PET SHOP DREAM VAN PATTEN IS ANIMALS' PAUL NEWMAN.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

PACOIMA - Dick Van Patten, the veteran actor best known as the patriarch of TV's ``Eight is Enough,'' cast a frozen grin as a 450-pound Bengal tiger opened her jaws a whisker length from his still boyish face.

``They can turn on you, cats, they can turn on you just like that,'' said Patten, 74, visibly relieved after the advertising photo shoot at his Natural Balance Pet Foods Inc. in Pacoima.

Not to worry. Asia the tiger had joined the thousands of dogs and cats around the world that feed out of Van Patten's pet food bowl.

Now with an expanding line of zoological food formulas and meat bones made in conjunction with the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, Van Patten has become the Paul Newman of the pet food industry.

``It's exciting, unbelievable,'' said Van Patten, chief executive officer of Natural Balance Pet Foods, with a wide-eyed gaze around the small Pacoima manufacturing plant he and drummer Joey Herrick founded 24 years ago between Whiteman Airport and the San Fernando Gardens apartments.

``We're getting bigger and bigger. It's a fluke, it never should have happened.''

Van Patten, who began acting with his sister, Joyce, when they were children, is recognized by generations of entertainment buffs for roles in 600 radio programs, 27 Broadway plays and films such as ``High Anxiety,'' ``Westworld,'' ``Soylent Green'' and ``Mr. Roberts.''

So how did the former child actor known for his wholesome TV appearances come to manufacture pet food used by the world's top trainers, veterinarians and pet breeders?

Pet shops.

``If I was good each week, my father would take me to a different pet store each Saturday,'' said Van Patten, 74, a native of Queens, N.Y. ``I had a snake, horny toads, turtles, lizards, rabbits, guinea pigs. I had every kind of pet you can imagine, all on the third floor of our house. I kept my alligator in the bathtub until it got too big.''

``We didn't take a bath for years,'' he joked. ``I wanted to raise pets and have a pet shop.''

While appearing on the ``The John Davidson Show,'' Van Patten met Herrick, the show's drummer, who once played with rock singer Chuck Berry.

Herrick mentioned his passion to save dogs - as well as create healthy food for animals. Van Patten revealed his lifelong desire to own a pet shop. A partnership was born.

Their goal: to create the world's healthiest pet grub - minus the preservatives and filler found in some commercial pet food.

Today, bin upon bin of scientifically tested sausage rolls for dogs and cats line their shop like mountains of lamb, beef and turkey wursts. In the back, two mammoth grinders churn out plastic-coated links.

Natural Balance ultra-premium dog and cat foods now compete with high-end kibble in more than 650 Petcos and more than 5,000 independent pet food stores in the United States, Japan, Germany, Israel and Korea, and was last week added to the stock at Whole Foods markets.

Last year, the privately held company sold $30 million worth of pet eats - a result of doubling its earnings each year for five years - and is expected to gross $50 million in 18 months.

Fellow actor Newman is known for his salad dressings and popcorn. He donates profits from those products to charity.

Van Patten's product is ``our kind of food,'' said Nancy Kern, editor in chief of Whole Dog Journal, an independent tester of dog products that for five years has listed Natural Balance in its list of healthiest pet grub. ``Natural Balance basically doesn't have any of the things that we don't like, and a lot of the things we do like.''

But it was the Natural Balance entry into the zoological animal kingdom that has made it the choice of lions, tigers, bears, California condors, wolves and other exotic animals in zoos across the country. It is also the pick at actress Tippi Hedren's Shambala Preserve in Acton and in Moorpark College's renowned exotic animal training program.

Thirty tons a year of Natural Balance carnivore diets and assorted beef shanks, knuckles, femurs, ribs and neck bones, plus 20 cases of dog food, are delivered to the San Diego Zoo, according to zoo officials. An additional 36 tons goes to the Wild Animal Park.

The diet, developed by zoo nutritionists and manufactured by Natural Balance, was the result of the first partnership between a pet food company and the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. Natural Balance also endowed the first postgraduate training program in the United States for zoo nutrition to begin this fall at the San Diego Zoo.

``We couldn't be happier with our relationship with New Balance,'' said Mark Edwards, director of zoo nutrition for the Zoological Society of San Diego, which operates the 100-acre zoo and 1,800-acre animal park.

``They've really stepped up working with us during the research and development phase, and really helped us tweak the diet.''

Next month, Van Patten and Herrick will debut a zoo-tested sausage for snakes that could forever alter the gruesome task of dropping rodents into terrariums housing writhing serpents.

``Pretty soon, you'll be able to go to pet stores and not have to buy live mice, which is pretty disgusting,'' said Herrick. ``Now you can toss him a sausage, he can wolf it right down.''

For Van Patten, who with his wife will soon celebrate 50 years of marriage at the one-acre compound in Sherman Oaks where they've raised three sons, it couldn't get any better.

``It really is a life's dream,'' said the honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, his blue eyes dancing. ``I never thought it would get this big.'' Then again, he added, ``I never thought 'Eight is Enough' could be that big a hit, either.''

Dana Bartholomew,[phone]

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Actor Dick Van Patten feeds Asia the tiger at his pet food factory in Pacoima. He supplies zoos and wild animal parks.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer