Describing the idea as "absurd," "insulting," "offensive" and "immoral," officials vehemently rejected the donation for children threatened by famine and said they would put measures in place to prevent any similar assistance.

The would-be donor, Christine Drummond, has told the New Zealand media her donation differed from the pet food, though made with the same ingredients, and she and her children eat it.

"It is immoral, it is unacceptable," said Special Programmes Minister John Munyes, who is coordinating the government's response to the drought that has put up to four million people in the east African nation at risk of starvation.

"I am very much offended, it is in bad taste," he told AFP. "It is unacceptable and we should not even be discussing such a demeaning thing."

"Even if we have famine in this corner of the world, it does not reduce us to dogs," said Colonel Shem Amadi, the head of Kenya's National Operations Centre, an emergency response unit in President Mwai Kibaki's office.

"People from that corner of the world have no respect for some of us," he told AFP.

"Oh no, it is horrible, it is terrible," said Khadija Abdalla, head of the Garrisa Provincial Hospital in one of the worst-hit areas of northeast Kenya where at least 40 people have died since December of drought-related causes.

"It is insulting us because we are poor," she told AFP.

"We appreciate when people are willing to help us, but they should be sensitive about our culture," said government spokesman Alfred Mutua.

"Telling us that you are giving us food for dogs in our culture is an insult of the highest order," he told AFP. "Maybe, she was trying to help, but I hope this offer is a result of naivety."