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PET CARE & SUPPLIES:   Stores & Breeders |  Boarding, Groomers, Vets |  Supplies |  Pet Lemon Laws

Canidae Pet Foods





A statement from Canidae:

September 2008
We apologize to all who have voiced their concerns with our new formulation. Canidae distributed letters to retailers, breeders, updated packaging, and provided in-store signage, however it appears that this message did not reach all of our customers.

The new formulation, with increased levels of meat protein, lowered carbohydrates, and an increased overall complex carbohydrate quality, provides the most nutritious, all natural, palatable products. Canidae never uses soy, corn, wheat, by-products, grain fractions, or fillers in our food.

If you believe your pet has experienced challenges related to the new formula we suggest feeding smaller portions multiple times a day. Adding warm water can decrease the chance of pets eating too quickly and not chewing thoroughly. It’s not unusual for pets to experience some digestive issues when transitioning, but if your problems persist, contact your veterinarian to rule out any underlying health concerns. For more tips, visit canidae.com/transitioningfromorig.html.

Due to increased commodity costs, we’ve changed our packaging sizes, reducing the overall weight by approximately 3-5 pounds per bag. The new sizes are more consistent with other brands and allow for easier handling.

We are committed to bringing quality products to pet owners and in June that commitment led us to Diamond’s manufacturing facility. Diamond facilities have rigorous quality control processes, utilizing a 141-point ingredient test protocol. All products are subject to a 10-point final product safety review and Canidae has also implemented hourly testing to confirm quality and product safety in our onsite laboratory. All Canidae products meet or exceed AAFCO nutrient profiles in USDA and FDA approved facilities.

At Canidae, we are committed to providing you and your pets the highest standard of excellence for product quality, palatability, and customer satisfaction. Please call 800-398-1600 or visit www.canidae.com to let us know what we can do to serve you better.

Canidae
Scott Whipple and John Gordon
Owners
PO Box 3610
San Luis Obispo, CA 93403

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More about Pet Food Recalls ...

Richard of Sherman, TX January 21, 2010

We had our Bulldog on grain free Canidae food because it had been highly recommended. I noticed that our dog's stool was often quite runny but because of the reportedly high quality of the food I did not think that it could be the culprit. After reading some of the complaints on this site about Canidae I decided to try something else. Research indicated that Taste of the Wild was good and it was locally available. After 2 days of weaning him off of Canidae with a half and half mixture the change in his stool is remarkable and I am about to eliminate the Canidae completely. I am amazed!

regina of Placerville, CA January 11, 2010

We recently switched to Felidae dry cat food. We have 3 cats - 2 of them had problems including yellow bile vomit and diarrhea/lethargy. I could not find contact info on the Canidae site. When I did finally contact them, they stated the ONLY problems were those in mid 2008, customers who used the old formula and then used the new formula.

She also stated that the information you read on the internet is not all true. They claim Canidae directly contacted many people and they retracted their stories. Also that many people posted lies about this food. This CS rep did not ease my worries about this food. If anything, they made me feel worse about it.

Heide of San Mateo, CA December 14, 2009

Merlin (3½ )looked real ill on Thursday 12/4, did not eat, drink or move so of to the vet we went on Friday. The vet found that he had a slight fever but really nothing wrong with him; she gave him antibiotics for a possible infection and 900 cc Lactated Ringers subcutaneously to avoid dehydration and recommended chicken and rice. He had lost 4 pounds since his last check-up in July. Saturday Merlin was fine, but did not want to eat his food. The rest of the gang was seemingly OK; but this Friday Jackie "O" (14 month) came in the kitchen walking in circles, her back arched and unable to lift her head. It looked a lot as if she may have had a seizure, then Sadie (ESS 16½) fell over unable to get back up. The puppy Charlie (BC 4 month) only wanted to lay around, as did Daisy (ESS 3½ ) both are working dogs, high energy and never lethargic. None wanted to eat, but luckily all did drink something. Then Jackie got diarrhea and vomited. The others followed one by one.

It is now Saturday early morning, we are on the ranch and a million miles from the nearest open vet clinic. Lucky for us we have a vet tech living on the ranch who takes care of the other animals and when Jeff came home he looked at the sick gang. He said that they had had several dogs with the same symptoms at the clinic all due to something they ate. The immediate solution was to give them all chicken broth and later a bit of rice and chicken. If it did not get better by afternoon he would open the clinic and administer Lactated Ringer's. They all got better and by Sunday afternoon everybody was pretty much back to normal. Looking back I should have wondered why their bowls are never empty; apparently they knew something was wrong with the food. My gang was on Canidae for the last three (3) years with no apparent ill effects. The two 40 lb bags we had went in the trash and we are looking for something new, but for the time being the gang gets only chicken, vegetables and rice.

Eileen of Hinsdale, IL December 4, 2009

I wrote in September 2009, to say how sick my two year old Westie was becoming on Canidae Dog Food. He was experiencing mucous laden stools and vomiting bile. We took him off of Canidae and put him on Chicken and rice for a short period of time. We began using Wellness with small amounts of chicken and rice mixed in. What a difference, he gained weight, his sparse hair filled in and he became much more active. I feel bad that we were slowly killing him. I wrote to the company and received a typical PR response. What is wrong with a company that would not want to investigate the problems with their product?

Robert of Reno, NV December 1, 2009

We have feed our English Bulldogs Canidae Senior for years, Right after Thanksgiving Mollie our white Bullie began vomiting clear gooey fluid. We thought she just had an upset tummy. We gave her a little Pepto Bismul, that seemed to help her through the night. The next day the vomiting had worsened! now, it was a yellow Bile color but still just little puddles about two inches in diameter. I was recently laid off from my job,. so there is not much money in my house hold right now. So we were really hoping that it would pass We still felt and hoped that she just had an upset stomach. After the third day with no improvement, we managed to find a vet that would work with people with little or no income. Our regular vet would not even think about seeing a dog without payment in full. There's just something wrong about that too! A loyal paying customer for years and you can't get a little help when you need it.

Anyway we finally took her in to see the Vet. She had a temp of 104. the vet gave her several shots of antibiotic and anti vomiting medicine, then one for alergies. After promising 360 We finnaly took her home about 3:30 pm. She seemed weak but better. Then about 2:30 am, It all started again, except this time she was vomiting profusly with bile and chunks of undigested food in it. We sat up with her the rest of the early morning. About 8 am. She looked better again, So we gave her some water just to see if she could keep it down. Two minutes later up it came, but this time it was a brown stool color. We got her to the vet at 10:30 when he opend. Now he says, he thinks it is Pancreatitus. He gave her some more meds and kept her to get some fluids in her. Aa I write this, we are waiting to hear from the vet. My other Bullie is just fine though! I hope she does not come down with it. I am taking them off Canidae, I just hope it's not too late for Bella. I wonder did they reformulate the Canidae Older dog formula too?

Robin of Baltimore, MD November 4, 2009

Sasha is a 13-year-old Golden Retriever who had been in good health with a strong GI system, until the summer of 2008, around the same time Canidae changed its All Life Stages formula. She started having lots of gas and losing weight at that time, along with recurrent bouts of yellow diarrhea. She also significantly increased her water consumption and became a heavy panter. The panting even happened when she was lying around, not having gone for a walk. This was probably due to pain and discomfort.

The introduction of the new Canidae unfortunately coincided with the closing of our small neighborhood pet supply shop. Had the shop remained open, we probably would have heard from the proprietress that others were having problems with the dog food. We definitely would have been given a heads-up about the formula change as she was diligent about keeping her customers informed. With the closing of the shop, we found other suppliers, none of whom offered this degree of concern and service for their customers.

We assumed Sasha was just getting old, and she had been overweight, so getting down to a normal size seemed good, but the need for extra water was puzzling. Our veterinarian could not detect any issues with her health a year ago. Up until last week, she had been on Canidae All Life Stages dry food. We believe we gave it to her for a good three years. She almost died last week. On October 25th she became extremely ill, first vomiting food, then bile. Her stool was now pure yellow liquid. Her fever was 102.9 degrees, she had no appetite, and looked like she was in pain. Her weight was down 4 more pounds, significantly below what a normal weight would be for a dog her size. Her now unstoppable weight loss and degeneration was seriously concerning our veterinarian.

Our veterinarian bills last week were about 350. We considered euthanizing her as well. The x-rays revealed that her liver was in trouble, and her anterior vena cava was abnormally narrow (though it is not clear whether the latter is connected to the other symptoms). We believed we were bringing her home from the hospital for a few days to say goodbye. The anti-nausea medication started working and she became extremely hungry. I then went on line to search for Canidae problems, found several websites reporting dogs getting seriously ill, and realized she had possibly been poisoned by Canidae.

In the last year she also had recurrent yeast infections in her ears. We are vigilant about cleaning her ears, but were unable to prevent the infections. She has completely lost her hearing, and we now believe that the way the food was impairing her immune system could have brought on the infections. Her whole system has been compromised; it's more than the GI system that has suffered. We also suspect that her collapse, a year ago September, was due to the food. She suddenly fell and couldn't get up for hours. Afterwards she was no longer able to run properly. She still can not alternate her hind legs while running, and her attempts to run since then have been infrequent. The strength in her hind legs seems to have been permanently diminished since this incident.

We are trying to find out where to have the food tested, as we suspect testing will reveal toxic substances. We are now home-cooking almost all of her food and she has come back to life. The stools are getting solid, the gas is totally gone, and her water consumption and panting have decreased. If only she could hear again and regain normal functioning of her hind legs.

J Michelle of Flemington, NJ October 31, 2009

I had no idea what so-ever that Canidae changed their formula way back when and it all makes sense now. I fed Canidae pretty much for the last 3 years of my 3 dogs, yellow lab (10.5); golden retriever (14.5) and Rottweiler (11.5)life. All three experienced diarrhea and became very lethargic. Like most I chalked it off has beeng the heat. Unfortunately they have all since passed. But it all makes sense now why my golden and rotty passed away unexpectedly. I have since gotten a new pup a Lhasapoo and am really glad I have been hesitant to putting her on Canidae, something must have been speaking to me from within for it has been one year since my rotty a passed away whom I miss ever ever so much.

Tanya of Brentwood, CA October 29, 2009

I put my dog on Canidae chicken and rice in early 2007 and he did great until the formula change happened. I didn't put two and two together until I did some research on their product and found that other people were experiencing the same issues as I was. About the time the formula changed happened, every 4 or 5 months I would come home to a huge pile of yellowish mucousy diahrea. it smelled horrible. There was one instance where their was blood in his stool and he was violently ill for about a week with a raging temperature - no explanation could be given by the vet.

About 2 months ago, my dog suffered the first seizure - to my knowledge. He collapsed on the floor, had problems trying to get up and then went into a full seizure episode. I took my dog to the vet. his bloodwork came back fine and they attributed it to his age (he is a 3 year old male golden retreiver and in my opinion far too young to be having to deal with this issue) and stated it appeared he was developing epilepsy. Over the time the formula changed, I noticed Bailey would just "pick" at his food. he would never finish it.

After his first seizure I switched his dog food thinking that may be the culprit after doing research on commercial dog food companies. I put him on "instinct" and he did fine. On Sunday, I switched him back to Canidae and by Tuesday he had another accident in the house - large pile of yellow mucousy diahrea. Yesterday, he was restless and my husband noticed he was staggering around the house acting like he was drunk for about 2 minutes or so he had no leg coordination and was very wobbly.

After he had the first seizure he needed to go to the bathroom. I noticed his stool was the thick mucousy yellow pile I had been noticing over the last year. I am now figuring my dog may have had more seizures than I am aware of and they may have happened at the times he had this diahrea incident. I have fed him Canidae snap biscuits, the wet and dry chicken and the grain free blend. He has had the same reactions to all of it.

He is now scratching a lot more than he used to. I am taking him to the vet today and getting him off this food asap before anything else happens. Canidae should be ashamed of themselves.

Shannon of Murrieta, CA October 22, 2009

We fed our two dogs, a rottweiler and a chocolate lab, Canidae All Life Stages for over 3 years. In the beginning they did great. My labs ears cleared up, they had great coats, and were healthy. Then in 2008 I poured a new bag of Canidae dog food into the food bin and noticed that it looked and smelled different, and not in a good way. I began to feed them the food, but slowly things started to change. Their bowels got loose, their hair turned dull and frizzy, my labs ears got yucky, and she was biting her nails. So I called the company and asked if they had changed formulas, and that's when I found out they did. I was upset that they hadn't made it a point to inform me better, and then denied that the negative chnages I was seeing in my dogs could be from the dog food. We had a trip planned so I figured I would deal with it when I got back. Sadly while we were on vacation my rottweiler suffered a spinal stroke.

She is alive today, can walk, but has trouble, not to mention the thousands we spent in treating her. I also noticed when she was laying down for the 3 months that she couldn't walk(we had to carry her out to the bathroom, and she's 125lbs), that she had developed a cyst on her side, something that wasn't there before. The doctors say they don't know what causes spinal strokes, but I honestly believe Canidae's change in formula had to do with it. My dogs were healthy and looking great till they changed their food, and now my poor rotty drags her foot around everywhere she goes and can no longer play with her best friend.

Rene of Red Feather Lakes, CO October 15, 2009

We have a 9 month old German Shepherd who used to eat Pollux & Castor Brown Rice Forumula, along with some home cooked food too. We switched him to Canidae recently, and he's been having runny, yellow, mucus laden stools off and on for the last month. At first I thought it was my cooking, but then I saw all the complaints here with the exact same symptoms on other dogs! I can't believe it. Canidae used to be a trustworthy company. What happened? I think the only thing that's kept him from becoming more seriously ill is that he's only been eating Canidae in the morning. I have a brand new 40 pound bag that I'm dumping, NOW! Thank you everyone for sharing your stories here. You may have saved my dog's life.

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