Complain about a product or service

Nutro Pet Foods

Amber of New Prague, MN February 5, 2010

I have a 4 year old pit bull, and since I worked at Petsmart as a teenager I started her on Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice as a puppy. The Nutro sales person pounded it into the employees' heads that this was absolutely the BEST food out there. She did fine on it for a couple years, then I accidently bought a bag of chicken instead of lamb. She started vomiting bile before she would eat in the morning for a couple of weeks and I brought the food back. I assumed it was an allergy to chicken, but still was scared to go back to Nutro products until recently.

I have had a lot of issues with food...the really good food often causes loose stool...so I decided that I would go back to the lamb and rice since she did well on it as a puppy...plus the Nutro sales person they had at Petsmart talked me into it, again.

At first her stool got much better and I finally thought I found a great food for her...until a little over half of her 40 pound bag was gone. Now we're right back to the vomiting. I thought a couple days ago it was just coincidence, but she has vomited the past 3 nights before eating. I'm very upset with this company and my vet doesn't like the food either. She said many dogs will do fine on it for a while and then develope a lot of issues that were easily resolved with a diet change. I will never feed my dog this food again...and I want to tell everyone to do the same if they love their pets!

A.M. of Woodstock, NY February 3, 2010

In 2008, my 14 yr old shepherd-collie mix died. For the first 7 years of his life, he had had repeated urinary incontinence (Bed-wetting) issues, and I spent probably thousands of dollars taking him to vets. No vet ever established the cause of the problem and few treatments helped for long. He had blood in his urine and would pee in his sleep.

Now I have a shepherd-husky mix who is one year old and starting to have the same problem! He is not in any way related to my old dog. What is the connection? Nutro Natural Choice Lamb & Rice dry dog food! I have finally figured it out! It is the only possible connection, as I live in neither the same house nor even the same town as before. I don't use any harsh cleaning products, either. I have switched my dog's food permanently.

When my old dog was 7, I remember I had changed his food to a different brand with fewer calories, and without my realizing it, that "cured" him. Physical damage was repeated painful bladder problems, damage to furniture and rugs with urine and blood stains, thousands of dollars in veterinary expenses, and now, emotional damage from realizing I was inadvertently poisoning my poor old dog with what I thought was a premium dog food. I will NEVER use Nutro again. I am now throwing away a 17.5-lb bag which cost 35.88 plus tax. I hope the company goes out of business. I will never buy anything from China again. I make sure the dog food I buy now has no ingredients from China.

Velvet of Los Angeles, CA February 1, 2010

Our cats have been on Nutro for years, but recently we bought a new bag and they began throwing up. We returned the bag to the pet food store and they said they have had numerous complaints about Nutro food recently and are going to stop carrying Nutro because of all the problems. We switched to Natural Balance and the cats have been fine since. Thankfully, I think and hope we caught the problem before any long term problems could occur.

Vicki of stroudsburg, PA February 1, 2010

On December 28th, 2009 we switched our beloved 7th month old puppy Guinness to Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Puppy dry food. Within 3 days he went from a happy, healthy wonderful puppy - to vomiting foam and food and lethargic. At first we thought we had caused it by switching his food too abruptly. We spoke to the vet who told us to watch him, see if things got worse (vomiting more profusely/often) and if so to bring him in immediately. On December 31st – the vomiting was considerably worse and we took him in at 2am to the emergency vet hospital. When they admitted him they did blood work and x-rays. The blood work came back showing complete renal failure with numbers that were off the chart. We were beside ourselves to watch our pet suffer like that.

The Vet immediately stated that he had been poisoned – and figured it was something around our home. In our home we only use organic cleaning products which he never got into – I had been home constantly with him based on house rest for pregnancy, so I knew exactly what he had been doing.

Within 24 hours he passed away – to this day – I know something was terribly wrong and I held onto the dog food because that was the only variable that changed…just truly believing something was wrong. The costs for care were obviously not inexpensive – however I did not care at the time because I just wanted our puppy better! I still have all receipts for care and have the vet records and food stored away. I read your stories tonight and felt compelled to share mine. Immediately after he passed I looked for similar stories and did not find them until now. I would like to have the food tested but do not know where to turn.

Carol of Eugene, OR January 23, 2010

October 2009, we bought our usual bag of Nutro cat food from our usual pet store. By the end of October, one of our cats, Noodle (9 years old) was peeing everywhere and throwing up food a lot. We took her to the vet where they found blood in her urine. Although the urine did not culture to show any bacteria, the vet sent us home with a 3 week dose of antibiotics, assuming it was a urinary tract infection.

Two weeks after we finished giving Noodle the antibiotics, she started acting odd. She was lethargic and stopped eating. This behavior came on slowly, and after about two weeks we realized there was a problem. Just then we saw a posting from a friend on FaceBook that her mom's cat had gotten very sick and they thought it was from eating Nutro cat food. She described the symptoms, which matched what we saw in Noodle.

We went online and saw that there had been a recall the previous May and that people said that as soon as they stopped feeding their cats the Nutro most of them improved. So that's what we did -- we switch both of our cats to another brand and waited. Noodle did not improve, so right after the first of the year (2010) we took her to the vet again.

In the exam room we learned that she had dropped from 11.6 to 8.9 pounds. And we were startled to see how yellow she was. She was completely jaundiced. An ultra sound of her liver showed quite a bit of fibrosis. The vet put her on round the clock IV Fluids, expecting to clear up the jaundice in a few days. But 8 days later, she was still very yellow, and still very sick. We requested a Zinc test, since that is what we have read is the issue with the Nutro food.

After a week off the food and several days of IV, they drew her blood for the test, which came back at .9 for zinc -- the highest level in the normal range. We took our younger cat in (she's 2 years old) and found that she has blood in her urine (the same condition Noodle had last October), but her liver enzymes were normal. So we are hoping we caught it in time for her.

So far the vet bills have come to over 1600. Noodle is home and we are giving her 6-8 pills a day and 300ccs of subcutaneous fluids every day. She is finally eating a little (one of her pills stimulates the appetite), but she is still very sick.

Bev of Farmington, UT January 22, 2010

Two years ago we were feeding our golden and lab the Nutro Natural Choice food. We were having a difficult time finding the type that contained rice and were told by the pet store that it was a problem that had to do with China not releasing rice for the dog food. I looked online and found the horror stories about the dogs who had become sick from the Nutro. My dogs had been having the exact same problems as the dogs on the blogs but I had just thought they had eaten something bad or had a stomach virus. I immediately took them off the Nutro and switched to Natural Recipe Lamb/Rice and within 48 hours they were no longer vomiting nor lethargic w/ diarrhea and uncontrolled urination. Just last week my husband picked up some dog food and mistakenly bought Nutro. My dogs have been eating it for two days and are having the same symptoms as two years ago. I hope the FDA continues to look into this company before more dogs are sickened.

kathy of north aurora, IL January 22, 2010

We have been feeding our golden retriever Nutro Natural Choice for Seniors for the past year. In late fall our dog began vomiting and we spent 600 on tests at the vet. None of the tests revealed any health issues. Unable to eat, the dog lost approximately 12 pounds and was put on anti-vomiting pills. We began feeding him table scraps and canned dog food to coax him to eat, which he did.

Then when things seemed better and the vomiting had stopped, we'd start reintroducing the dry Nutro, and once again he would start vomiting. I reported to the vet that it seemed the dog was worse every time we restarted the Nutro dry food. When the vet asked me to get the ingredients for the food, I went on-line.

I was shocked to see all of the vomiting claims reported by dog owners using Nutro. We have taken our dog off Nutro and the vomiting has completely stopped. I only wish I had known of these claims sooner so that my dog would not have suffered for so long. It was heart-breaking watching him decline.

M. of Minneapolis , MN January 14, 2010

I've fed my older Golden retriever Nutro Ultra dry dog food for several years. She occasionally has had bile vomiting episodes, which the vet attributed to a sensitive empty stomach. In mid December, we bought the regular Nutro Large breed food and within about a week, BOTH of our retrievers were vomiting bile once or twice a day. This got worse over about two weeks, and both dogs became lethargic, so I took them off the Nutro and fed them plain (human food) boiled rice & chicken. The vomiting stopped within 24 hours of the switch. I've now weaned them onto California Naturals lamb and rice and still no vomiting. Their energy levels have increased and they are more alert now.

Beth of sylvania, OH January 10, 2010

My 5 year old chihuahua suffered an intestinal blockage after eating a greenies dog chew. I bought greenies because the bag described the product as easily digested. After 3 days of suffering it was finally determined she had a blockage. The vet bill was over 1,000.

Deneen of Edmonton, AB January 9, 2010

I purchased Nutro Natural Choice for Seniors dog food on Oct 16/09. (Product Code 79100511605). In early November, my dog started vomitting bile. I thought it was due to one of my kids feeding her something from the table or from my dog missing either her morning or evening meal of dog food. In early Dec she started throwing up her entire food that she consumed. I booked a vet appoint on my day off and later cancelled it as she did not vomit over the last 4-5 days and keeping everything down. During this time as well, she started getting into the bathroom garbages and eating/tearing apart the tissues, but I thought it was an attention thing (even though it was totally out of character for her) as I just started working. I noticed a drastic change on Christmas Eve, as she was very withdrawn and seemed antsy.

I gave her a bath which seemed to settle her down but at that time is when I noticed how much weight she had lost. She was previously 4.5-5 pounds overweight, so I never really noticed the change over the last couple of months as she seemed to be at a fit weight once again. I rushed her into the emergency vet on Dec 26 as she was very lathargic, not eating and not drinking.

From Oct to now she had lost 10 pounds weighing in at 14.5 pounds. The vet had noticed that she had an infection in her anal glands at this time, squeezed them out for comfort and gave me medication for anti-vomitting, tylenol and an antibiotic for her infection. She noted that this would not cause the vomitting she was experiencing though. I decided to decline on the bloodwork at this time, as I was going to take her to my family vet the next morning to get bloodwork done there to find out if there was something else ailing her. I did not get a chance to do that though as she passed away at 5:00 the next morning at home. Just last week I gave my dog food to a friend of mine who as well has a senior dog as I did not want to see the food/expense go to waste. Within 2 days of feeding my dogfood to her family dog, her dog was vomitting. She thought that maybe he was adjusting from switching dogfood brands.

Over the last 4 days the vomitting is still persisting. She now has taken her dog off the food. That is today, so hopefully her dog will recover if it is from the food. After searching through the net, is when I have now realized that there has been a lot of issues with the food. Can anything be done as far as analyzing this dog food to find out if it was poisoning my dog and if so, what can be done about taking it off the shelves before more pets take ill or die and to make the company accoutable? Can you pls advise me what the process is to find anything out regarding this?

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