog, he died a terrible death. I'm going to miss him for the rest of my life, and there is no amount (of money) that is possible (to replace Kuma)."

Pang is among a group of Hawai'i pet owners whose animals died or were injured who have filed two lawsuits against pet food manufacturer Menu Foods, alleging the company failed to monitor the tainted ingredients being used to manufacture their product.

Two lawsuits were filed in state court yesterday, one on behalf of eight pet owners, six of whom lost their pets after they consumed Eukanuba and Iams pet food tainted with melamine and cyuranic acid, and a class-action suit filed on behalf of more than 2,000 pet food buyers in the state.

The consumer class-action suit seeks the return of the monies spent by consumers for the tainted pet food and the costs of veterinary examinations for any pet that consumed the food.

The personal injury lawsuit filed on behalf of eight pet owners seeks unspecified damages for "pain and suffering."

Both lawsuits name pet-food manufacturer Menu Foods, which makes about 100 brands of dog and cat food, as the defendant.

Calls to the Streetsville, Ontario, company were not immediately returned yesterday.

The suits maintain that food manufactured between Dec. 3 and March 6 is suspected to have been tainted by contaminated wheat flour, mislabeled as wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate. The flour was reportedly purchased by Menu Foods from two sources in China.

Officials suspect melamine and cyuranic acid were mixed into the flour because the nitrogen-rich compounds would make the flour appear to contain additional protein, said Dr. David Acheson, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's assistant commissioner for food protection, in news reports this week.

Melamine is a molecule used to manufacture cooking utensils and has no approved use in human or animal food in the United States. Cyuranic acid is a chemical used in swimming pools.

Menu Foods is facing more than 50 lawsuits in courts across the country.

Menu Foods' recall on March 16 was prompted by reported cases of cats and dogs that developed kidney failure after eating the affected products. The FDA received more than 14,000 such reports in the four weeks following the start of the mid-March recall.

Andrew Garcia, a 36-year-old Hawaiian Electric Co. employee from Wahiawa and one of six plaintiffs who lost a pet, said he seeks some form of restitution for his dog, Bruddah.

"You get so close to them, and the next thing you know (they're dead)," said Garcia, shaking his head. "I'm seeking justice out of this for a lot of people across America and out of America. Somebody has to be accountable."

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.