Nutro Dog Food Reviews

One thing that concerns me is that this food is still on the market in many pet stores. I did file a complaint to the FDA. I am not one to file complaints of any kind and this is the first, but when it comes to illnesses & deaths of these dogs with the same symptoms & within the same period of time, I strongly doubt this is coincidential. It is not that this is a new situation, it happened last year so why is this not taken seriously?

I am so thankful that I found this website, otherwise I would have kept feeding my dog this food.

My experience happened very early on at the end of April. Not knowing any of this, I would just have presumed that he had pancretitus that he was diagonised with(doesn't have it now).

I had only had him
5 Months before he started getting sick on the Nutro. My three trips to the Vet and changing him to a holistic
food probably saved his life. My dog was happy, healthy and bouncing off the walls like a typical 4yr old lab(adopted from the SPCA.) until he became ill in April with the same symptoms that so many of these dogs are having. Vomiting, Lethargy,

loose stools,drinking water continuously. He would also look at the food in his bowl not wanting to eat it, almost knowing it was making him sick. The thing that scared me the most was the lethargy. He was definently in pain. He would walk a little bit and then lay down and wouldn't move. This was happening alot.

The third time I took him to the vet, I rushed him in, in the morning. I thought I was going to loose him. His tongue was hanging very limply out of his mouth,he had very labored breathing and he was laying on his side. I was very lucky I got him to the vet early. He was much better after a stay in the hospital and precription food. My heart breaks for all those that have lost a beloved pet. This will continue until something is done. Every day this food is being fed to our pets and unknowingly is causing illness & death for those who are not aware.

I looked up my records and we bought large bags of Nutro dry dog food on 1/7/08 and 3/17/08 from Petsmart. We fed Belle a mix of Nutro dry dog food with a little wet food (usually Nutro or Science Diet)on top. On 2/21/08, we took our shepherd/husky mix, Foxy, to the vet because she was lethargic, had diarrhea and had stopped eating. He checked her feces and blood and put her on antibiotics. Foxy responded right away to the antibiotics and seemed to feel better; but ate little or none of the dry food (only the wet food) after that episode. Belle got the same symptoms within days. Rather than taking her in, I used the remaining antibiotics on her and she seemed to get better and resumed eating both her wet and dry food. In hindsight, that is probably when everything began.

We continued to have some bouts of diarrhea and some lethargy, but I attributed it to Belle being eight years old. Then Belle began to drink lots of water and even had some accidents inside which she had never done before. I took her to the vet on 4/25/08, because she'd been having accidents, she had started chewing her front leg and she had a cloudy spot in her eye. I was sure that we would find out that she had diabetes, as we had a keeshond who had that disease five years before and the symptoms seemed to fit.

The doctor looked for a lesion in the eye (there was none) and gave us a spray for the itching and some antibiotics. On 5/2/08, we returned because she was starting to itch and chew all of her legs until they were bloody and she was still drinking excessive amounts of water. We had a urinalysis and blood tests done. Diabetes was ruled out and she had elevated liver levels. At this point, her weight loss started to get evident. We went back on 5/8/08 and did testing for Cushing's disease and had an ultrasound. At the time of the ultrasound, they discovered that her stomach was covered with bruises when they shaved her and we started an antibiotic. They also did another blood chemistry and found the liver levels still elevated. On 5/10/08, we went in and got a steroid injection. Around this time, Belle started eating less and less and vomited regularly (although not after ever meal).

On 5/29/08, we went in for additional testing and the vet did a fungal culture and skin scrape and did not find anything. We are getting deperate to find out what is wrong and see a holistic vet on 6/5/08 to get some new input (I felt like Belle was wasting away in front of my eyes). We also saw the holistic vet on 6/12 and 6/19. We returned to the tradtional vet on 6/23/08 and Belle was hospitalized overnight since she was dehydrated and would eat very little. She also had evident clouding in both eyes along with redness. Our vet did additional tests (blood, urine, looking for possible autoimmune diseases). Now we find the kidney values elevating along with the liver. We return on 6/26/08 and have another ultrasound and additional tests. Then Belle was hospitalized for five days getting intravenous fluids and antibiotics and further tests including a skin biopsy.

Belle came home on July 3, 2008, for the long weekend. She would hardly eat anything after the first day (we were cooking chicken and buying all kinds of dog foods, people foods and treats to entice her). Whe was lethargic and obviously not well. We took her in on July 7th, and the vet did another blood test. He found her liver and kidney values off the charts and we decided that it was not fair to keep her suffering. It was one of the hardest decisions that we had ever made. We spent over $2,000 in tests and exams and the vet still had no answers as to what had caused Belle's systems to shut down.

Then I discovered the sites, e-mails and blogs about Nutro and I feel that Nutro may be the cause. Most of the dogs discussed seem to have many of the same symptoms as Belle, up to and including the liver and kidney failure. My next step is to report this to the FDA. I can't believe that Nutro has not been at least pulled until more thorough testing is done. Even if one more dog (or cat) dies, that is too many. We spent over $2,000 in veterinary expenses and ultimately had Belle put to sleep to end her suffering. She had kidney and liver failure. And we lost our sweet, barky girl at eight year of age.

He reported that so far they have not been identified anything in the NUTRO products tested that would explain the problems reported. He expressed some frustration tht so few people who posted complaints on this web site have also sent a complaint to NUTRO with a sample of the food involved.

Vet. fees & lab charges + damage to two rugs + frequent rug cleaning expenses.

So far, we have filed complaints with Nutro, Consumer Affairs, teh FDA, and now the Dept of Agriculture. We have also yet to contact Animal Poison Control, that's next on list. We choose to be vigilant about finding out what happened to our Siberian Husky, Pierce. As for the pet owners who haven't had a bad experience with Nutro, more power to you, but don't ever say you haven't been warned.

I NEVER thought in a million years my dog would fall victim to bad dog food, but he did, and we are trying to prove that. If this was happening to humans, there would have been actions taken by now! Dogs are parts of our families too, and it was the hardest thing I had to do is tell my 8 and 5 year old that the dog they grew up with, their play pal, wasn't coming home with us after his vet visit. So please, contact as many agencies that you can, our sick and dead dogs depend on us to help them! If your dogs are healthy and doing well, that's wonderful, just try to have som sympathy for those of us who haven't been that lucky.

Right after 4th of July, ALL my hairless dogs/pups came down DEATHLY ill. My adult Pit Bull was not on this feed. She won't eat lamb and rice feeds. She was on Taste of the Wild along with my Chi and a French Bulldog I have as well. ONLY the dogs/pups on Nutro came down ill. NONE of the other dogs got sick at all. I suspected Parvo Virus until finding the other complaints about the Nutro feed.

The half price bag of Nutro didn't end up being such a GREAT deal after all. I lost 2 five month old hairless pups, and 1 two year old adult hairless! Lucky for the 3 hairless dogs/pups that did survive, I ran out of the Nutro when they began to get their appetite back and put them ALL on Taste of the Wild as well! NO problems with any of them now. All are doing VERY well on the other feed. I will NOT feed Nutro feeds to ANY of my animals again.

however, she soon stopped eating anything at all, drank lots of water, ate lots of grass, had diarea, and became very lethargic. This for a healthy active dog a few months before.She deteriorated rapidly and died on the way to the vet. Our vet said he was going to contact Nutro.

Dog died in very short time.

For years and years I fed Nutro Pet Foods and totally supported the brand. A rescue I fostered dogs with in California utilized Nutro for their dogs as well and I trusted this brand of pet food for my dogs and cats. Sadly to say, I do not have the same confidence I once did in Nutro. I've been reading all these posts and although many have claimed Nutro is the culprit as I suspect something is wrong here, I have some questions for all of you.

1. How many necropsies have been done to show Nutro pet food was responsible? Nutro states that the ASPCA Poison Control has not linked them to any toxicology so far. I know that two dogs had death associated with ethylene glycol poisoning that wre confirmed by necropsies. Do we have any more?

2. How many actual FDA complaints have been registered? Do we have an investigation pending? Nutro seems to think that this is a web site for people to gripe about the food and pursue no action because there is no proof. Wrong.

3. How many food samples have come back with positive toxicology? Nutro is claiming there is no truth to this.

4. How many have lost their pets? How many total have been sickened? Nutro thinks we are all just blaming them with no evidence or reason .

5. Has there been an actual lawsuit registered yet? Nutro doesn't seem to think there is enough toxicology evidence to support the many posts on the website or many of the claims. They claim the reports or postings are isolated.

6. Nutro is continuing to market their food in pet stores despite all these complaints. Nutro states no one is calling in to complain or send in food samples. What?

7. I even heard that someone from Nutro thinks it is a ploy by a competitor premium pet food company to soil its reputation. * These are questions a lawyer would ask for a class action suit. Right now we need to compile all the data and give Nutro some meat and potatoes data or they will continue to ignore the pet owners who have lost pets or have sickened or dying pets.

8. I've heard some of you stating you were going back to another premium food like Science Diet, IAMS, etc. Be careful again. Some of these foods contain alot of grains (corn,wheat, and soy) which can be easily contaminated i.e. mold (aflatoxin)and other chemicals (prime example melamine contamination - March 07). Many pet food manufacturers use corn and corn gluten, wheat and wheat gluten as cheap protein sources to beef up the protein levels on the guaranteed analysis. Please be mindful and read the ingredient list. One of the reasons I bought Nutro was that they don't use ground yellow corn in their foods but I found that they do use corn gluten and wheat gluten as sources of protein. Both can be easily contaminated! Read your ingredient labels!!!

9. Finally, please report all illnesses to the FDA, AAFCO and proper authorities. Nothing can be done unless a report is filed and investigation completed. Don't just throw away the bag, send it in for testing and don't just send it to Nutro, I still haven't heard back on my sample sent.

Finally, my 4 year old dog who was sickened but didn't die fully recuperated when I switched his food to Eagle Pack Holistic Duck and Oatmeal and has done really well since then. His labs are normal and I was able to catch the signs and symptoms quickly thanks to all your posts and comments. As a veterinary technician, I'm also keen to the signs of kidney problems but I want to thank all of you for your posts. Knowing the signs and symptoms other pets had experienced potentially saved him from further damage and illness. You did save his life. Thank you.

I know that alot of intensive reporting has been done by Consumer Affairs and much research. I commend Consumer Reports for their dedicated efforts.

Then, we started noticing the stools of all three dogs became soft and covered with mucus. On July 17, 2008, our giant schnauzer began to vomit extremely large volumes of foul smelling liquid vomit and had large liquid stools. We also noticed he his urine was very clear/colorless and also in large amounts. He was very lethargic. we took all three to the vet and it was confirmed that, they had gastritis. Samples were taken and, although all the other labs came back within normal limits, the urine was very diluted. Only the Schnauzer was placed on antibiotics.

All three were taken off of Nutro and started on chicken and rice (pure chicken and rice!). after 24 hours, they started to be a bit more active. There has been no further vomiting. By day three, their stools are back to normal. My one dog is no longer dragging on our walks....all three are much active. i attribute their safe recovery to the brave people who shared their stories. had it not been for the information on the web, it sickens me to think that our dogs could have been a coincidental casualty of the Nutro company.

I have contacted the ASPCA, FDA , Nutro and several rescue organizations. A member of one of the rescues responded noting Nutro had donated food to their organization. Since starting the dogs on Nutro, they had become very lethargic and several of them shared the same symptoms as my dogs. They have since discontinued the Nutro. Sadly Nutro should realize that, whether we are all coincidences or not, pet owners don't want to risk the lives of those they love on Nutro's word vs. the word of all the coincidences out there. To Nutro, my three gentle giants are all just a coincidence or isolated incidence. but, i know better. I am willing to speak to whom ever I need to if it will insure that this doesn't have to happen to any other pets!!!

Needless to say, the Vet bills are out of this world for us!!!! We had to take our one dog into an emergency vet on Memorial day, and the other three on July 17th. Not to mention the cost of having to buy chicken and rice to settle their stomachs. Needless to say, to see them all doing better is worth it.

However, about 5 weeks ago, my senior boxer, Buster, began having urinary incontinence in the house. I wasn't sure if it was Buster or Rosie, until I witnessed it myself while home. I noticed some drainage from his penis and immediately treated him for a bladder infection. He has always drank a lot of water, but I noticed that it had really become quite excessive. We also noticed some hives on both of our dogs, mostly on their hind legs. Buster's hives progressed to his front legs, underneath on his abdomen and neck. They would come and go.

When he started drinking about 1 gallon of water and vomiting, we rushed him to the vet. She found a very serious bladder infection with red blood cells in his urine. His creatinine was also elevated. She placed him on a different antibiotic and recommended benadryl for the hives. She said that we might have to do some extensive allergy testing to determine any allergies. She gave him medicine for the vomiting and suggested feeding a bland diet for a few days.

That night, I prepared rice with a little chicken broth, which he loved. His hives had resolved for the day, I left the room and he took a couple of bites of the Nutro (which was there for Rosie's feeding) and within seconds had hives so extensive that at 10 pm I called the vet. His face and neck were beginning to swell. I gave him more benadryl and some doggie prednisone.

We completely stopped feeding Nutro at our home after reading this website. At this point, Buster is still having intermittent hives and excessive drinking. I can only imagine the damage to his body and we don't know what the future holds for either of our sweet dogs. Buster is and older rescue, we estimate he is 12 or so. Rosie is 7, she too, has had some symptoms, mild hives and some vomiting.

We've already spent several hundred dollars on the one veterinary visit. There will be more to come as all of Buster's and Rosie's issues aren't resolved.

i had to euthanize my pet

I have two friends who also feed their dogs Nurto. When I called them, they both said their dogs were all sick. That makes 8 dogs I know personally that have gotten sick on the dog food.

Other than having to toss some food, I had no monetary loss.

I have 10 show dogs and I hope there is no permanent damage to these dogs. We don't know if Mattie will make it. Nutro Dog Food won't even acknowledge this and other complaints with identical symptoms.

On the morning of July 11, Miley was found unable to move, having difficulty breathing & white gums. she had also defecated where she slept. We rushed her to the vet, thinking she would die. on the way, Miley could not control her bloody, mucusy diarrhea. the vet doctors did not think there was any hope for survival. during this time it was discovered that the Mileys liver was badly damaged & her blood wasn't clotting well. but miraculously, her health did slowly improve over the course of 6 days, while she was hospitalized. She was given iv fliuds since she was vomiting and had uncontroable diarrhea. And antiboitics and steriods. coincidentally she was not eating her regular NUTRO food, while in the doctor's care.

she improved so much, that she was able to go home Wednesday. We were soo excited to finally get her home! She was sent home on baytril(an antibiotci) Denosyl( for her liver) and vitamin K( for the probelms with her blood not clotting). She was acting normal, still a little groggy. We fed her small amounts of nutro that night, so it didnt' upset her stomach. We woke up the next morning and found her dead!

Our hearts are BROKEN!!!! We spent $1,300 to save our dog!!! And she didn't make it!!!! We would have spend all our money if we had to! I don't want this to happen to anyone elses pets!!!! When we found her dead that morning we connected the link that all she ate when she came home was her food, no treats nothing but Nurto. We went online and saw all these SAME stories!!! We need to get the word out!!!!

The vet sent some of the food out for testing and we still have the rest at home! Im going to do more research and find out if there is anything we can do. And anymore tests we should do on the food! I miss my dog more than you can imagine!!!! She was only 2, we rescued her from a horrible owner who tied her outside just because she was deaf and was getting beat up by the other dogs cause she couldnt' hear them growl at her when she went too close to their toys, when one would attack her they would all attack her!

We spent about $1,300 in vet bills. And are HEARTBROKEN! We lost our Miley, she was our baby!!

I also was confused because Nutro changed the packaging for this product and them seemed to combine several of their products.A nutro rep at the pet food store told me that had changed things up.It seemed logical because of the pet food scare last year and the present overall economic situation.Recently,two of the younger dogs started vomiting and one drank excessively.Both seem ok now.I'm concerned about changing food and not sure which one I would go with.

Not certain of financial situation as I'm trying to get appt w/ my vet.Only one of my dogs appears to be ill.She's older and was ill when we received her.

$300 so far. He was admitted to the hosp, underwent barrium & periodic xrays. Vet says the barrium is travelling way too fast, indicating IBS. X-rays, $75-100 ea, IV's, --let you know later what the total bill was. Hunter had consumed approx 1/2 of big bag (40#?)Large Breed, Hip & Joint.

About a month ago while feeding from the next-to-last 40# bag of NUTRO, both dogs had severe GI problems, vomiting, watery stool, eating grass, drinking large quantities of water, incontinent, and lethargic. The vet. did tests, started treatment which seemed to help but did not resolve. I went to the NUTRO web site and linked to this site. After reading the consumer complaints on your site, I then dlscontinued the NUTRO and placed them on ground beef, potato and pureed carrot mixture. Both improved quickly within two - three days.

I returned the new bag of NUTRO to AGWAY which refunded the cost and wrote to NUTRO with a sample of the food. I have not as yet heard from them. It is correct that no ingredient in the NUTRO products has as yet been identified and some owners are feeding NUTRO products without any of these symptoms. However, the consistency in the problems reported and - the fact that all disappeared after stopping the NUTRO food are, to me, very significant. I am preparing all of their food and will NEVER purchase a comnmercial dog food again. I am so sorry we subjected our dogs to so much suffering.

Numerous veterinarian visits, lab. tests and Rx. One wall-to-wall carpet will have to be replaced after dog ate sections of both ends + hole in Chinese Oriental rug, also eaten by dog who could not get out to grass. I have not yet determined their replacement costs.

Our baby Isis passed away on Wednesday May, 14, 2008. As you can imagine this was an incredibly unexpected turn of events. We are all heart broken and still have fits of emotions multiple times a day. Our two boys took it very hard, but it seems to have affected my wife Nina and I the most.

Isis had fallen down 4 steps and had been to the vet two weeks prior and we had been given some anti inflammatory pain pills for her to take. She fell down the steps again on Monday, May 12, 2008. On Monday and Tuesday she wouldn't take the pills. On Tuesday she seemed to have a hairball like breathing reaction. She had severe diarrhea and would not eat or drink much through out the day.

We were concerned and took her to the emergency vet the same place that did her TPLO surgery a year and 1/2 before. They checked her over and said she was dehydrated and needed to be checked by the ortho doc the next day. They gave her fluids and some pain meds for her to get some rest. We said good night to Isis, little did we know that it was going to be the last time we saw her alive.

The ortho doc called me at 9:00 AM and said he checked her out and didn't find anything of a muscular or skeletal nature that was causing her problems. He asked if I wanted to have the internal med vet take a look at her. I told him yes.

At around 10:30 I got a call from the internal vet and she said that Isis had just collapsed in her crate and had blood coming out of her nose and mouth. They had been performing cpr on her and asked if I wanted them to continue. I couldn't believe this was happening. I said please do all you can for her. I called my wife and told her what was happening and she broke down over the phone.

About 15 minutes later the vet called back and said Isis was gone and they were so sorry but there was nothing else they could do. They offered to perform and autopsy. I said yes please perform an autopsy. When they did they found a softball sized tumor on her spleen and similar growths too numerous to count on her liver. She had growths and fluid in her lungs as well. These things appear to have caused her weakness issues, as it was causing her to have low blood flow to her brain, organs and muscles. This is what was causing the falling episodes.

The vet said that the cancer was not hereditary and that it is uncommon for this to develop like this in a dog so young.

Isis was a very strong and playful dog, she had many friends, animal and human alike. She normally had a healthy appetite and ate 1 can of wet Nutro Max (various flavors) and 1 and 1/2 cups of dry Nuro, Natural Choice Large Breed in the morning and at night. When she was a healthy she was 130 lbs normally.

I googled Nutro because I couldn't understand why this happened and the timing seemed a strange coincidence. As in other cases, our vet wondered if she was poisoned by antifreeze, which isn't possible. She is an indoor cat and we are extremely diligent. I found all of the complaints with the exact same symptoms. I am going to file complaints everywhere. I will take this all the way if I have to. Do not buy Nutro products. I just pray she survives.

I went back to Petsmart and they told me they would give me a credit. I still had the food at home. So I called Nutro and talked to a young man named Rich. Told him about my issue and he said he was going to send me a bag and coupons for replacement food. I said okay and waited weeks, nothing come. I still had the food and called again. I was told again that I would get sent a return box to send back the food and some coupons. A few more weeks go by and again nothing came. By now its the end of January and I started looking for new food.

During the time they ate this food I did notice that my dogs seemed withdrawn, and lethargic. My one dog would itch and itch and itch. He never had a problem prior but even today he just itches. I took him to the vet and he said there is no reason he should be itching. Now I have to say I think it is related to this food. After reading teh CA article about 6 dogs passing. I wont take the chance. I am goign to try and find a new dry food and fast. I have been a loyal Nutro fan for a long time and am disappointed because now I believe there maybe something that Nutro foods are not sharing with us.

With the heat, this is high BBQ season in our area and our extended family always saves leftovers for Chance and he has had quite of supplement to his dog food. Still he has lost weight. I am sure you would think that I should have picked up on something - maybe the fact that our Maltese puppy ocassionally threw up when he got to Chance's food-no more than a morsel because Chance does not share. Both dogs have developed goopy eyes and ears and Chance had a lesion on his chest on Monday that I noticed while bathing him. Also, for the first time I have noticed Chance dragging his bottom on the grass to itch an irritation. Still, I let it all go because we have other issues at home, my husband has Stage IV metastatic Adenocarcinoma with chemo every 14 days.

Sadly my dogs are not getting the attention they need or deserve because of the time and energy we spend trying to grab a hold of this condition and it's daily toll on our lives. We purchsed the Nutro because I felt bad about buying the cheapest dog food I could find and wanted a higher quality for Chance who I felt I could give a better tasting and quality food to make up for the lack of time I had not had to spend with him. The cost of the food was 3X what I had been spending and was a toll on us. Usually the food last 3 weeks, this one has lasted this long because he has no interest in it. We have about 5 lbs left. Seems he is smarter than I am.

This morning something clicked when I looked at Chance and his matted eyes and thought about the lesion and noticed the weight loss and decided to come in and look up Nutro and almost fell over. The thought that I could be slowly poisioning my dogs. Can I have my dog food tested? I can't afford care for the dogs, if I could I would but honestly it's my husbands life or theirs. I feel horrible.

Economics damage is the cost of food and the home remedies we have purchased to try to fix the symptoms that I did not put together. Not to mention the unspent monies that need to be spent to care for these dogs. Physically they both need treatment, losing these dogs at this point when we are about to lose my husband would devaste my children as young as 6. I am so upset.

The vet did a battery of tests including testing her kidneys and liver. She was developed a horrible bladder infection. She was put on medication and within a month she was worse. I was still feeding Nutro Max Senior dog food. The bladder infection now developed crystals. The vet had to do more tests and put her on a S/D diet dog food.

After two months of the special food and antibiotics she has cleared the infection but still has incontinence. My vet bills are over $700.00. After doing some research on the web, I was shocked to find other that other dogs were experiencing the same health issues as my dog and all of them were being fed Nutro products.

I contacted Nutro. My call went to a call center and they took my name and complaint. I also complained to the Better Busines Bureau in California. Nutro ignored my claim from the BBB. They wouldn't return their calls or respond to my complaint. I am still awaiting for Nutro to test the four cups of food they requested. I asked the rep in the Petsmart what is going on in with their food and told them that Nutro Max made my dog sick and she gave me a canned answer, Nutro products are safe she said. I will never buy there food again or recommend it to anyone. I tell anyone and everyone I know NOT to ever buy this food.

I have spent over $700 in vet bills.

Of course I tried to contact the company and could get absolutely no where with them. Now after spending thousands of dollars my dogs are now on the way to being healthy again. We are still having problems with one of them. I cannot believe this food is still on the market and that the company will do absolutley nothing about it except to say We are sorry your dogs did not like the food. I am so thankful to the vet that we took our dogs to. She saved my kids.

But within the first week noticed she was acting strange. She was hiding in the bathroom and didn't want to be around us, she had vomitted a few times and was having diarrhea. One day she urinated on the couch which was completely unlike her. I noticed little spots of urine all over the carpet when she'd get up and then she urinated on our chair a few days later. She just wasn't herself.

After reading SO MANY stories on here with similiar symptoms, I took no chances and removed her from the food immediately and took in stool/urine/blood samples to the vet. The only thing that came back was the crystals in her urine. The vet is on vacation but I intend on talking with her more about the correlation to the dog food and what possible lasting effects there could be. I'm hoping since she was only on it for about a week and half, I caught it soon enough.

Vet bills, unsure of lasting implications to the dog's health at this time. PetsMart wouldn't take back the food either since it was less than half full.

Sometime around January or February he started having accidents in the house everyday even if it was only a couple of hours. When I would give him his food if I was home he wanted to go outside about every 10 to 15 minutes. This would last for the next 3-4 hours. After that he would be fine until his next feeding and it would start all over. For the most part he had the diarrhea, occasionally he would vomit. This past Monday, 7-7-08 I put the dog food name in on Google to see if there was anything going on with the dog food and I just was not aware of it. I was very shocked to see all the postings even from people in the immediate area that their dogs had the same symptoms and was using the same dog food and it started right around the same time.

At the same time my Mother's dog was having the same symptoms and on the same dog food. Two people that I work with had also been talking about how sick their dogs have been and they were both using the Nutro product food. The one was at the point they were trying to decide if the one dog was sick enough to go ahead and have him put to sleep. Luckily they did not, instead they took the dog home, purchased a new brand of dog food and all 3 of their dogs have made a complete recovery. I contacted the pet store where I had purchased the food and they were not aware of any of this but said their store policy was to give a refund if the customer was not satisfied for any reason.

I also contacted 2 of the vets that we have been to in the past and they were not aware of any problem with this brand. They both recommended stopping the Nutro dog food, give him hamburger & rice to slow down the upset tummy and get him on a different dog food. That was Monday, it is now Thursday and for the first time in months I did not have a mess to clean up when I got home from work! It has only been 3 days but hopefully this means we have found the problem and are on the road to recovery.

Like I said in the beginning we had used the food for almost a year with no problem and now all of a sudden there is a bunch of people having the same problem during the same time frame. I do believe that is more than coincidence and the company would either have to be knowingly guilty or very cruel to ignore it. There is obviously a problem with the batches starting sometime after the first of the year(2008). Something needs to be done to make sure when numerous complaints like this start that they recall what has been distributed and sold and stop the production until a complete investigation has been done. If the company has continued production with no changes after being made aware of a possible problem they should be made responsible to reimburse consumers for expenses this has caused.

they put her on medicine and asked me to continue to watch her. she did better but then started vomiting again. this time they did barium xrays and didn't find anything. i brought her home and they put her on tagament for her stomach. i decided to switch her to a sensitive stomach food. i bought a bag of Pro-plan to try. she has since stopped vomiting and she is back to her running/playful self. she is eating and back to her normal self.

Maggie could have died if she continued on her course. i am out the money for her dog food which now i have a whole back to throw away ($40). i spent over $400 on vet bills and medicine. All because (potentialy) over a bag of dog food that something could be wrong with. if there are problems the company should own up. i would stand by them if they were up front about it.

That night I fed Riley the recommended amount of the aforementioned food. No more than 4 hours later she had uncontrollable diarrhea and also seemed extremely tired and irritable. The loose stool and weakness continued until Monday July 7th when I took Riley into the vet because the stool began to show signs of blood and her spirits had not lifted. The vet administered blood tests and everything came back negative, whereupon she provided a special dog food and protein supplement packs in attempt to aid her diarrhea.

Since Riley has been off Nutro her bowel movements have improved and become regular and the constant sleeping has lessened. Although no tests have been done on Riley's Nutro dog food I am afraid that Nutro is the cause of the problem. Not only did the symptoms that were mentioned in the article mirror those that Riley was experiencing (e.g., vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, odd smells, AND atypical amounts of flies), but as soon as I took her off Nutro she has been recovering. Of course there are other plausible explanations for Rileys discomfort; but, after reading the testimonials I am convinced and I am not willing to risk my pets well being. Better safe than sorry!

over 200.00 dollars in vet bills and cremation fees. the loss of a days work for my wife. Severe emotional stress of losing a beloved pet. Damage to our carpets from his constant vomiting. We are so distraught that my wife cries at the slightest thing and I can not get the image of my best friend suffering for profit

Had we not taken her to the hospital, she would have died. She was in acute renal failure and was hospitalized for four or five days with multiple follow up visits costing over $2000. I emailed Nutro during this time because the timing of the food and the resulting health failure were so close together. Nutro only responded with a form letter saying they were sorry my dog did not like the food.

I was infuriated with the lack of response and could find no way to contact them and reach a human being. I returned the food to Petsmart and told them what I had experienced and they promised a sales rep would call me. I never heard from them. I contacted a private testing company in Texas, however, the cost of having the food tested independently was too much after spending so much on the treatment. I was astounded to suddenly see other complaints during the same month about Nutro wet dog food. I want to add my experience to the list of people who followed through with posting. This country needs a central reporting agency so that death/health clusters are easily identified and testing should not left in the hands of the manufacturers.

my puppy survived, barely. The final medical expenses were over $3000 not to mention the mental anguish. My pets are my children and having lost my old ten year old dog the month before, this experience was especially painful.

One of my co-workers asked the rep what is nutro doing to ensure that the foods being shipped out are free of melamine and other harmful chemicals? The response we got was astonishing. We were told that Nutro does NOT quality test their foods. Instead they have a partnership with many kennels around their factory. They send samples from the batches of food to these kennels, free of charge, for the kennels to feed their dogs. The Rep said if there was anything wrong with the food, they would know within 3 days. If no dog got sick within those 3 days, the food is shipped. After hearing this, I immediately stopped feeding my pets nutro and switched to a more reputable brand that does extensive quality testing and cares about the well being of my pets. I NEVER recommend Nutro.

After some tests on my doggy named Ruffian, her kidney levels were high and my vet thought there might be an infection, she also thought it might be Pyometria. They went in to do an emergency Spay and when they got in one of her kidneys was completely shut down and black in color. A specialist was called in to remove her kidney immediately. They believe it was connected to the food there were tests done for cancer and they came back negative.

$5000.00 later my baby is safe and healthy again and off Nutro. I heard that Nutro was bought out by Proctor and Gamble and since then the quality of the food and ingrediants have gone way down, Is this true? If there is anything you can help me with this problem please do.

I'm so thankful to have found NUTRO.

This posed a serious problem as I have a rotweiller and they have sensitive digestive systems so switching to another type of nutro food was not something I was looking forward to. We had no choice so we bought the blue bag of nutro that has chicken and corn in it and after 3 days on that food our dog had terrible diarrhea and was very lethargic. So then we decided to try the other lamb and rice dog food nutro makes and our dog started vomitting everyday, began to lose weight and was extremely lethargic.

At this point I decided to do some research on the internet on nutro and was horrified to read all the other consumer complaints. We have switched our dog to Eagle Pack dog food and after being sick for over a month while on Nutro he is so much better now. I hope there is a class action law suit against Nutro.

I e-mailed Nurto back, asking what they were changing in their foods. No reaction. My 12 year old Golden Mix has, until last winter, been healthy and spry.... I have to wonder if this has something to do with the dietary change. I was lucky during the dog food recall NOT to have bought a bag with the numbers on the recall list, but with Sandy's health suddenly going down, I'm going to change foods.

Enough is enough! Sandy, like other dogs, has been eatting a great deal of grass this summer. Dogs usually don't eat grass unless their tummies are bothering them. Personally, I'd like to know just WHAT has changed in Nurto Pet Foods.

My dog is not feeling well - she doen't eat like she used to and her energy is very low. Yes, she's old. But dogs don't loose their energy overnight for no reason.

Given this potential issue, the vet will now be running additional and follow-up tests to monitor liver and kidney function. I intend to save the remaining food. Thank you for getting the word out with your article as it seems Nutro is not making it widely known.

Vet bills (currently totaling around $800-1,000 but we anticipate this to rise due to follow-up care/monitoring bills we anticipate) Stained carpet in a home and a vehicle which will need to be replaced and/or professionally cleaned as store-bought cleaners promptly applied have not removed the stains.

I took her to the vet and she said it is something in the food. We pulled the nurto from her, and started making our own food trying to pin point what she is allergic to. Since then (2 weeks now) she's great! No bumps or swelling. Until now I was a huge fan of NUTRO.I am sicken by the fact that I can no longer trust NUTRO products. How dare they risk my dogs well being? My dog can not be replaced, but NUTRO can and has been. I will tell everyone I know that this product is now junk.

My dog was sick, had welts all over her body and looked liked freak. Her eyes swelled shut and she couldnt stop itching. I bought all sorts of dips, creams, lotions before taking her to the vet. There she got a shot that costs 95 dollars. All this due to some junk NUTRO put in their food.

I assumed the food was ok. That was two weeks ago. Our Lab's feces began to have a very strong,sick, sweet dead animal smell and was immediately being covered with flies. Then on July 2nd she started vomiting and vomiting and vomiting. Somehow she seemed to vomit more food then I fed her. She was ravenous for grass and was attacking the lawn like a starving sheep. She vomited again.

Then our Shiba started with runny stool. In five years he has NEVER been sick-NEVER. We looked on the internet and found similar stories - unfotunately with tragic endings. We stopped using the Nutro immediately and the dogs are now fine and the feces smells like feces again. Thank you for your site and the information you share. It may have saved our dogs' lives. But what is going on ?

Co-incidentally, I have noticed that in the last month or two, my two purebred great pyrenees dogs have been having bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. I had attributed that to eating grass and perhaps drinking pool water, though my five year old female pyr (has been fed Nutro her whole life) has been refusing to eat kibble for the past week or so. She has been getting some canned supplements to encourage her to eat. Yesterday at work, a customer told us that Nutro is under a secret recall. I was skeptical, because our Nutro rep has always assured us of the safety of their product... My husband commented today that our female looked terrible... dull coat, lethargic.

I saw both dogs vomit and promptly looked for info online. and there it is: my dog's symptoms correlating with this last bag of food. It is now in the garbage, and I will NOT feed Nutro ever again. Now our store will be in an ethical quandary. how can we sell what we know is a potentially dangerous product? We have a responsibility to tell what we know to prevent other dog deaths. Why isn't Nutro being open about this? Can the government publicize for us?

No vet bills yet, though to get a quality replacement food, I am now buying Nature's Variety Prairie, beef and barley at double the cost of the nutro. $48 per 30lb bag.

I did question the food since it seemed that this all started when i switched fron Science diet to Nutro dog food, and then did some research on my pet's symptom's and Nutro dog food came up. I learned that a great majoriety of pet owner's that had their pet's on Nutro were experiencing similar problem's and some lost their family member's.I have taken ALL my animal's off this food as i feel my pet's illness is due to the Nutro dog food.

I took Logan to my vet he is being treated we are hoping he will get better but i suffer emotional grief as i lost my 20 yr. old cat due to tainted food, at that time it was science diet morcels with gravy. I am so worried that i might lose my Logan i have been through so much i don't know if i can handle this.

This cat is the only cat I ever had who never, ever vomited for any reason... until she got the new MaxCat food. She vomited right after eating; I made a note because it had never happened before. It was infrequent at first, but became frequent. Since the food was the only change she had experienced, I took her off it. She quit vomiting. I'm extremely concerned. I posted a Q on a general Q&A forum, asking for advice about cat food, & someone referred me to ConsumerAffairs; so I'm posting my experience in case it's useful to someone else.

The dogs are currently hospitalized and are making some progress. They are eating and taking their oral medication that is helping. We will have to see what the long term affects will be like and hope that the damage can be controlled and that I will be able to give my animals a quality of life.

I also have 3 cats who eat NUTRO's indoor cat formula. One of them has a very sensitive belly (anything but his kibble comes back up) and a tendency to develop UTI's, so I have to monitor his health carefully. Originally the vet recommended a Science Diet maintenance formula, but the cost became prohibitive, so I started looking at labels. With her approval, I switched the cats to NUTRO and have had no issues. I was notified of a recall of bags from a specific distribution site, and was fortunate that none of mine were affected. In that case, it was the storage that caused the issues. It is very possible that NUTRO is not accountable in many of these cases but rather the distributors.

I am grateful for reports like this that serve to warn and caution other consumers and will be watching my pets carefully for any signs out of the ordinary. My heart goes out to anyone whose pet(s) have gotten sick while eating NUTRO, and I thank them for reporting it so that the rest of us can be informed and aware.

I thought perhaps she justneeded to get used to the new food, and that evening I fed her another can. By morning she was vomiting excessively, was totally lethargic, drank water continuously, and passed numerous fluid mucous filled stools. Perhaps having a Bachelors Degree in Nursing makes me naturally suspicious but I immediately threw the other 22 remaining cans out and gave her ground beef and rice for a couple of days, then back to her old food.

In less than 48 hours she was much improved, and by the end of the week was back to normal. I did ask my daughter, the computer whiz in the family, to let me know if she saw anything on the internet about Nutro food - today she sent me this information so I thought I'd add our exxperience to the list. Dare we hope that someone will really investigate?

When I used almost all in the bin I thought that I may go ahead and change her food to the Nutro Natural Choice Small Bites Puppy Chicken Meal, Rice & Oatmeal Formula because the lamb is more fatty and I thought the chicken would be better for her. When I went to Petsmart to get the food (this was on May 12, 2008) I noticed the same sign up about the lamb food. They had the 20lb bag of the chicken formula so I got it. When I got home I poured the rest of the large bag of lamb formula in the food bin. It filled it up so probably about two weeks later, when the bin was about 25% low, I put about half the bag of chicken formula in the bin and shook it up to mix it well. I did this because I have been told to mix new foods and gradually change so it doesn't upset their stomach.

Then about a week later we noticed she was urinating a lot when we let her out, or so it seemed she was. Then she would have accidents in the house, but they were just tiny dribbles. But a couple of those accidents looked to have drops of blood in them and were darker in shade. I called the vet and they said to bring her in the next morning. I looked up her symptoms on-line and it seemed to be a urinary tract infection. The next day we brought her in and they kept her for testing.

The vet found that "all bloodwork was normal. UA was positive for increased numbers of white and red blood cells as well as cocci bacteria and struvit cystals". They told me she had the UTI and prescibed an antibiotic and put her on an RX dog food exclusivly. I asked the vet what would cause the UTI and they told me probably her diet. That was confusing to me because we ONLY feed her the nutro dog food and treats. She gets NO people food, no scraps, nothing! I just thought maybe she wasn't drinking enough water because she didn't like the water bowl I got her. It bubbled and scared her. But I was filling up the gallon jug about every five days so it didn't seem like it.

After five days on the antibiotic she started vomiting lots and lots. We didn't feed her supper or give the antibiotic that evening and called the vet. They said to bring her in the next day. We had noticed she was chewing on her toys a lot more than usual and thought maybe she ate part of a toy or something and there was a blockage. It turned out that the antibiotic was upsetting her stomach and making her nervous so she was chewing on toys more. She didn't have anything in her stomach. The vet prescibed a different antibiotic and a generic Pepcid. We gave that to her for 5 days until it was gone. Two days after finishing the medicine she started having accidents on the floor again and blood was in it. I started her on the first antibiotic again and gave her a Pepcid with it. She has one more day of the antibiotic, so we are hoping this will be over soon.

A few days ago I was thinking about the whole situation and I wanted to know more about the crystaline stones so I googled it. There were several links about dogs dying after eating the Nutro dry food in the last few months. I think my dog may have been a victom of this food as well. I think her symptoms may have not been as severe as others because she wasn't getting as much of the contaminated food because it was mixed with the other. So, here we are. It could be the food or it could be just a UTI. We won't know unless the food is tested I suppose.

I would like more concrete assurance that Nutro dog foods are free and clear of any and all potentially lethal contaminants.
How can this be achieved?
How can we be assured that Nutro is truly checking and testing their dog and cat food products?
Who has access to these test findings?

And, if Nutro's claims state their products to be free of contaminants, why are these documented findings not made public for everyone to read?

Current uses of Nutro products want proof! Proof that the dog and cat foods they are using are truly...SAFE!

i did that, but there was no info that stated nutro was not causing crystals or making dogs sick. so i investigated a little further asking a friend at another local vet office if he knew of any problems with it. one of his coworkers was feeding her dogs nutro and they started having diarrhea, vomiting, excessive drinking, lethargy. i again expressed my concern with my manager and again it fell on deaf ears.

i told him i took an oath when i became a technician and the evidence i have found with this food goes against the promise i have made my profession. i do believe nutro has some ingredient known or unknown to the company that is making dogs sick. i quit that day.

After constant throwing up for a few days, we did some research and figured maybe he wasnt eating enough. We made sure to feed him a little more and a day went by with no incidents. My girlfriend and I thought we were in the clear until he started again. Finally we took Gizmo to the Emergency Vet to find that all of his vitals were indeed fine, but it appears as if something in the food is causing this. After switching out the food entirely, our Gizmo is seemingly back to normal...

One of our two cats was recently showing signs of what may have been a food allergy or intolerance--very loose, horrid-smelling stools, etc. With an indoor cat exposed to no potential poisons and eating only a respected brand of cat food (Iams), we were confused. As he started getting worse and our other cat started showing similar symptoms, though, we decided to try switching the cats' food, taking advantage of a Nutro coupon for a free bag of food we'd recently received.

Since we had the coupons, we also got a small bag of dog food to try with our dog, mostly just because it was free. We mixed that in with her regular food (also Iams), and had no problems, although we probably won't get it again because it's expensive.

As soon as we switched the cats' food, the problems vanished. We got the Nutro Naturals Indoor Cat formula, which said something on the package about preventing hairballs, etc., for indoor cats. Sure enough, the hairballs we'd taken for granted for the last four years disappeared! Both cats have normal bowels, and they seem chipper and healthy. Also, they're eating less volume of the Nutro food than they did of the Iams food, probably because they're keeping it down and using it instead of vomiting so much of it back up like they were with the old food.

I don't know a lot about veterinary medicine, although I've owned pets all my life. But I think it's possible that some of what the people on this site are describing *could* be a food allergy, not a problem with Nutro food itself. Our cats had problems with a reputable brand of food that many people use successfully, and those problems cleared up when we switched to Nutro Naturals--not away from it. Maybe other people have had similar experiences in reverse, with pets sensitive to different particular ingredients. Or, maybe the Nutro Naturals food is different. I don't know.

Please know that I'm not connected to this company in any way, and have only recently tried their food and had this experience. Also, I'm usually anything but supportive of a big business. But it just didn't seem fair to me to read all these reports unmitigated by any report of an experience such as mine.

I give my crew of 7 Chihuahuas and 1 German Shepherd nothing other than Nutro Ultra Puppy; Ultra Small Breed Adult; and Ultra Large Breed Adult; Max Puppy dog food and Msx Puppy Drumsticks.

The only other treats I give my dogs are the Greenis' SMART BISCUITS. Not the Greenies themselves because my Chihuahuas are under 5 lbs. each, but they LOVE the SMART BISCUITS. Also, the Max Puppy Drumsticks. No problems here!

Sometimes it is not fair to look ONLY at the dog food but carefully examine what treats have been given within the same period of time a problem has occurred.

We left him and he was put on Iv's. I left some puppy food there for him to feed. He did not eat and the next day he seemed to get better, He called and said he thought he would make it. 2 hrs later he crashed. They did a blood transfusion on him but we still lost him. He had gotten sick after we bought a new bag of Nutro for him. He drank alot of water but stopped urinating. We had a huge vet bill and a devstated daughter as he was her birthday present. He also had started having blood droplets coming from his eyeball before he got really sick. I wanted answers and my vet said he thought he had gotten fluid in his lungs from aspirating his vomit from being sick.

We need to look into this Nutro dogfood. I googled and found out very similiar incidents, This is awful and devastating to these people and families. Something had to be in those batches of dog food between and up to May that was shipped in. Please help. I lost a very expensive puppy and a large vet bill and alot of heartbreak. Nutro needs to compensate us for our losses/ Of course nothing could replace our dear companions,

economically I lost a 1,750.00 french bulldog a 600 dollar vet bill and a lot of anguish,

He said he should be fine by Thurs. He remarked to my wife how good he was looking. (Trim healthy ect.) I gave him his meds wed morn. She couldn't get them down him during the day. I gave him some when I came home and later that night around 9:30. About 10:00 she woke me up and said he had thrown up. It was clear with some yellow stuff. Just a small amount.

At 12:00 he threw up more clear and more yellow. Twice as much this time.

I let him outside and he couldn't get back in. I had to help him in. He layed on the kitchen floor by the door. At 2Am Thurs I heard him making a noise. When I got to the kitchen he was Twitching and opening and closing his mouth. It was like a seizure or maybe convulsions. This lasted 10 to 15 minutes then he stopped. we rushed him to the emergency vet 20 minutes later and his heart had stopped. They tried to get it going and it went a little bit and stopped. The emer vet thought maybe he got something, but I know he didn't. (Like anti freeze or poision.)

He was a young health dog. Got sick on Mon. died Thurs early AM. Our vet did a post op and couldn't see anything unusual. Organs looked normal.

There is no way to describe the pain of loosing him. My mother died in 1982 and this is as close as I have ever been to that pain and sadness.

He died Feb. 21, 2008 and it still doesn't seem possible.

I brought him to be groomed thinking that would help but he still smelled a bit. I had been feeding him nutro since the day I got him which was in February and have never had a problem getting him to eat until now. He is a healthy dog and sees his vet regularly. He went days without eating more than a few bites per day so my boyfriend decided to switch him to something new thinking maybe he was bored with his old food when I sent him for more Nutro and I thank God that he did.

The second we poured him a bowl of his new food he devoured it. This was 4 days ago and since then we have not had a single episode of vomiting or diarrhea, he is back to his playful self and also, the smell is completely gone. Im just happy that we stopped when we did, but I think this food should be taken right off the shelves of every store. It cannot be a coincidence. My friend informed me today about the recall on Nutro dog food after I told her our situation. She sent me the link to you. I could not believe how similar all the stories are to my own experience and Im so thankful that my dog was one of the lucky ones. My heart reaches out to all those who lost their pets. I called Petsmart right away and explained my situation to them. They said I can come in to the store for a full refund on my bag and that they would look into it. Hopefully this problem is dealt with soon instead of continually being swept under the rug. Thank you for your time.

Lamb & Rice Recipe.

On the evening of April 18, 2008, we fed him and within two minutes he had thrown up the food, partially digested. Now, being that he was a puppy, there had been a few items that he had used as chew toys that weren't supposed to be chew toys and I naturally assumed that was the culprit of my puppy's indigestion. I waited a couple of hours and fed him again, thinking that he was acting just fine and as a young dog, he really needed to eat something. The same thing happened again.

We took him to the emergency animal clinic and he was severely dehydrated, but they couldn't find anything else wrong with him. They gave him fluids, along with Bupernex, Cerenia, and Famotidine that night and they sent him home.

Over the weekend, Tucker seemed lethargic and then on Sunday night, he threw up again. We took him back to the emergency clinic for a recheck. They performed a radiograph and it indicated a strange gas pattern in his bowel that might be commensurate with an obstruction (feeding my idea that he had chewed something foreign and created an impass). He recommended we catch up with our own vet on Monday, which we did. Over this time, Tucker had stopped having bowel movements all together. This may have had something to do with the meds he had been given.

Over the week, Tucker seemed to be okay until Thursday May 1st. All the while, I was still feeding Tucker the Nutro food. Tuck was vomiting again and still had not defecated so on Friday, May 2nd, the vet performed exploratory bowel surgery and found nothing. Everything was moving right along in the digestive tract.

So, we were at a loss as to what was happening, except we could all see that our once lively, beautiful, happy puppy was beginning to seriously wane. He was lethargic, losing incredible amounts of weight, and has lost the sparkle in his eyes.

I had started making him home made chicken and rice and we gave it to him in very small amounts about five or six times a day. He began to regain some of his weight and started acting like his old self again.

The vet told us she thought it must be a food allergy. We were dumbfounded.

Finally, we took him to another vet for a second opinion. Upon looking at the medical history and examining him, he concurred with idea that there was something about the food making Tucker sick, and he recommended the Hill's Prescription Diet.

Tucker LOVES it and is doing very well. We almost lost him, though. He had lost so much weight that he looked like a four-legged skeleton. His bowel movements have returned, but have never been the same. They now remain on the runnier side but, they are regular and he is not incontinent.

The total amount we spent to essentially figure out it was the Nutro food making him sick was $2,132.13.

It was perfectly clear that he was in liver failure, that we knew, now we know the source of his sickness. How can a perfectly healthy dog who saw the vet just a month ago for his yearly exam go from healthy to dead in 5 days? Now we know, and we fell horrible for not catching it soon enough to save him. My kids are crushed, and we are just reeling in anger over this whole thing. This website is NOT a negative blog against Nutro, it's nothing but story after story of truth and heartbreak. I never expected this to happen to us, and we will do everything in our power to inform people to always be aware of what they are feeding their dogs. Nothing can bring back or replace Pierce, but we will fight in his name so no other dogs die because of this. So if this has happened to you, PLEASE!!!! Call Nutro, file a complaint, call your local FDA office (www.fda.gov) and file a complaint, and talk to the manager of the petstore you get your food from.

Our Petco manager was COMPLETELY in the dark about all of this Nutro food issue. He immediately toof the remaining canned food of his shelves and even gave my husband an unopened can with the same lot numbers and expiration date, just in case we need and unaltered can. We have the actual can of food, along with the Nutro Senior food Pierce also ate.. We had to chose the silver senior food a few weeks ago, becasue the usual red bag, senior large breed was nowhere to be found. Pierce seemed to get very sick and very fast within a day of eating the canned food, but we saved everything. Best of luck everyone out there with their dogs and cats.....save them while you still can!

I am sending the cat food back to the Nutro Company with a request that they test the product.

I am submitting this so you will be able to add this information to your list of problems and complaints about Nutro products.

Thank you for your assistance with our concerns.

The vomitting started @ night and progressivly got worse. There would be the dry heaves. I blamed this on her not getting enough to eat- and then thought maybe she had heart burn. Next she lost the ability to lift up her hind legs and stand or walk for any period of time. Again, since she had had hip problems, I thought it was a combined problem, no strength, and that her time was getting closer to her end. We always knew that she was getting up there in her years. Even our vet had warned us. She had a few tumors, she had bad hips, she was getting cateracts. But she was still going pretty strong until April 20, 2008.

We took care of her for four days of her progressivly getting worse, and me constantly trying to get her to eat Nutro for energy & strength. I slept on the couch for 3 nights to be with her. On April 24, 2008, when she could no longer get up we made the dredded call to the vet to have her put down and end her suffering. We were numb , heartbroken, and shocked that she deteriorated so quickly. Now, 2 months later I get this e-mail to check out all these dogs that got sick on Nutro Dog food. I never would of thought anything of it - except that it fits right in the time frame with all the others, and so many similarities.

We killed our dog! Even when she tried to tell us by picking and spitting out the food, we made her eat it. Then we had here put to sleep for basically being sick. I don't know if I can ever forgive myself. She was like our child.

I still have that bag of dog food.

A few weeks into the bag she refused to eat it started breathing heavy on Tuesday June 17th & died Sunday morning June 22nd. I took her to the vet on June 18th & her liver was slightly enlarged but no signs of fluid. She suspects now that it was a pulmonary embolism. I think it was the food. She wasn't sick, she didn't act sick until that Tuesday & refused to eat the food. She was lethargic but still acting like herself.

$472 in vet bills that revealed nothing, a trauma to her since she hated the vet & a dead dog that cannot be replaced.

The dogs were sickenedfor a week, but were ok when we stopped feeding them the Nutro

When she did not return to normal, we took her to the vet's and found out that she had lost 1/10th of her weight. The vet was very concerned, ordered a full array of bloodwork and sent us home with two prescriptions and 20 lbs of Prescription I/D food. When we arrived home and put out a bowl of the I/D, she practically inhaled it. She ate 3 cups that night, 3 cups the following morning and even more that evening. Her stools were definitely becoming more solid and the stench was gone.

I decided to google Nutro dog food complaints and discovered this website. I promptly called my vet and told her about it. At that point, the vet told me to stop with the prescription that was to tighten things up since the food seemed to do the trick and said that if the dog continued to improve, then her conclusion was that the food was the problem.

After only 6 days on the I/D, my dog gained 8 lbs. That convinced the vet that it was the Nutro food and she has written a letter so stating for me to send, along with the sample, to Nutro. From the evening she started on the I/D, she has slept through the night and is just her old, happy self.

Today my vet informed me that she had seen a boxer last night whose owners had just switched over to Nutro's Lamb and Rice 2 weeks ago and the dog had been vomiting ever since. The poor dog has pancreatitis. At least my vet knew about all of this and was able to pass the info on to the owners. We were lucky as our dog simply refused to eat too much of the Nutro so all her bloodwork was normal.

Since my vet suggested that I call Nutro to report the incident, I called Nutro on June 13th and spoke to Ray in Customer Service. He told me that they were aware of this website, but they stood by the safety of their food. He asked me to send him 4 cups of the food for analysis, the UPC and Best If Used By portion of the bag and the paperwork from my vet.

I took the Nutro food back to PetSmart along with a print out from this site (at that point there were 60+ pages of complaints from this year and only 11 pages for all of 2007 which includes the pet food recall period - obviously there has been a drastic change in their products recently). They refunded my money without question and were shocked by the printout. They said they would pass it up the chain. Not being one to count on that, I called PetSmart's Corporate Customer Service and reported everything to Amy there, including this website. Yesterday a representative from PetSmart's corporate offices called me to say that they are in daily contact with Nutro but too many people have not taken their dogs to their vets or saved any of the food, and they have not found anything in the food that has been analyzed. She requested a sample of food from me as well and my vet has faxed the letter to her as well.

I also called the FDA and lodged a complaint with them. They took down all the information about the product, the names and phone numbers of the people I had spoken with and the information about this website. They said they would be calling Nutro. The person I spoke with at the FDA actually asked me to post my story here and to include the address of the FDA page with the Consumer Complaint Points of Contact by State (http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/complain.html) so that others will also file complaints with the FDA. They take these types of issues very seriously and the more that they get, obviously the more seriously they will take them. So, please, everyone, look up the contact number for your state and tell them your story. Save some of the food in case they want to analyze it.

As far as I am concerned, Nutro needs to own up to what is going on with their products and remove them from store shelves until they fix the problem. I have totally lost my confidence in Nutro and any of the large dog food manufacturers. Between last year's recalls and now all of this, I have decided to go with one of the smaller, family run companies that costs more but uses higher quality ingredients and controls both the sources of the ingredients and the manufacturing processes.

At the time, we thought of nothing that could have caused his quick and sudden death, and we accepted it as it was, unexplained. We chose not to x-ray or blood test him, because he had just been through enough. I wish I could take that back now, just for proof fo his drastic, unexplained illness. But it is what it is, and I can't change that. So now, two days later, my quest for answers has lead me to this. I know for a fact he was not poisoned by someone or he got into nothing of the sort, he just wasn't the curious kind.

And besides, someone is home with him at all times, due to multiple shifts we work, and he was in the house if we weren't home for some reason. In our home, we also have 2 children, so we don't leave stuff just lying around for the kids or the dog to get into. We just don't have toxicants in our home at all, it's that simple. After reading this article I am convinced it was the dog food, as we started a new bag of Senior Nutro, along with a new can of Nutro Chicken and Gravy canned food the end of the week prior to last. He ate for apporximately 2-3 days, then he was violently ill, and had not eaten again before he died.

She had not been vaccinated or wormed before coming to our group, and was started on worming before she could have her vaccinations. Unfortunately, the delay in vaccinating was costly, as she was diagnosed with Parvo in December of 2007. She was treated immediately with a plasma transfusion, and recovered from this quickly. Despite her return to normal appetite and energy, one thing we noticed over time was that she was very skinny, even by greyhound standards, which we thought was simply due to her being a puppy and growing faster than she could put on bulk.

On April 15, 2008, she began having very watery diarrhea.The following day, April 16th, this had continued, and she began vomiting. We took her to the vet, who did a fecal which only showed increased rods in her stool. They started her on Sucralfate and Tylan powder, and also had us give her a bland prescription diet for a week while she recovered.

She recovered quickly on this regimen, and after a week of the prescription food, we started weaning her back onto the Nutro Large Breed Puppy food. Within two days, she began to have diarrhea again. Our vet agreed that it would be a good idea to get her on a different food ASAP and see how she did.

I took the remainder of the bag of Nutro food back to Petsmart, and the clerk who took the return remarked how this wasn't unusual, and that they would advise their Nutro representative of what had happened with that food making a dog sick. I don't know if that happened, but no one has followed up with me to say that it did happen.

Now that I see your information about this, I realize that we dodged a bullet with our Luna (we adopted into our family earlier this year). I cannot imagine how it would have been if we had gotten her through Parvo so well, only to lose her to something wrong with the food we were feeding her.

I took them to the vet, paid over $1000 in vet bills, and did blood work, etc... they couldn't find anything - but my one poodle I was told was in liver failure.... the whites of his eyes were dark yellow - his skin was turning yellow - and we didn't think we could do anything.

She did an ultrasound of his belly and said he had holes in his liver and sludge in his gall bladdar - hmmmm - well, I've been feeding him boiled chicken and rice and ground beef burger and rice and it's been about 3 weeks now and he's finally getting better, then I found this website that said all the problems with the food I've been feeding my dogs.... OH MY GOSH, I stopped feeding my other 2 dogs this tonight, and am praying they dont get sick and go into liver failure like my one dog did.

I honestly feel that I found this site for a reason and that NUTRO is to blame! Are they going to pay for our vet bills? There has to be SOMETHING in the food - I noticed it looked different, but didn't think much about it.... I should have listened to my heart and would have saved tons of money on vet bills - now I may lose all 3 of my dogs... and I feel in my heart, it's due to Nutro... they have to be STOPPED! I dont even know what to feed my dogs anymore! I'm so angry!

I had 7 dogs all get sick with vomiting bile and the runs all had the same food and same illness. out of the 7 3 dogs died and several others were treated by a vet for urinary infections. the dogs that were not as effected and were younger when taken off nutro got better.

I have one that still has trouble and has aged at age 8yrs she looks 16yrs since then and is less active. When this was reported to nutro I got the same thing as people are getting now it can't be our food if you send us some of the food we will test it, I did not send it to them because I felt they would just cover it up and tell me there was nothing wrong with their food I also saw little white particals in the food. I still have the dry food from a the last bag I feed. it is in an air tight container.

I Use Nutro Ultra, Nature's Very Best Ingredients, Adult, With Chicken Meal, Lamb & Salmon Meal; With whole Brown Rice, Sunflower Oil, Flaxeed and Fish Oil, Tomato Pomace - Kelp - Cranberry - Garlic.

Is it still safe to use this Dry Food. What about the ingredient - Tomato Pomace - Since there is a recall on Tomatoes, would that affect the dogs health? Are they getting Salmonella from the Can Dog Food?

It there any safe dog food available anymore in the U.S.A.?

All positive results from feeding our cats this food. Much more playful, active and engaging.

I continued to work for Nutro until April 2008, when the complaints got to be so numerous and so many of my customer's dogs were getting sick, I could no longer live with the fact that I was promoting a food that was making people's dogs and cats sick (or worse, making them die.)

My four small dogs' health continued to decline. I called Nutro several times begging for them to be honest with me so I could advise my vet on how to treat my pets. The only answer I could get was, A rival pet food company is using ConsumerAffairs.com to bad-mouth Nutro and that NO complaints had be filed thru their office.

On Memorial Day, my 10 yo chihuahua coughed so hard from the congestive heart failure, her eye came out. We had to rush her to the ER Vet. Then the pancreatitis worsened and my Cubbie-girl passed away on 6/20. Boy, my 8 yo male pom, also passed away from the congestive heart failure. Five of the vets we've seen, blame it on the food. I've been told they are seeing a huge increase in Nutro-food related illnesses.

I've also been told, It is absolutely suspicious and highly unlikely for 3 out 5 dogs, of different breeds and ages, living in the same home, to have the exact same diagnosis and symptoms without outside influence. My other two dogs, a pom and chihuahua are not likely to survive either. I was also told the average life span of chihuahuas and poms are 13-16 years. My two dogs died long before their time.

The two labs who were exposed haven't been affected as much as the 4 smaller dogs, but did have gastroenteritis and had to be treated and will continue to need lab work to monitor their heart, liver and pancreas functions.

Nutro needs to be honest and come forward with the origin of the contamination so we know how to treat out pets.

and they said they have not received any complaints. ( which we all know they have ).

so far I'm only out the food that I've bought, but it has been mentally stressful to see my pet going down hill for no reason. She'd just been to the vet and had gotten a clean bill of health right before I changed her food.

My dog had the same issues that most people are describing....lethargic, vomiting, excessive urination and bloody diarrhea. I took her off the food and a miracle happened! She got better. WOW! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the problem was.

Then went back on the following thursday for results and see how he was doing. Vet had no idea nor does he now of why he is blind. He even did a toxoplasomis test but it was negative as well. He is completely blind in both eyes. The other thing is that my daughters dog ate the same food and he started to vomit ever day when she got a new batch in as well. then his eyes turned red. When she switched him to another food they are much better now. I have the address and contact info for Nutro but I couldn't find it right now.

He is blind at 2 yrs old.

Vet bills and sick dogs. Nutro is not willing to acknowledge the problem.

I noticed that they threw up regularly, particularly the 9 month old IG. But it got worse this morning when he woke up and started to whine for no reason. He was clearly in pain, if he stood up his back legs shook, then he would go lie down. He has been lethargic all day and has passed four bloody/mucus filled stools.

I have been researching Nutro for a couple of days now and am disgusted to find that so many problems may exist with the food and I had no idea. I am detached from all of the press stateside and I am very upset no effort has been made to alert military families overseas of a possible problem.

Upon realizing the root of the problem, I sat down and placed a very expensive, high-quality dog food order on the web. Now I have to wait two weeks for it to arrive and in the mean time I will be boiling daily chicken and rice meals for my boys.

I am hoping there will not be any long-term health consequences for my boys. They are both Italian Greyhounds from stellar blood lines, they are also both membrs of my family and I and my children love them immensely. I am glad we caught this in time, unlike some of the others who have reported very serious illnesses or even death associated with this brand of dog food.

If the FDA is examining Nutro, they need to move quickly, it is hard to tell how many people at overseas military bases are feeding this crap to their dogs and possibly killing them.

We now have a Dashound puppy which we acquired a couple of months after the passing of the Lab. Prior to the purchase of the Dashound, we learned of a problem with the Nutro Lamb and Rice. We fed the Dashound Pup a different brand of Puppy Chow until he was abouth 6 months old. Nutro had assured the public that the problem with the Rice had been solved and the dog food was safe for Canine consumption.We put our 6 month old Dashound on Nutro Lamb on Rice Formula for Puppies.

Our Dashound is 3, and has been vomiting frequently for about a month, and has had loose bowels. We didnt think much of it, as Dashounds are dogs who go to ground and may ingest many unappitizing items. It never occured to us that it could be the dog food.

It has been three weeks since feeding him Nutro and the doctor was shocked by his bloodwork results. His pancreas, liver and lipase levels were all normal. She repeated to me twice that she was shocked after eight months of consistently high levels. I believe it was due to the dog food. My dog is now off the medication he had been taking twice daily for his pancreas. I just can't believe there has not been a recall on this yet! I have told every dog owner I know to stop feeding their dogs Nutro.

He was diagonised with Pancreatitus and when he was hospitalized for the 3 days he was on Antiboitics pills for vomiting, and an IV. When I brought him home he was much better almost back to normal. He was sent home with prescription diet food and did very well on that. When he was done with the prescription food he could go back on his regualar diet(which was Nutro).

Again he got sick after I started feeding it to him. I had to take him back to the Vet again & they did more testing. This time they said it was not Pancreatitus, but gave him Antiobotics any way. That week he got sick a 3rd time & I took him back to The Vet again. IV, Meds and another stay at the Hospital.

I took him off the Nutro & He is much better. I chose to go with a Holistic food after that & he is well. I would have never known this had I not looked on the Web Site. I probably would have kept feeding him the Nutro and who knows what would have happened to him. I hope for the sake of others and their pets that they remove this food from the store shelves and do a recall. My Vet bills have been astronomical around $2000.00 plus what my Dog has gone through. I would hate to have any other Dogs & their owners have to have this happen to them. My Dog was lucky he survived this, but who knows what future damage has been done.

So through each stage of her life from kitten to adult to senior and senior light we fed her the Nutro Max cat dry food. She was very healthy, never sick. Once in awhile she might throw up but I thought that was typical cat thing. She'd only had an elimination problem if 1. she was mad at us for being on vacation or 2.moving to a new house, new baby.

Then around the time of our remodel, 2006 I noticed an increased need to drink more water. By the time I thought of calling the vet, she seemed to stop doing that. Then in Nov. 06 we had her in for her normal pet check up (senior cat every 6 mon. or so). The vet said she had gone from 11.1 lb. to 5.45! We had also noticed she was rejecting the crunchies which she loved her whole life. The vet could not determine what it was at first: cancer, thyroid problems or chronic renal failure. We took a step by step approach and finally after bloodwork and much expenses she diagnosed her with chronic renal failure.

I didn't think anything about the tainted cat food since Nutro Max cat wasn't on the list and she didn't die suddenly like others...but now in retrospect since she was healthy and I did everything right by her, maybe the nutro slowly destroyed her system. Isn't that a coincidence that she fell ill around the time this horrible news was breaking?

Let's keep the ball rolling on this. It is too serious to just let it go.

We finally did a pancreatic function test and found him to have EPI, which is a pancreatic insufficiency. He is now on enzymes with his food. We changed his food in April to Beneful, but he developed a horrible smell (Petsmart told me that there is a lot of garbage in Beneful that probably caused the vile smell).

We went to switch to Nutro and bought a small bag. When we went to our normal pet food store that we have ALWAYS bought our food at, we were told that they no longer carry Nutro and never will. We explained our dogs symptoms and they were not surprised. Pancreatitis, if not treated can lead to EPI. We believe our dog developed this condition due to his Nutro food. He was on the chicken and rice and then on the sensitive stomach Nutro.

My dog has suffered with this condition and will now always have it. He will be on enzymes the rest of his life.

However, the next day they indicated Bobbie would need a feeding tube and exploritory surgery to verify the diagnosis. We had already spent 1500 dollars and it would cost another 3300-4400 dollars for the surgery. It would not cure Bobbi's illness. At that time we decided to have Bobbi euthanized.

We are not really sure why Bobbi developed liver disease. The only change we had made was to put Bobbi on Nutro cat food. We started with a 5lb bag and when the cats ate it okay we bought a 20lb bag. Two weeks ago we opened the 20lb bag and started feeding the cats from this bag. We set out a large feeder that does not need refilling but about every 1-1.5 weeks.

When we returned from vacation I just assumed the food dish was filled by my brother just before we returned home, but it wasn't. The cats had stopped eating the food. My other cat, Missy did not get sick but she eats table scraps and Bobbi would never eat anything but cat food. I guess Missy ate enough table foods to sustain her.

Two months ago we had also put our 14 year old poodle, Mike on the Nutro Max for older dogs. It's true that Mike wasn't doing well before the food change but he did develop the soft bloody stools and increased vomiting as reported by other consumers. Also, one of our bloodhounds had diarrhea this past month and one of them vomited a couple of times. Well, enough said you can check the consumers report for yourself. As of Sunday all our pets have been taken off Nutro and placed on another brand of dog food.

I brought her home and fed her only rice, that I cooked, and cottage cheese along with an antibiotic the vet prescribed as a precaution. That very night, Friday, she slept all night with no bloody diarrhea since I stopped the Nutro. From Friday afternoon until today, Sunday, and she is fine. She is playful again, no blood or diarrhea, sleeping all night -back to her old self again!

I am so angry about this! Here I thought I was doing the right thing by only feeding her the dry dog food, no table scraps, treats, etc., and instead, I was poisoning her.

My previous Shih Tzu died from bladder and kidney problems. She had totally different symptoms from this but because of her difficulty I am especially particular about what my present dog eats.

How can a company that had built up a trusted reputation keep saying it is nothing they have done? These instances are not just coincidental.

My son changed his dogs over to Nutro, due largely to my urging him to do so, but he is now changing them to something else, too. His dogs are not having problems but why wait until they do!!

Never will I go back to Nutro. I am just thankful that I didn't have to go through what many others did. It is especially hard on the older dogs. I feel so bad for the ones who lost their dogs.

When I took her to the vet, her gums were nearly white and her hemoglobin levels were low enough to warrant a blood transfusion. Having no money to do this, and having no guarantees that it would work, or even any type of diagnosis as this was a real mystery, we opted to feed her a diet that was high in iron and give her some medication for a start. She ate only liver and a special high iron canned food for a few days. She actually improved over the next couple of days and her hemoglobin levels went up.

Then, on October 19, 2006 she acted very confused and didn't seem to know us or even where she was anymore. Her levels had dropped to a place where most dogs wouldn't even still be walking around. It was time for her to leave us. We said our goodbyes, and went home to grieve and try to understand what had just happened.

We never had any answers....until the dog food recall made me suspicious. We were feeding her Nutro Natural Choice, Lamb and Rice and mixing it with some canned Nutro Natural choice...but I do not recall anymore which cans we had been using...it was a variety. We had been feeding this particular food for about a month because we had moved and it was harder for me to get to the store that carried the better premium food she ate previously. Since her death occurred a couple of months before the tainted dog food story hit, I wasn't positive that she died from the food, but I have always suspected it. Now that I am hearing there are more and more people saying their dogs died unexpectedly while eating Nutro dog food, I feel quite certain that this is what killed our sweet girl.

Our total cost for this horrible ordeal: $1100, including her cremation, and 6 devastated family members.

On Feb. 8, my son said Duke was sick again. We took him to the vet and based on the test results, treated him for the diagnosed kidney disease w/infection. The vet also suspected cancer but didn't confirm so we could treat the kidney disease and try to get it under control. The vet told us that Nutro was suspected to cause disease/cancer. Duke died in our arms and I am convinced it was due to the Nutro, especially as I read of identical problems others have had with Nutro.

With that I was told to get the same version of the food (but not for large breed) until they came back with the old food I fed my Dog. They advised that the food would be available in a few weeks. Needless to say, my Dog hated the new food. He wouldn't eat it unless he was really hungry and when he did he was never satisfied.

Within the next 2 months I went back to store many times to speak to someone from Nutro. They told me when a Nutro rep would be there to speak with. When I asked her if the food formulation was exactly the same she told me yes. I explained to her my concerns & with that she told me to put him on Dental care. I thought that was a bit odd.

Within this whole time frame my Dog's bowel's were never the same, & he was throwing alot up more then normal(he has a sensitive tummy to begin with). As time went on he got worse, throwing up 2 or 3 times a day so it was time to take him to my vet. After $300 worth of tests my vet came to the conclusion that it must've been the Nutro food. Now my Dog is eating w/d prescription soft food & soon I'll have him back on dry food. My vet recommended Science Diet Lamb Meal & Rice.

In conclusion, I plan to go back to the pet store & explain to them what has happened & ask for a refund on the food I have left. If there's an issue with one formulation of their food why wouldn't their be an issue with another? It's appauling to me that they would even continue to stock any food on the shelves at all.

Then my 10 year old male goes into these coughing fits, out of the blue. My 3 year old female HATES the food, but will eat it when she gets hungry enough! And my 7 month old female puppy has been throwing up the last couple of days, not knowing why I just called my Vet. And all 3 have the WORST smelling breath! Are'nt puppies supposed to have awesome breath? Now I find this information on my computer, and it all makes sense to me. I feel just terrible now. No more NUTRO in my house!

Last month, I switched from a Nutro food to a Nutro Max food due to a sale in the store. I mixed the two gradually, but over two weeks later my dogs still had diarrhea. SEVERE diarrhea. I have never had any problems before, so I can only assume something happened to this particular batch of food. I quit feeding it to my dogs and they were fine. Fortunately, my dogs did not have the severe reactions some other consumers experienced.

I may try Nutro brands again, but I will wait several months before giving it to my dogs!

Fortunately, I cut back on it and mostly fed her other catfood. (I hadn't put two and two together and I just thought she had just had a change of preference, which she does from time to time.) I feel terrible that I was feeding her bad food and am grateful to have found this site to realize what was happening. I have also written Nutro about it.

My other dog was diagnosed with Valley Fever last year, when it is was recommended by our Vet to switch him to the NUTRO puppy food so he could gain weight. He was doing very well and gained the weight back that he had lost when he go sick. Within the last month, we think the Valley Fever may have returned. I purchased a 20lb bag of NUTRO puppy food but he will not eat it now. We mixed some of the puppy food with some of his other dog food to see if he would eat it, and he did, but then threw up the food.

At this point I have paid over $50 for two bags of dog food that I dont feel safe giving to my dogs now. My dogs are both now throwing up their food, I have paid over $50 that I didn't really have to spend and now have two sick dogs with food I don't feel comfortable feeding them, especially if this is what is making them sick. How do I get reimbursed for the dog food?

Again they were getting sick again, but this time differently not only the bile and throwing up but the youngest one was suddenly scratching herself under her chin so much that she had scratched her skin bare. I went to the vet and he said it had to do with the food I was feeding them. I had to find another brand of food. I heard of Wellness Brand which had the Venison and brown Rice and they've been fine since and the health problems have almost disappeared.

I had sent my Vet bills to Nutro, which a Desiree who worked there to fax to them, and have not heard anything since. What has happened to Desiree who seemed so concerned! Now I also see in one of your posts She is mentioned again. I wonder if she is a ficticious person to answer complaint with a caring voice and then just disappears .

We are still grieving our loss, as this dog had just started training to be a special needs/special alert dog for our daughter. We are heart broken and Nutro does not care that the product I had put faith in for many years- is what killed my dog. I wish all those with similar experiences better luck than I have had with our case against Nutro. Our dog died, and our other dogs were very ill, and required heafty amounts of medication and vet care to pull through thier illness. Nutro has ignored us.

I called Nutro and of course they said they have not had complaints of this nature and nor do they have any recalls on the dry food.My poor dog has suffered who was completely healthy until he ate that food died tonight. He was perfectly fine til I killed him by feeding him that stupid food.

I am having an autopsy done as well as the food tested by two indepent labs. If it comes out to be that it was definitely that food I will make it my l;ife goal to make Nutro pay for making my poor dog suffer. Tonight my 13 year old son gave my dog CPR to try to keep him alive so the vet could save him. He was dead before we even got there.

The day the seizures happened I went to Superpets in North Charleston, SC and the manager was outside smoking when I pulled up. I asked her if there had been any issues with the food. She stated that there wasn't and there had not been any recalls. She blew me off and did not even ask for my name and number. I asked her if she would check into it but apparently it wasn't a priority for her. Theya are the ones that pushed me to purchase the food.

the last day he was given the food was May 8th - the next day he was back to being lethargic and not eating - on May 10 I went to PetsMart to get him some canned food to eat - I found the shelves where the Nutro dog food was to be almost empty with a sign saying it was not going to e restocked due to manufacturing issues. I came home and searched the web to find others having similiar issues - looking back I now believe the Nutro Lamb and Rice dog food is the cause - when I opened the last bag I noticed it looked different - it had a grainy substance coating it - not having had issues with the dog food before I started feeding him the food -

during the time of April 18 and May 8 I was reintroducing the dog food into his diet and he was having days of throwing up and being lethargic. Since the last introduction of the food on May 8 he has gotten weaker - I have been hand feeding him food to get him to eat. Today is May 18 and I just returned home from the vet to have his red blood count down to 15 - he is border line needing a transfusion - the vet ran several sets of tests again and cannot find any reason for this drop - he is back on an antibiotic and he is going to have blood drawn daily to see if we can get his red count up. I recently purchased a different brand of dog food and started hand feeding him it yesterday, along with what I am cooking - hoping that he will recover.

I have contacted Nutro and am waiting for them to send me an envelope to have the food tested - when I mentioned this website the lady I was dealing with told me that they are aware of the website and it is a form of blog and when one person posted to it they caused a panic and there is no correlation to the sick dogs and what is going on with their food. I was told that they ran out of chicken and the plant that makes their bags had a machine break down. I am also in contact with PetsMart and the lady there told me that PetsMart is in daily contact with Nutro and they are monitoring this websit - they want to know what is going on with Nutro and its food also. I strongly believe that the dog food I have trusted for 10 years is making my dog sick.

All I kept hearing was about the wonderful Quality Controls Nutro has. Well my point is, many companies had quality controls before the pet food recall of 2007 that sickened and killed numerous pets due to melamine poisoning. Then to make things even worse, one of my four cocker spaniels was guzzling water this past month after opening the last bag, and drinking it like he would never get enough. He was peeing like a racehorse too. He was lethargic, refused to go for walks which he loves to do. He seemed like he wasn't feeling well. Initially I thought about diabetes. But then, I remembered the posts on this site and based on that I took him in to have a chemistry panel drawn. Thank goodness it was still WNL. I will have it redrawn this week. He did eventually have a UTI but that was caused by the catheterization that the vet did to get a urine sample. Go figure.. That happens. His stools have been bile colored though and also I've already switched their food to another premium brand.

My dogs are bewildered because they loved Nutro. So did I, until this past year. On my last day, one of the store managers of a store I worked with came to me and reported a very recent death of a young dog and the owner and vet highly suspect it was caused by Nutro Lamb and Rice (small bites). The store has collected a sample of food to be analyzed. I hope that the owner decides to have a necropsy done. It does cost to have one done but in this case, I would want to know what exactly happened. The vet stated to the owner and the owner relayed to the store that the dog died due multisytem failure starting with pancreatic failure. I sure hope that it wasn't the Nutro food but due to some of these sudden death incidents, it makes me fearful that it is. Again, a necropsy as well as testing the food for toxins is in order.

I have incurred about 165.00 of veterinary bills so far with my cocker spaniels' chemistry panel and urinalysis testing with exam. I do have pet insurance. If I have continued issues with this dog or others, then I will ask for an attorney.

I lost my best friend to greed and lack of conscience of a dog food producer that wanted money over having a good quality product.

I questioned all of these stores to see what the issue was. Some stated it had to do with the rice rationing, others said it was because of the new bags. First of all, wouldn't they want to make a statement on their website to clear any confusion between the 2? Sure they would, if that was the case. I'm convinced that there is a problem with the food.

I started reading these posts and said, I'll watch her, if something changes, I'll switch her. Well, I opened a new bag of the lamb and rice..started feeding it to her last week. For the last 3 days she has been having diarrea, peeing much more frequently with no extra intake of water. She's also losing bladder control in the house. Stuff she never did before.

Today she is very lethargic.. not even interested in going on a walk. I'm not taking anymore chances.. I will be switching her food today & returning whats left of the food. This is such a shame. When I first started this food everyone at petsmart was raving about it.. that all of their dogs were doing so great with it. I'd love to know if they're sick too or was the push for nutro BS? Anyway, I wouldn't trust a company that can't get any 1 explaination firmly out there as to why its product off the shelves. New bags?? Please.....

Desiree at Nutro's Customer Service was very nice. WHen they decided they needed a sample, she called right away and left a message on my machine. (They did not offer to provide shipping reimbursement but I will send samples tomorrow along with receipts and lab and x-ray results. I remain hopeful that Nutro will do the right thing and reimburse my vet expenses.

I took him in the next morning and thank goodness I did. The urinalysis showed large quantities of struvite crystals. So many, in fact, that the vet felt x-rays were required to rule out bladder stones. The urinalysis also showed bacteria consistent with infection. The x-ray did not show stones but DID show several clumps of crystals showing on the film. Evidently this is very unusual and indicated a very high crystal count!

As luck would have it, my dog had just had his pysical, with urinalysis and blood work on April 11, 2008. All tests were normal and both office check and outside lab exam were NEGATIVE for crystals or bacteria. My vet told me that it was the clearest case of food-induced crystal formation she had ever encountered! My little guy was started on the Royal Canin SO food for the crystals and antibiotics for the infection. He should be ok. My bank account however requires CPR with an initial bill of $281 (and that's with insurance!)I had already incurred expense with the older dog but not as high as his crystal problem was discovered at his semi-annual exam the month before (which is covered on his health plan...)

After finding this site last night and reading the very alarming stories of injury and death associated with Nutro foods, I called Nutro this morning armed with information. I spoke with Desiree at their Customer Service Department. I only waited 10 minutes or so which wasn't too bad considering some of the wait times reported. I started the conversation by telling her that I was aware of the reports of problems involving diahrrea and vomiting, kidney failure and even death but that my problem with the food was different. She did not try to counter that statement with denials; which I found interesting. I explained the problem and told her that I had lab results both before and after starting the food and my doctors statement about it being food related. I told her that I knew they didn't want to have food with problems out there and she, of course, agreed.

I was put on hold for approximately 5 minutes while she checked to see if they needed any additional info from me. AT NO TIME DID SHE ASK FOR LOT #s OR SELL BY DATES. When she came back on the line she said she didn't need anything else. I, then asked her why they didn't want the lot number information. She paused and then said that info might be useful. I asked her what I should do with the food as I certainly could not give it away knowing that it makes dogs sick. She told me to find my receipt and send it in with UPC code indo, etc and they would pass it to managment for refund consideration. When I asked about my vet bills she told me to send all of that info as well, but that there was no guarantee of reimbursement for them.

Several hours later I found a message on my machine asking me to forward a 4 cup sample of the food. Which I will send with the bill.lab and Dx copies. Time will tell.
V

I spoke with my local Petsmart manager. He had received no info from either corporate or Nutro regarding any hint of a problem. After telling him about the complaints on this site he was (rightfully) upset and saifdthat he would follow up with both Nutro and his corporate office. He will keep me in the loop.

Meanwhile after reading the stories on this site I am concerned that the water guzzling and 60 pees a day that my cocker has been doing the past 8 days is not just old age. I think I will have his bloodwork redone to make sure that he is not goin ginto kidney failure.

Then all of a sudden 4 more start getting sick also,The only thing I connect this to is the Nutro,I noticed that it was off the shelves and thought this to be strange,as were other produts limited or not there at all.I told the cashier to get someone to stock the shelves.I am taking this back to the store and will contact everyone involved to get to the bottom of this.

Then came the recall of 2007. Nutro dry dog food, Natural Choice Lamb and Rice Formula, is all that we fed our dogs, and it wasnt on the recall so we didnt worry. Later that summer, around June and July, both dogs started vomiting. Every dog vomits every now and then so I dismissed it at first. Then the vomiting became a daily occurence and was accompanied by diarrea. Suddenly both of my dogs were sick.

I kept telling myself that it wasnt the food because it wasnt on the recall list and that it was such an expensive brand. We had just bought a new 40lb bag of the food and I didnt want to just throw it away. After a week and a half I began to panic because they started losing weight. Both dogs went to the emergency vet because they were lethargic, not eating and drinking water like crazy. Lab tests showed elevated levels of something having to do with the liver and a high white blood cell count .

I went home still unsure of what it was. I decided to just stop the Nutro to see if that worked. I fed them both beef and rice (home made) by hand and after a couple days they started acting better. I then went out and bought another brand, one of the few brands accessible to me that wasnt on the recall list. They have been on that ever since, their coats are better, they have boundless energy, and the lab has really benefited from the protein, he is extremely strong and fit.

I will never trust Nutro again! Like many others, I wrote and called Nutro and recieved no help what so ever, they wouldnt even address the issue. I do believe it has something to do with Mars buying them out. They have changed the formula, just read the ingredients on the bags from now and from 3 or 4 years ago, they are different. Mostly the same but a couple things on there are different.

As for those of you who say it is a great Premium? food, Nutro calls itself a premium food. I dont consider any dog food company a premium food when they manufacture their food in the same place as Ole Roy dog food, which was the case with Nutro during the Menu Foods Recall. I drove 45 minutes south to go to PetSmart to get that food, when I could have gotten food made by the same people in the same way right up the road at the local pet store or Wal-Mart. Nutro in my opinion has now become nothing more than an extremely overpriced below average grocery brand, its definitely not a premium brand, much less a super premium? brand.

I mean come on, $40 dollars for a dog food that is made right next to $8 Ole Roy?????? Thats a slap in the face!

As for the dry dog food, sure, it's made in the USA, but I bet some of the ingredients (if not all) come from somewhere else!

High Vet bills and extreme stress

I had to go to Emergency twice for Skeez. First for the shots and hydration, then again because he continued to have diahrrea and I had to get more medications. It cost about $300 orso.

Regardless of Nutros responses or lack there of I feel that their food is the culprit. All of my dogs problems began when the packaging changed on the bag of food. I thought to myself at that time I hope they haven't changed the recipe but after reading the other similar experiences people have had I am very suspicious.My dogs will not eat this food again. My 1.5 year old dog has never had any problems either and has also had several bouts of bloody diarrhea to a lesser degree.

What disturbs me most is I only found out about this by a coworker surfing the web. Otherwise I could still be feeding this food and searching for a cause of these problems. This needs to make bigger headlines to alert people having problems that are feeding this food.

I work at an animal clinic and have still spent several hundreds of dollars trying to find a cause for my pets problems. I have been too trusting in this company because Ive been feeding it for years with great results.

So far there have not been any financial consequences. I still have the bag of Nutro dry dog food.

What I found was the shelves that contained Nutro Natural Choice were almost bare.(That never has happened) At the aisle with Nutro area they had a Nutro rep stationed here. When I questioned him about why no food was here, he stated that no 'recall' is in effect and Nutro just happened to shut down a few plants who were producing what he termed as ,not as tasty food' and the 'quality' was not up to par.Seeing that a dog can't talk, I asked him how they would know it was not 'tasty' and it seemed far more plausible that a company whos main product is dog food would not shut down a plant and have no product unless some very extreme situations were coming to light. He stated that the food plant being shut and my dog dying were coincidence. Further more, the 800 number he gave me is not being answered now.

I have a meeting with Petsmart tomorrow to discuss. I do not blame them right now for the death of my dog, but I stated to the manager I had a BIG issue with them allowing a Nutro rep to tell prospective clients some very vague, questionable, and misleading information, on the status of Nutro food. As noted, the 1-800 number just kept ringing.

Additionally, I checked their wb site and found NO information regarding any plants being shut down. To me, that would be very signifcant information to relay to all consumers especially if supposed steps were being taken in the best interest of the dog because the food was not as 'tasty'.Also, letting consumers know info on lack of product and when to expect more would seem to be the obivous steps for anybody not hiding something.

I am not sure what you can do but I am simply hoping you can point me in the right direction. This is not about money and simply about wanting to save even one person the heartbreak and guilt I am going through and holding those parties accountable. I will not let this be swept under the rug and hopefully will get confirmation I am looking for with testing of Pet food I still have. I appreciate any help you may be able to lend.

It started with new bag of dog food - then an emergency trip to the vet with a diagnosis of poisoning. Fed her rice and chicken and she recovered. Began adding her kibble back and she relapsed. Back the emergency room with the same symptoms. I threw out the dog food. I did careful research and now feed a different brand that I trust. After a month-long recovery she has never had another sick day. Liver's can heal, kidney's don't. When I asked whether it could be the dog food the vet said that the recall involved kidney failure, not liver problems. So I am hoping to find out what the cause was when this food is tested.

I had $1,200 in vet bills and my dog almost died.

The pet food recall really threw me for a loop because I believe in the products I sell and I stand behind them. Everything settled down and I continued to work for Nutro, Inc. My dogs have done very well on the Natural Choice Lamb and Rice. However recently, several customers have approached me about problems they have encountered with their dogs. Most were vomiting and diarrhea and some were other issues I have reported it up the chain.

Two weeks ago, a customer approached me and told me similar story about the dogs not doing well on the Nutro Ultra and she had switched them to another good premium brand and the dog were doing well. She said Have you seen the consumer affairs website? I said No, I sure haven't. I told her to call our 1 800 number and report her concerns. She said she heard nothing and its' been a month by email. I apologized and said I'm so sorry that this occurred, please keep trying to contact Nutro and save a sample of the food. She had already returned the whole bag.

I've have been hearing complaints. I am concerned as this is serious. I've never heard these complaints before about Nutro until January of 08. I'm not counting the complaints during the recall because that was resolved I hope. My advice to our customers is to keep a log of what is going on if your dogs are affected and save the bag if any problems occur. Write down who you talk to and when and what the results were of that conversation.

1. If you change foods either converting from another brand to our food or converting from our food to another brand due to issues you are having with your pets, take it slow. Mix the food as directed. Most of our bags give directions on converting the food. Every dog is different and your pet has a sensitive stomach, take it even slower. Some breeds may need up to two weeks to convert to a different food. If diarrhea develops, back it up to the previous mix amount and stay there for a few more days. I can't stress this enough. One can also try some probiotics sprinkled on the food (1/2 to 1 tsp) or try some canned pumpkin (1 tsp to tbsp) with each meal. Pumpkin contains fiber and may help bulk up the stool. It also helps with constipation. Sometimes customers have issues with transition and this may help.

While in transition, avoid treats, biscuits until the dog is switched over successfully. Some treats can interfere with the intestinal flora and you won't know if its the treats or the food causing the symptoms.

2. If you are still having issues, please call our customer service line or email us. If you don't get the response you want or need, please be persistent.

3. If any of your pets develop diarrhea or vomiting, and weight loss after a successful transition or with a new bag of the same food, please call it in and save the bag! Call your veterinarian if symptoms do not resolve quickly because your pets can become seriously ill or die with extended diarrhea or vomiting especially puppies or senior animals. If in doubt, call your veterinarian please. Use your gut instinct. It is hardly ever wrong.

4. Also remember that every dog or cat is different. One dog may tolerate a certain food well while another may not. Do your research on pet foods but whatever you do, don't go back to using a non premium food or grocery brand. Many ingredients are not as digestible as what is contained in premium foods or super premium foods and you may wind up having the issues you were having with your pet i.e. allergies, excessive stool output etc that you had prior to converting to our food. Read the ingredients, ask questions.

5. I know that some of this advice comes too late and I am so sorry that any pets are sickened or die who eat our food. Noone likes to lose a family member. Many have incurred large veterinarian bills by the sound of it and this is unfortunate. You have to do what you have to do whether it be report it to this website, or switch to another food. I dont' blame you but I hope that you at least contact someone at Nutro and report your story.

As a pet nutrition specialist, my job is to promote our product and stand behind our quality testing and methods. At the same time, I am truly sorry for any problems any of you have encountered and I hope that you receive some validation and satisfaction from our company. I wish everyone a happy, healthy pet whether you feed our food or not.

After two weeks, the diarrhea was worse than ever and our once active little pup was now very lethargic. We took him back to the vet who tested him for worms. None were present in his stool sample but felt that he should be treated for them anyways. Of course, the medicine did not work and our puppy only got worse.

Finally my husband and I began researching possible causes of our puppy's illness on the Internet and discovered the complaints against Nutro. We immediately brought this to our vets attention. The vet told us to stop feeding our puppy the food immediately. After a few weeks of getting the tainted food out of his system, we are happy to say that our little pup is once again healthy and very active.

In the past two weeks she had became lethargic, lost her appetite, losing body weight, and her condition in general seemed to be declining. She also has had several bouts of muscle/joint pain in her right front leg and has been limping severely.

This week I happened upon your web site and the info about problems with Nutro dog food. Many of the pet owner's experiences were similar to mine so I switched to another brand of food. My dog showed marked improvement within 24 hours. Today, she eats vigorously, her bowel movements are firmer, and she has perked up noticalbly. She couldn't go for a walk yesterday but walked with me tonight from 2 miles without any problem or limping. I am going to take the Nutro food I purchased last week back to Petsmart for a refund and will never use Nutro products again. I am convinced there is something wrong with the food I purchased.

She was throwing up, eating grass, diarehea, bad gas, and not eating. Her stool and throw up started getting some blood in it. We took her to the vet and she had blood tests in which her protien levels were very low.

The vet immediately put her on an IV and had us handfeed her boiled chicken and cottage cheese over the next couple of days. She started to feel better and a week later we tryed to reintroduce her to the Nutro dog food - and she started to get sick again. We stopped feeding her the dog food and she got better. We are now feeding her baby food and chicken and cottage cheese with a multivitiman. We do not trust the dog food companys anymore. We thought we were buying her premium food only to find out we were lied to and our dogs health put in jeapordy.

By the time I got her there she was comatose and in kidney failure and had to be euthanized. I then had to rush home and get Max to the vet. He had began Vomiting at 2:30 am but, was not as ill as Sophia had been. When I got him to the vet she found elevated creatin and bun levels. She admistered an IV and retested latter in the evening on the 28th. The levels were still rising but, she said he may pull through. By the morning of the 29th he had blood in the whites of his eyes was vomiting aganin and showing signs of distress. We again had his blood checked and the levels were through the roof.

She told us there is no hope he is in acute renal failure. We decide to euthanize to limit his suffering. We racked our brains thinking what could have happened. The vet said they were poisoned so we immediately thought maybe a neighbor. Then I began researching symptoms and discovered their symptoms resembled antifreeze poisoning but not entirely. There was no drooling, no convulsions or seizures.

I then thought of their food that we had just started feeding then about three or four days before Nutro Max Natural Choice small bites lamb & rice. I started searching the internet and found the symptoms associated with last years poisonings and everthing fit. Sophia had in the past few days before becoming ill seemed very scared almost like sometimes she didn't reconize people. Both dogs were excessively thirst emptying their water bowl repeatedly through out the day and drinking from the toilet.

Both had several accidents which was not normail. Both dogs are now at the Purdue University animal science center in Indiana undergoing autopsys to find out the exact cause of death. We contacted the FDA and they said only testing could determine if it was in fact food related so we are now waiting to hear.

Both are beloved pets are dead. we spent almost 1000.00 that did no good. We would have spent what ever it took to keep them alive if we could have.

Find an alternative food to use until the situation is corrected for you pets. Most of all, stay in touch with the rep you contact. Remember, the sticky wheel gets the most attention! Keep in mind, too, that most companies will not volunteer information unless you ask the right question. I have to keep probing to get the answers I seek. I stress.... DO YOUR RESEARCH! Don't just post complaints. Have your facts in hand when you place your calls.

We have already spent 300.00 on vet bills and will have to do all of the testing again to see if we are improving we also are trying to get meds to get his liver enzymes down.

To the best of my assumption he ate it for a while before it built up in his system and created problems. Unless is was literarily one piece of kibble.

His sensative stomach continues but seems to have recovered over all.

I went back to Petsmart and asked them if Nutro had changed the formula and they said they were not aware. Petsmart as always did suggest that I return the unused Nutro food and purchase a different one. I emailed Nutro to complain months ago, but as of yet I have not received a reply. I find Nutro's lack of response to loyal customer questions and complaints unresponsible on their part.

Soon after our cats started eating Max Cat Weight Control Roasted Chicken Flavor Dry Cat food they started vomiting. Our older cat has developed a sore on his mid back about the size of a quarter. Both cats are not able to keep it down.

It seems this last bag of Lamb Meal & Rice is adversely affecting my dog. He's had chronic diarrhea with numerous accidents inside the house. He hadn't had an accident in the house since he was a pup. His stool has been soft, messy, very bad smelling, and contained mucus in it. I sent a sample of his stool to the lab and the results were negative.

I've emailed Nutro inquiring about any possible changes in formula that may not be agreeing with my dog. I never received a response. After reading similar experiences here, I'm going to throw away the remainder of the bag and try a different brand. It's too bad if the food is indeed the cause of my dog's problems. I really stood behind this brand for many years, was proud to use it, and recommended it to many.

Well, that is untrue because my food is currently there being tested and I have called in. This shows me, once again, that Nutro is NOT taking any responsibility or being accountable. Consumers, please, if your dogs are getting sick or acting differently, please watch them closely. I'm not telling you to take them off the food....all I am saying is to be aware of them and their habits. The Nutro food could be a problem for your pet. Until this gets figured out, I won't be recommending this food. And my dogs will not eat it again for a number of reasons.... one being that RAY did not tell me the truth!

I decided to change her food from Purina One lamb formula to Nutro's Natural Choice venison and brown rice dry food. It has been 6 weeks now and her coat is shiny and smooth and she her feet are not bothering her anymore. In fact, the large nodule between her toes has all but disappeared! I'm sticking with this product as long as I continue to see these great results!

both dogs got the runs immediately.

After having them off the Nutro food for just a few days, they both completely recovered. My other 3 dogs that eat another brand of food were perfectly fine & never developed any GI problems. I am certain it was the food. I returned it all to the store & will NEVER feed Nutro again!

Not only did I spend close to $1000 in vet bills, but I nearly lost 2 of my precious babies because of this tainted food. Nutro needs to step up & take responsibility!

I am now convinced that this food was making my dog sick. Nutro of course says they have not heard of any problems with Nutro Max and requested I supply them with four cups of the food to test and also sent the vet bill (so far $320) which I am in the process of doing. They also told me it will take a month and a half to two months to test the food and that that point I will hear back from them.

i had been hearing from numerous people about how wonderful 'NUTRO' is, so I switched Franny from her usual kibble to 'NUTRO.' The vet believes it was the change to 'NUTRO' that caused Franny's diarrhea. She prescribed some Flagyl & some (doctor prescribed) 'Science Diet' i/d cat food & w/in a few days...no more diarrhea the vet also suggested that I try giving her a little of the 'NUTRO' after her stool had hardened up, to see if it really was the cause... ...lo & behold, I gave her some in the morning & that evening...diarrhea, once again.

I have used Nutro for years, but am now no longer going to use their product. Our dogs are our babies and given they cannot tell us that their food is making them feel ill, chancing the quality of the food in the future is not worth it to me. I am now out $40 for the food and $125 for all the vet work. I am very disappointed in their lack of quality control, especially given the past issues with pet food industry. I thought most companies would be especially focused on preventing tainted food issues from ever happening again.

The dogs might not be dying like previous cases, but they are certainly not well and for especially small dogs, a 3lb weight change could be a life or death situtation! Luckily they are now eating a new food and are back to normal. I am sure with time Lola and Bean will be able to gain their weight back and become normal again.

40lb dog bag thrown out, $40. Vet work, bills, tests (totaling $125), floor cleaning, stress to our dogs for a month.

We now have a 2 year old black lab, and we only feed her Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul. We researched dog food quite extensively prior to getting her. When the problems and deaths happened not too long ago we researched the company again and found that none of the ingredients that were the culprits int he deaths werer evident in what we use now. She is energetic, happy and full of life. I would strongly recommend this brand, do the research for yourself, you will be amazed.

Then in late January early February we were not able to locate any of their food. My son also noticed that a lot of other manufactures seemed to be out of or didn't carry lamb and rice feed. For anyone who has had to switch their dogs food without weening to the next one knows, this is not good for your dogs stomach and a nightmare to someone with 8 adults eating this product. We decided to go back to the Lamb and Rice food they were on prior to Nutro (members mark from sams club) and feed our expecting moms and pups Iams Proactive health large breed puppy. Every one has been doing much better and gaining weight. No more loose stools or vomiting or urinating before their normal outing times. I am concerned though because I just went to purchase the Members mark food and they did not have the lamb and rice blend. Here we go again?

I had vouchers for 6 40lbs bag of Nutro and just picked up the Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Adult (not lamb and rice) thinking I could continue mixing it and not waste the $180 worth of food we earned in free bags (thinking only the lamb and rice products were affected). Now that I have read this page, I will be returning it all (a 3 hour trip from where I live, with these fuel prices!) and see if I can get the Iams products instead. I am very disappointed in Nutro. When I contacted them about the product not being in stock, they stated it was due to their bag manufacture. I don't believe a company that makes a product would allow distribution to stop over the bags. It would never get to that point. They would lose too much money. I do not buy that excuse and now the out of stock situation has been extended to June? I believe they are aware of the problem and are not disclosing it to protect them from further recalls and bad press. I do not believe they have the health of the animals eating their food as a priority or a concern.

It just makes you wonder what is safe to feed your animals. To all those who have commented to defend Nutro, I am very happy your animals have not been affected. You are very lucky, but please do not criticize the consumers who clearly have been. We have been raising our beloved GSD's for many years and are very experienced animal handlers and we have been affected by the food. We understand how to change foods and know that on occasions that dogs will vomit and have cases of diahhrea and even trouble holding their urine. We took all of that in account and we are sure the food was causing the problems. Since we have made the changes the dogs are gaining weight, stools look good and no messy crates in the morning. Please keep an eye on your pets to notice any of these problems before serious problems occur.

The only consequence is $400 vet bill I had to find out I had a bad bag of food, and the unknown health consequences.

I totally believe this was as a result of the food, and I had always fed Nutro as our rescue had always encouraged us to utilize Nutro as it was a high end dog food. I will never utilize Nutro again.

It made my purebred great dane puppy SO SICK!!!!!!!

After two days, he started to vomit. He would vomit in the morning and evening. I knew it was the food since we have not fed him anything different or taken him anywhere different where he could have eaten something by accident. I wanted to see if there were any similar cases so I searched the internet and found this website. THANK GOODNESS! Looks like there are more complaints about the same things my pup went through. I went and exchanged the food as soon as I read the other comments.

I told Petsmart that there are many complaints this month online about this product and they said I was the first complaint. I also spoke to the Nutro representative on site and he said that they were making changes to the dog food since they did not want to use their supplier in China due to the recalls and rice quality. I wish I would have known sooner. It does make me wonder why you need a representative to promote your product in the first place. They must be having problems and need to push their product on people as they did with us. Im so relieved I found this website. There were no physical problems since I caught the problem early and as soon as I switched back to the Purina Chow the vomiting stopped. I wanted this to be posted so people are aware.

No physical damage but people need to be aware so they do not encounter problems.

In January of 08 he started to lose interest in his food (I was using the Lamb and Rice formula at this time). So to try and make the food more appealing I wet is and warmed it up. This worked for a while. He started throwing up bile maybe 2 to 3 times a week. He also started to have terrible gas as after talking to the Nutro Rep at the store I switch over to the Nutro Natural Choice Chicken meal, oatmeal and rice formula for sensitive stomachs. The gas did improve but the throwing up continued.

On February 20th I took him in for a vet check up and update his shots. I mentioned the vomiting to the vet but she didnt think much of it and he looked healthy other wise. He did test positive for round worm and he was treated for that. The vomiting continued and got more frequent but only a yellow slimy substance that smelled horrible and only in the morning.

I called a week later to get him back into the vet to be seriously checked over because of the vomiting but the soonest opening was March 25th. The vomiting continued; he would be okay for 2 to 3 days then he would vomit again each morning in his kennel for about 4 days straight. When he was seen on the 25th his stool was checked and there was no sign of worms. He had blood work done that showed a high white cell count. He had the start of an eye and ear infection which was treated with antibiotics.

That Friday (the 28th) he vomited all day, would drink a lot of water and go out and vomit it. Then he stopped drinking and was still vomiting. That night the diarrhea started. I took him into a clinic open on Saturday and they did a work up on him showing blood in his urine but all other kidney function levels were fine, high white cell count, high belie-Rubin count but all other liver function levels were fine and had low potassium and of course of dehydrated. They gave him an IV and put fluid under his skin to help keep him hydrated after he came home. He was given a anti-nausea shot and a sot of antibiotics. We were sent home with the pill for both. He has slowly improved. His energy is back he has vomited a little food once but no bile. His coat looks good and his eyes are clearer. I finally started feeding him again Sunday night rice and some chicken. He eat it well and kept it down.

After a few days of that I slowly add small amounts of Bil-Jac dog food. Then after he did well with that I started removing the rice and chicken. He has been on the Bil-Jac dog food for 2 weeks now and has not thrown up once, looks great and is acting like a happy dog again. I took him back to the vet the following Friday (April 4th) and his white count was back were it was supposed to be but his belie-Rubin was still a bit high. The vet has no idea what could have been the problem. She said she sent us with the anti-biotic in hopes that would take care of it but she was unsure of that. The Friday that he started vomiting so bad I contacted his breeder and she emailed me a forum where people had reported some of the same symptoms that my dog had and they were all on the same brand of food.

That is when I took away the Nutro food and will never feed my dog that food again. My vet bills are about $1,000 now. I contacted Nutro and sent out some of the food for their testing hoping that it wont be biased. I have more of the food and would like someone else to test it but I dont have any ore money to spend on this situation. With so many complaints I would think Nutro would be seriously looked into. Thank you for your time.


Very sick dog whose heath is now improving but time will tell if he has any permanent damage.
About $1000 in vets bills because of his illness.

He was to be a show dog and I hope his heath comletely returns so this won't effect his career. The money spent in vet bills was to go to his training.

I began feeding my cats Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care Indoor Dry Weight Management. Everyday I also offered my cats various brands of canned cat food-some Nutro until the recall of Menu Foods in spring of '07. My cat Sebastian always favored the dry cat food, very rarely would he ever even take a bite of the canned food. He just nibbled at the food as I free fed it from 5 PM to 7AM so that I could get sleep at night. My other cat is overweight so I thought I was making a smart choice.

Late January of '08. I noticed Sebastian (now about 5 years old) was growling after urinating and grooming himself incessantly, so I knew he was having some problem. I thought maybe he had a UTI. I took him into the Vet and she analyzed his 1st urinalysis. She said his white blood count was high and prescribed an antibiotic. She suspected stones.

A week later my cat was not improved, I took him back to the animal hospital. The Vet ordered an ultra-sound which revealed stones. My cat had to undergo a cystotomy and have the tiny stones surgically removed. Afterwards they were identified as feline calcium oxalate bladder stones. His vet bills totaled about $1300.00.

Early in February 08 as I began searching for answers, I began searching the Web and I was shocked at the horror stories I found of others that have shared their nightmare experiences by feeding Nutro pet food to their pets. I will never feed any more Nutro pet food to another animal, or buy any Nutro pet food products. It was a very stressful time for my pet and for me.

We started to question the food and mentioned it to our vet when we took our dogs in for their annual check up. 3 of our 4 dogs have heart murmurs this year and didn't last year. One of the dogs also has adrenal insufficiency and didn't last year. Our vet suggested we change foods. We are now feeding Blue Buffalo with good results. I also noticed the N/C Complete Care Indoor cat food had a foul odor. I returned the food to the store for a refund.

I sent an email to Nutro 3/23, Please respond asap. There is word that your products are killing dogs and cats again, very recently and I am concerned. I have been feeding
my dogs your natural line of treats - then came across this website. I would like an explanation. These animals are my world and if what I am feeding them can casue harm I demand to know it immediately.

They sent back the following 4/9 -

Thank you for contacting Nutro products. We appreciate you taking the

time to share your concern with us.

All NUTRO(tm) products are 100% safe and conform to the standards set by
the FDA, USDA and AAFCO. NUTRO(tm) pet foods undergo rigorous quality
assurance testing beginning with raw ingredients and ending with testing
all finished products. This includes testing to confirm that no
melamine, mold toxins, or pathogenic bacteria are detected in any

NUTRO(tm) pet foods.

The safety and quality of our products is our top priority. We take any
complaint regarding the quality and safety of our NUTRO(tm) products
very seriously. In the rare instance when a consumer does have a
concern with any of our products, an in-depth review of the
consumer-provided samples is performed to determine if an issue does

exist.

Nutro Products, Inc. remains committed to the quality, safety and
performance of all our pet food brands. As we have for over 80 years, we
strive to deliver the finest natural products to our customers and their

pets.

We thank you most sincerely for your loyalty to Nutro Products pet food
and for allowing us the opportunity to address your concern and clarify

the issue.

Should you require further assistance, please contact our Consumer
Services Department at (800) 833-5330, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5

pm, Pacific Standard Time or visit our website at www.nutroproducts.com.

Best Regards,

This is 17 days after I emailed them. Who knows, my dogs could be dead if I had continued feeding them these treats. They deny any problems but even if they are safe, this customer service is just terrible and their regard for consumer concern is obviously very low on the priority scale. I buy Canidae and Nylabone Organic Vida treats now and I am confident they are safe and the dogs love them. I tell everyone I know to stay away from this rotten company Nutro. I am DISGUSTED!

using Nutro Natural Choice food lamb & rice for several years. The last bag purchased recently was very dark & smelled different. As a precaution I took her and other dogs off the brand. My old dog had suddenly developed bad breath and when food was withdrawn, her breath returned to normal. The bad smell was same smell as the food in question.

She seemed to be drinking unusually large amounts of water and couldn't hold her urine...it was like she had to constantly go out to pee and each time I let her out to go which was alot..(she kept coming by me and looking at me as if to say..I gotta go mom)..she would urinate 6-8 times each time I let her out. I ceased feeding her for a full 24hrs until the vomiting subsided and only gave her ice cubes...she had diarrhea for days !! I resumed placing her food down but she would not eat it and she became very lethargic...

My sister in NY told me about this notice she spotted at her Vets office regarding NUTRO DOG FOOD...and mentioned it to me( I had told her about the dog vomiting for 12hrs and couldn't figure out why) I got the Vets phone # and had them fax me over the notification and it all made sense. I immediately stopped feeding her the Nutro and she has been fine since...she resumed eating...of course I fed her a little bit at a time increasing the amount each day...she is back to her ENERGETIC self and hasn't been sick since. I returned the food to the store and put her back on the original food I had been feeding her and she is back to normal. No constant urinating no obsessive water drinking ..no diarrhea.

months or so. I'm rather surprised it's continuing and that nothing is being done about it.

Three days ago my toy poodle started with very loose stools. I have been unable to stop this and will have to take her to the vet but I haven't done so yet. I just read the reports on Nutro dog food and I'm wondering if my toy poodle has consumed tainted biscuits.

We will have to get the whole house steam shampooed as his **** is not coming off of the carpet in many places inspite of my using several different products. This could cost us over $500.00 and we are hoping our dog will get better or it will cost us a lot more.

Vomiting bile almost daily.

I ran into a friend at Petsmart today when I was returning my bag of Nutro and stopped her from buying a 40lb bag of Nutro Natural Choice. I saved a small amount of the food I returned to have tested and will contact the FDA. I have already contacted the Nutro company by e-mail but have not heard anything back. I will be telling everyone I know to avoid buying Nutro until I am satisfied that it is safe.

However she did get sick again and she stopped eating altogether. When this occurred, we brought her back to our vet where she stayed two nights, attached to the tubes to feed her. They could not find worms or parasites, or anything wrong with her but she still did not eat, and her stools were still wet if anything at all. After 2 nights and 3 days, my husband picked her up and brought her to Tufts Univ Hospital in Mass. where she went in as an emergency case. They could not confirm anything but she stayed on intravenious feeding and had many tests. The only thing they could confirm is that she had problems with her stomach, and felt they were full of ulcers. She did start eating after a few more days and was able to come home.

We have stopped feeding her any Natural Choice. I started cooking her turkey with rice and veggies. She loves it. She even has pep. We thought she had extreme arthritis, however I think she was being poisoned by the food. She is a totally different dog. The bills exceeded $2,000.00. Money well spent. If you are having these problems, stop feeding you dog this food, and start cooking your own. I don't know if the intravenious feeding cleaned her blood of the poison or just time. The vomiting is violent, and the total lack of energy is heartbreaking. I really do not trust commercial dog food at all. I might try evo dry slowly with my home made turkey. I might not. I don't know who to trust.

At least $2,000.00 in Vet bills. But I think Katie is well again.

None that I know of, though I have one dog who occasionally has diarrhea, that suddenly worsened after starting this last bag.

The circumstances of her death were strange- she was a very healthy dog until one Thursday evening she vomited- we did not think too much of this as sometimes she did vomit or have diarrhea for no known reason. I had taken her to the beach on Wednesday, but she was on leash the entire time and really didn't have the opportunity to drink salt water nor did I catch her eating anything but I thought maybe I missed a quick snack of something disgusting.

Friday she was fine and on Saturday she vomited again. By Sunday we knew something was very wrong phoned the vet, and on Tuesday we took her to the vet who over two days conducted two blood tests which came out normal,9 ex-rays which showed nothing and exporatory surgery which also turned up nothing abnormal. All tests came back normal, nothing could be found to cause this illness. Our dog died on the Friday of that week due to complications of constant vomiting. The vet could not find any cause for our dog to be vomiting. She was always on a leash for walks and was not out of her yard unattended therefore poison was ruled out.

When I read a few accounts on this site of other people's experiences with Nutro brand dog food, I seriously question whether we fed her tainted food. Tainted food would be a plausable explanation and could account for her other bouts of intestinal upset throughout the past few years- she seemed to have occasional bouts of diarrhea or vomiting for no known reason as she was always on leash and well supervised. We fed her Nutro brands of kibble exclusively - chicken and rice until we switched to senior when she was 8.

I thank you for this opportunity to share our story.

She started getting diarrhea on the second day, then began vomiting on the third day. Normally, shes a super high-energy dog but she suddenly wanted to sleep all the time. She didnt want to go for walks; she didnt want to play at the dog park. I knew she was sick but didnt even consider it might be from her chow.

I switched her to a brown rice diet to give her tummy a break. She improved and I resumed feeding her the Nutro kibble. Once again she was reluctant to eat and became sick when she did.

I can't be certain the dog food is bad--my dog could simply have developed sensitivity to one of the ingredients. Im not taking any chances, however, so we have stopped using this food.

Another important thing to note is that none of the vets that these animals went to thought Nutro was the problem. I have called Nutro and spoken with them on numerous occasions concerning ingredients and other aspects of their food, and they have always been very nice. I find it EXTREMELY unlikely that a business would laugh at a customer on the phone, not only from a sensitivity standpoint, but also from a liability standpoint. Overall, I think Nutro is a great product. My feelings go out to all of the people that have lost a pet, but unless you have actual proof, it is dangerous to spread false information. Get facts, THEN place blame.

The first Vet bill was $400 plus $275 to have my carpets cleaned. The bill this week was another $400 because they had to do x-rays again and a Barium test to see how the food was progressing in his stomach. It seemed to be causing and extreme amount of gas and he really was not digesting in.

I saw your site and stopped the Nutro Ultra. I also think all the people with complaints should notify the FDA in their states to take action right away as of this date the FDA has no complaints as I called yesterday. they are the ones to stopped this problem.

Not only have they done amazingly well, health wise, on this food, but i often get asked what it is I am doing to get their coats so silky and shiney. I tell them Nutro Natural Choice.

1) if you change your dogs food quickly, it's likely to get an upset stomach.

2) Things can happen to ANY food - people or dog, even if the food is fine. It can get damp or bugs or be out of date, and it isn't always the manufacturers fault.

3)Even a careful company can have problems on occasion. If you have problems and can't attribute it to anything but the dog food - contact the company. They may ask for food to test. If you don't contact them, and there is a problem, they can't fix it or do a recall.

I had a friend who got food with an incorrect mix and because she was diligent and sent samples, the company did a recall. She had already stopped feeding her dogs the specific batch, but she probably saved many other pets.

We've been very happy until this last bag(dated 10 may 2009,13:38 2 a x 4 j p). Our dogs were throwing up, diarhea as well as the usual allergy reactions. I figured they had gotten into something they shouldn't have, so I fed them brown rice and boiled ground beef to allow bellys to settle down.

The dogs got better, I resumed feeding Nutro, with the same results. I figured the bag was somehow tainted with corn, causing the intestinal and other reaction. I purchased another food. Symptoms immediately subsided. I was determined not to waste a 40 lb. bag of dog food(please forgive me) so I tried to mix it 50/50 with the good food. Bad Idea!!!! Immediate return of symptoms.

Called the company to report my dismay because of course they would want to know about this problem with their wonderful food.

Well.... after a 25 min. wait, (no exaggeration, I have a timer on my phone) I spoke to a very uninterested woman, probably the only one there, who told me to take the food back to the store for a new bag or a refund.

I was shocked that there was not more alarm that their food wasn't properly manufactured, I mean, someone put corn in this high end food! (I was still naive) She also told me they could test the food, although they would not test for corn content, which is what I was perceiving as the problem at that time.

I was frustrated and dumbfounded at this lack of customer service so I said goodbye. I then googled to see if there was anything going on with other folks.
Wow am I surprized, and a little scared that I tried so long to get my Zippo to eat this food. I guess I'll go back to cooking for him, like I did for the first year.


There was no need for a vet visit, hoping there are no major problems down the road.

He's happy, my kids say he eats better than they do.

Back and forth we went between the Nutro/Lamb and Rice and the rice and cottage cheese until my vet told me to put her on straight boiled chicken breasts and boiled skinned diced potato. She has not gone back to the Nutro. She lost a substantial amount of weight, her coat turned rough and dull looking and her skin turned rough instead of the silky smooth skin prior to feeding her Nutro. She had absolutely no energy and could not pull my manual wheelchair as trained.

After 3 months of the chicken/potato diet she has a shinny coat, her hair is silky once again as is her skin. She has boundless energy again and able to pull my manual wheelchair. Bye bye are her favorite words...she can NOT wait to go with me no matter how short or long the trip. I produce a radio program in S.F. She is my # 1 fan.

Needless-to-say, the cost of preparing the chicken and potato diet that my Service Animal requires since the Nutro food was poisoning my dog has been enormous difference in monthly expenses. I live on a fixed income due to my disability...and now have cancer and am dying. Who will care for my Service Animal who must eat this chicken and potato diet--she eats small amounts through out the day, 8 meals a day every 2.5 hours from sun up to a last feeding at 12:30 a.m. the next morning.