Consumer Affairs is reporting more news on Nutro…
A series of mysterious illness and death dogs Nutro pet food. Scores of pet owners report their animals became ill while eating Nutro products, then recovered when they were switched to another brand.
At least six dogs have died in the past two months, according to an analysis of complaints to ConsumerAffairs.com. The company discounts the reports, saying they are isolated and unconfirmed; at least one Nutro employee, sickened by the company’s response, told us she resigned.
In related developments, ConsumerAffairs.com has learned:
• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently investigated the April deaths of two dogs in Indiana. The FDA tested samples of the Nutro food those dogs ate, but did not find any toxins. No one, however, has tested the Nutro food the other dogs ate before they died;
• A pet nutrition specialist for Nutro confirmed she’s heard complaints about the company’s food making dogs and cats sick. She reported those concerns to her supervisor, but said they were ignored. She recently resigned;
• There is a shortage of some varieties of Nutro dog food. The company says this is a supply problem – not a safety or quality issue;
• Some consumers have sent their pets’ food to Nutro for testing. They have not received any results. Other pet owners plan to hire private labs to test their food and report their concerns to the FDA and the Animal Poison Control Center run by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Read more here.
Pet owners are adamant that it’s the food causing their otherwise healthy pets to become sick and die. Nutro, on the other hand, says there’s nothing wrong with their food.
This might be worth reading if you feed your pets Nutro.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh .. my.. gawd…
we are raw feeders but we occassionally keep a little kibble on hand. (it’s good for training treats and the occasional “I don’t feel like getting raw turkey under my fingernails” days).
We got a free bottle of Nutro from the pet store. We fed some to Qay..
she had horrible diarrhea the next day.. never occurred to me that it might have been the kibble… until we gave it to her a few days later and she had diarrhea again. We figured it was just too rich for her….
I feel very very lucky.
I realize that Nutro may think it would be “bad press” to admit anything could be wrong with their food but at this point, I do think they should address it more seriously than they have. By dismissing ALL the complaints with one broad brush “lies on the internets”, they really do look suspicious.
For example, if Nutro has conducted independent lab testing on a bunch of samples, why not publish those results? That would be a little more substantive to me than their claims of pesky bloggers spreading misinformation.
This morning i brought my 5 month old puppy to the vet because she was lethargic. She had to be put to sleep. I found the hundreds of complaints yesterday regarding Nutro and what it was doing to animals all over. We tried to feed her something else yesterday but she immediately vomited it up. They will perform an autopsy and tell us what caused her to become so ill so quickly. ALL of her symptoms were identical to those I read about regarding what some people found when they fed their dogs Nutro. Although I cannot directly blame Nutro for my pet’s death, I have a hard time reading releases and not affirming them. I think there is a big problem with that dog food.
I am so sorry to hear about your puppy, and I know your heart must feel completely shattered right now. Sadly, you’re not alone with your loss due to food, if in fact that’s what caused it. It’s a very sad day indeed and my heart goes out to you.
Sad Day, I am very sorry for your loss, I know you are heartbroken. If you are up to it, when you find out the results of the necropsy, if you could share it, maybe it could be helpful. Again my thoughts and prayers are with you during your difficult time.
Nutro has been around for years and has always been an excellent product. But I remember opening a new bag of food and the color was darker. The Nutro rep told me they had made changes to the ingredients. That was a few months ago and it seems to be about the time the complaints started.
We have 30 rescued cats (20 ferals) and 4 dogs. We started using Nutro last fall for both the dogs and cats.
We took several cats in for annual exams this year and they’d lost a couple pounds. Our vet was happy because they were on the porky side and needed to lose a little. But Nemo, one of the ferals has been steadily losing weight and we were going to have blood work done on him to see what was wrong. We had been finding bloody stools in the litter pan and thought it might be him. It started to worry me when we took a couple cats in that didn’t need to lose weight and they, too, had lost a couple pounds. We also had several cats that were losing the shine to their fur. And our cats were no longer were running to the food bowls when it was feeding time. I found I was throwing food out at the end of the day because they just weren’t eating it!
Well, amazingly, the cats acted like starving strays when I switched to Eukanuba! No more bloody stool in the litter pans, fur shiny again, and Nemo is eating like he hasn’t eaten in months! He’s already filling out!
The problem with our cats and dogs is we were seeing different symptoms in them that appeared to be other conditions so we didn’t connect it to the food. Max, our Pit Bull, was very ill for 2 weeks after we tried Nutro’s Lamb and Rice. Our vet said it was gastritis caused by something he got into and we put him on meds and boiled hamburg and rice. When we started the Nutro Lamb again, he immediately started with vomiting and diarrhea. We took Max off the food thinking he just couldn’t handle the lamb. The other dogs were fine so we didn’t realize it was the food until Tazz, our German Shepherd, became very sick after Max recovered. We switched to Nutro’s Large Breed.
They seemed to be ok on that formula. But Max started having stool problems. Soft, then hard, then soft. Our vet thought because of his age that he might need meds if it continued. Kaiser, another German Shepherd, was having to urinate 10 times a night. If we didn’t get to the door fast enough, he’d urinate in the kitchen. We were going to get him in for tests. Tazz started to act disorientated and very unsteady on her feet. Tazz has arthritis and we know we’re on borrowed time with her but she acted drunk. Jada, another German Shepherd, and Tazz started eating grass. And they all were drinking lots of water especially the dogs after they ate.
We switched to Eukanuba dog food. The first night after changing food – Kaiser slept all night instead of whining and pacing! When the
other dogs went out, I had to wake him up to go! Tazz is brighter and though she’s stiff when she gets up, she’s not acting drunk! Max is having normal stools! Jada has stopped eating grass! AND they’re drinking normal amounts of water now – not guzzling water like they were dying of thirst. No more vomiting, no more diarrhea, fur is shiny again.
When there is weight loss in EVERY animal in a household, then something is wrong! We’ve been off Nutro for two weeks and every symptom we were seeing is GONE! I thank God we switched before we lost any of our precious babies!
It breaks my heart to read these stories of lost pets. Something is wrong and we all need answers! The stories I’ve read on http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/nutro.html have alarmed me terribly! I will never use Nutro again!
ON 08-08-08 I SUBMITTED A LETTER ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCE WITH NUTRO PET FOODS AND THE PROBLEMS ALL OF OUR CATS AND DOGS EXPERIENCED. I URGE YOU ALL TO CONTACT THE FDA AS I HAVE DONE TODAY. EMAIL OR WRITE TO PETCO, PETSMART AND ANY STORE THAT SELLS NUTRO PRODUCTS. WE NEED ANSWERS AND THE ONLY WAY WE’RE GOING TO STOP ANIMALS FROM GETTING SICK AND DYING IS IF WE RAISE AWARENESS AND GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS. MY HEART GOES OUT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO HAS LOST A BELOVED PET.
http://www.fda.com
OR WRITE:
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857
PET FOOD PRODUCT SAFETY ALLIANCE DID TESTS ON TWO SAMPLES OF NUTRO FOOD AND POSTED ON AUGUST 14th, 2008. THE RESULTS WERE HIGH LEVELS OF COPPER AND ZINC. The symptoms are consistent with the majority of those reported by consumers suspecting problems believed to be associated with feeding Nutro dry dog food.
http://www.pfpsa.org/news.html
Here’s a link on zinc toxicity in dogs:
http://www.vet.uga.edu/vpp/clerk/Hardy/