Natural Balance Pet Foods

Several years ago, my cat had severe issues with eating and was throwing up her food every day. I was told I needed to cook organic cat food for her. The Vet could not diagnose the issue. The organic recipe I made worked to fix the problem, but many hundreds of $$ later and after spending an hour or more weekly cooking for her, I was looking for another option. I found Natural Balance grain free pouches. Not only was my cat able to eat it without throwing up, she loved it! Also the health benefits have been amazing. She is older than 15 years and climbs the posts on our raised deck like a kitten! Great product!

Just went through months of trying to figure out why CKD cat wouldn't eat some of the Natural Balance pouches. Found some had tiny leaks. If turn to back can see the seal defective usually at top corner and air justs in. My beloved Doo was doing so well as vet said CKD cats never put weight on she had. Till the stupid leaky foods. After 2 months of total worrisome frustration, noticed bit of leaking on one pack. Then could see how many were. I REPORTED to NB.. They sent me a check for 1.26. For a one of few cans of food tried..one dry and yucky..other smelled like nitrates so bad..couple others Doo ate some. So after all the food lost to their packaging..1.26. Please don't trust these folks. Likely to kill your furry friend.

I am so happy to see that others have had the same experience as I have. Not happy about your pets being sick, but that I'm not imagining things. I have been feeding the small breed bites for years to my dogs, mixed with the wet food of the same brand. Last summer, one of my dogs, who has a voracious appetite wouldn't eat his food. I was worried something was wrong with him, he is 14, but he would eat anything else I gave him, so he wasn't sick. Then my husband and I noticed the smell. Disgusting. I've since been making their food, and they love it. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I am so mad right now I am trying to not type in all caps!! About a month ago, our 10 year old dog Fudge began getting sick. He would randomly vomit foam in the mornings every couple days. Then, every couple days he would wake up and not want to eat. Only every three or four days, then he would be fine. After about two weeks, on the days he wouldn't eat, he would get horrific diarrhea. He would come back in the house and sprawl out on the floor and shake uncontrollably. After about 6-8 hours of this it would stop. He would then be fine for about two days, and it would repeat again. We took him to the vet, and they did every test they could and found nothing wrong with him! Nothing!

My miniature dachshund Roxie had allergies, also at a young age, so we found NB salmon and sweet potato. We switched her to this food for 11 years now and was doing fine until we ordered a new bag and suddenly last Saturday started throwing up several times. On Sunday she was unresponsive so we took her to animal hospital. Vet said it looked like a bone or metal in her stomach after taking x-rays and ultrasound. Dr. said after tests and it was clear that she was very ill and in pain so we had to put her down.

At first this food seemed to work wonders because my dog has food allergies. But she started to act weird and I would have to mix stuff into her food to get her to eat it, and she became lethargic and would continuously go diarrhea. I came across an article this morning and several brands were tested for **, yes found in EUTHANASIA, and the company that manufactures Natural Balance and 11 other brands was found positive for 60% of the food tested.

My 20 pound lhasa/silky terrier mix has always had a sensitive stomach. For 10 years I have fed him Natural Balance and he's been through a couple of formula changes with no problem. This most recent formula change has been a catastrophe on his poor digestive system. He's been to the vet twice and has had to have an IV because he was so dehydrated from all of the vomiting and diarrhea. They have done away with the Ultra small bites, so I gave him the small bite chicken formula. He only ate it for 2 days until he got sicker than he's ever been. The vet has him on a Royal Canin gastrointestinal diet and that seems to be helping him. I will never buy Natural Balance again (and I've been a loyal customer for 10 years). I fear that with his age, I will now have to continue giving him prescription pet food. If you love your dog, and I am sure you do - DO NOT FEED THEM THIS NEW FORMULA DOG FOOD.

Do not feed your dog this food. Stay away from their products. They obviously do not care about animals! So many negative reviews all year!!! It poison!!!! We have been buying this brand for over 4 year. My Yorkshire terriers have sensitive skin so this used to be god sent formula. Beautiful coats and clear skin. I’m so devastated that my dog were consuming this food this year. My dog got significantly lighter in weight but I say him eat his food, why wouldn’t he? He’s been eating the same food. I should’ve questioned this more after the venison and sweet potato was no longer on shelves. I trusted the brand and got the fish one.

Both of our smaller dogs have been eating the LID Sweet Potato & Venison dry food for years and it was great. I just bought 2 new bags about a week and a half ago and just opened one and fed them from it 1 week ago. By the next morning the smaller dog was vomiting followed by diarrhea. Within 2 days we were at the ER vet with the dog who they thought had probably eaten something. By that afternoon the 2nd dog was having diarrhea as well. By Monday afternoon both dogs were at their regular vet who after taking an extensive history and an exam suspected that the new bag of food was the problem. Both dogs are now being treated for colitis and are slowly recovering.

My dog (2yr) has eaten NB since he was 8 mo old. Starting in August 2019 the formula seemed to have changed. He hated the new taste, and lately the food has a more red/orange tinge, a rancid smell, and gives him diarrhea. This company needs to go back to their original formula and straighten things out.

I have used Natural Balance duck and potato for my dogs over the last few years. It was recommended as a good limited ingredient dog food. Unfortunately the company that bought it seems to have changed the formula and my sensitive dogs are having a horrible time with it. They added a red coating to the kibble and most recently the color of the canned has changed, texture is different, and smell reeks of bad meat. I'm now searching for a new brand as natural balance refuses to admit they've changed things.

I'm not accusing Natural Balance of anything, I'm only wanting to bring light to an issue my dog has had since I've been feeding her Natural Balance canned dog food. I've been feeding my dog Natural Balance canned dog food for a couple of years now, I learned about the brand while working in holistic pet stores. I also feed my cats natural balance canned and dry cat food. My dog has been diagnosed with bladder stones, cats seem fine, but am already switching the food to make sure they all stay healthy. My cats and dog are my life, I will go without, if that means they are taken care of. Totally going off subject, but anyways, I just wanted to bring light of the bladder stones just to see if anyone else has ran into this problem and bring it to the attention of Natural Balance.

Our first dog (Aussiedoodle) has been on this food since he was a puppy with the breeder. For 6 months he ate this food with no problem, Petsmart recently advised that NB was coming out with a new formula and since the release of the new formula our poor doggo REFUSES to eat and he LOVES eating. The last couple of days he eventually ends up eating some of it and throws it up a few hours later. We are switching his food today. Goodbye NB. I hope you figure out your formula soon.

NB Sweet Potato & Fish Kibble. I have been feeding my 2 Jack Russell pups this food for the last 5 years, but I noticed a change in the food quality. Last year I noticed the food was lighter in color so I called the company and they said it was a batch that didn't get the "fish coating spray" so bring it back to the store and get another one. I did and the color was better. The last bag I bought I noticed little white hard things sticking out of the kibble! I called the company and they said it was fish bones that had gotten through into the food and that their quality control deemed it safe to consume. She told me if I wanted she could send me a coupon for a free bag that it only affected the batch with the sell by date of March 2020.

I’ve had my two chinchilla silver persians on venison & green pea LIT since Nov 1, 2018. I purchased the last bag June 2019. Best Buy date 05 2020. #9080 028 41214. I noticed a huge change in color so I went on NB website. A chat box appeared so I let the company know of my concern. She said everything would be fine as each batch could be slightly different?!!!

Our 17 pound dog Cairn Terrier mix has been eating this dry limited ingredient dog food for a very long time. A few days after we started a new bag - and there were changes in the size of kibble and the color of the food and smell of the food - our dog started vomiting blood and diarrhea blood. Vet put him on a diet of white rice and boiled chicken, along with some meds, and his issues cleared up. Now he's back on the Natural Balance LID food for a few days and he's vomiting again and soft poop. I'm removing this food from his diet and putting him back on the rice and chicken before he gets any worse. I can't say in certainty that the food is causing his illness but I'm not taking any chances. If you are having these problems too, I'd love to know about it and how your dog was treated to recover. Thank you.

I have been feeding my dogs the Natural Balance Chicken formula. I have had my boxer mix not wanting to eat her food and it's getting worse. Recently I bought a new bag and noticed the smell coming from it. Thought nothing of it, just thought it was me. My boxer went 3 days refusing to eat it, we thought maybe she had a bug and switched her to homemade chicken and rice...after several days, returned her to the food slowly mixing it in with the homemade chicken and rice. In the meantime my dachshund was eating it, four days in he started vomiting and we put him on the homemade chicken and rice after that.

My gentle Sammy has been on the sweet potato and fish formula for about 5 years because of her allergies. Over the past month she has been off her food and lethargic. At first I attributed it to the loss of our life companion. I would augment her meals on and off with chicken and rice to get her interested. But she’d leave most of the kibble. She wasn’t eating, smiling ... upset stomach,diarrhea and seemed feverish. My poor, loving girl.

I’ve been feeding my male pug Natural Balance Bison kibble since I got him at 5 months old. Never had a problem until about 3 bags ago. He started with no eating right away and he’s a gobbler. Now it’s to the point he just doesn’t want to eat. After reading many reviews I’m thinking I need to stop feeding him this. Like others said, I did realize when I opened a bag the smell and color were different but as long as he was eating it I figure it was fine. I was feeding him that because he has a sensitive stomach. But now, honestly I don’t know what to feed him. Going to have to cancel that automatic delivery from Chewy.

We have a 7 year old mix breed 50 lb dog who has been eating Natural Balance Sweet Potato & Bison Formula for the past 7 years without problems. Recently I noticed the color of the food was a bit darker but did not put a lot of thought into it (my mistake). A week or so later our dog began to have stomach problems and honestly we thought he may have gotten into something in the yard. In the event the food may have been a bad batch as it was a relatively new bag, we returned it to PetSmart and purchased a new bag (same brand). Gave our dog a couple of days with a bland diet to recuperate and he did.

Had to take my cat to the vet for diarrhea and vomiting. Could find no health issues - thought maybe the cat ate a toy etc. Fast forward to opening a new bag of this cat food. Looks completely different than the last bag - which was darker in color AND also had small black specs in it everywhere! I gave her the new bag and guess what? Diarrhea from a food change because it wasn't the same food!!!! Same package, they obviously do not care at all about these pets!! I've had so many veterinarians say to stick to the brands that have been around the longest. This company is terrible!

Problem with this recent food formula or ingredients? I recently got a GSP pup raised on Diamond by her breeder. I have been looking at online reviews as I was considering switching to NB. I have come upon the recent reviews on this site, and now see what may have been a - if not the - contributing factor to my previous dog's sudden health decline and death last November. I feel I should document it here in case it may help reveal a critical issue with this brand.

Just want to add my recent experience to the ones already posted. There HAS INDEED been a change to the Bison and Sweet Potato formula... lighter in color with smaller kibble size. DO NOT FEED YOUR DOG THIS FOOD. We've been using Natural Balance for 10 years but will never return after this incident. Not only did my dogs not want to eat it but what little they did eat gave them dark, loose stools. By the way, I called NB just yesterday to inform them and all I got was denial and scripted responses.

We started our 5 lb dog on this food 10 years ago because he was having digestive problems (vomiting daily, diarrhea) and we heard that the Sweet Potato & Fish formulation was especially good for sensitive stomachs. After starting him on it, his stomach problems went away. In the past couple months, he has been having episodes of (pain-induced?) trembling during the day and night and bouts of vomiting. He went to the vet for exams, blood work, x-rays. No abnormalities were identified.

This is the brand our breeder recommended. We like the limited ingredients and the dogs really love it. We are very conscientious to buy grain free, but there seems to be a lot of mixed feelings on the topic.

This food is Natural Balance Duck and Potato that I fed to my first dog. When I got this current dog I continued to use it. It is balanced with all of the necessary nutrients except for dietary fiber. It is somewhat low in fiber. So I also give her Blue Wilderness Salmon or Duck. This keeps my dog's elimination on a regular schedule.

Our teacup Yorkie has been eating the dog food in the roll for a couple years or so. Then we couldn't find it them. All of a sudden I came across some in our local Petco. After he started eating it again he was having an accident in the house occasionally and this is not normal for him at all. His accidents became more frequent and his urine had a horrible odor to it, absolutely horrendous. Then he was having 2 accidents through the nights. I knew something had to be seeing with him and mentioned it to a friend and she asked if I had changed his food recently. I told her I had not been able to find his normal food and had tried a different foods but then found his original food again so I had put him back on it and this started slowly. She told me to stop and I did that day and seriously he did not have an accident that night forward. How the heck could that happen? I'm just thankful we figured it was the food. Poor dogs.

My lab cross has eaten Natural Balance for 10 years, lamb meal & rice. In January 2019 we got a new bag with different graphics but were told it was the same formula. My dog started vomiting and had uncontrollable diarrhea. We thought she had a flu. Nursed her back to health with rice and cooked chicken. Then reintroduced the Natural Balance kibble...again diarrhea. This happened again until we gave up on the kibble. The formula is toxic to our dog. After 10 years we are left to find a new food for our dog. Buyer beware!

We've been feeding our dogs Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Bison formula for years with no problems. Now, like many others have noted, we get a new bag, open it up, smells different, looks different, and my dogs HATE it. Why take what was good dog food and mess with it. I have 40 pounds of crap now that my dogs won't eat. Why?

Our 14 year old American Bulldog has extreme food sensitivities and in the last year she suddenly started getting foul breath, Candida biofilm vomit and growths on her body. When I switched to the Duck and Potato 2 months ago, all the symptoms and growths went away. I had a pit bull that lived to 14 on the Duck and Potato with ZERO growths, no ear infections and no gas. So I have a long history of appreciation for the LID Duck and Potato.