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I recently read a thread on Nutro posted in the dog forum. The thread was about Nutro food causing many deaths in dogs and there was a link posted to a consumer site which had many letters of complaints regarding the death of peoples dogs due to Nutro.
I was concerned because I only feed my cats Nutro Max dry food. I am worried for my cats health now. They are fine and haven't showed any signs of food poison or anything bad but I am still concerned. I am thinking of switching to a holistic brand like Chicken Soup for the cat lovers soul.
Has anyone heard if there has been a similar problem with the Nutro cat food?
The only thing I heard about Nutro cat food is that it has been discontinued. You can't buy it anymore, at least here in Germany.
They still sell it at the major pet stores here in the states. As for Germany, that makes me wonder. I know the European union enforces stricter laws on what goes in makeup, food and ect... which is very good because consumers will know they are safe buying products.
I've posted on the dog website about Nutro. Our dogs have been on Nutro dog food for the last 4 years since we've owned them w/o any problems. Our cats are on Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care for indoor seniors. Our cats have been on Nutro foods for the last 7 years w/o any problems.
Just be vigilant as you would with ANY pet food. The only thing we have started doing differently based on the last pet food recall is that we now save the proof of purchase off of each bag of pet food. That way we'll know in the future if our pets ever ate any recalled food. Plus, that is the only way to prove to any companies that you indeed purchased recalled food.
It's not a bad thing to worry about your pets, but don't jump to conclusions. You stand to cause more problems especially with cats (UTI issues) drastically changing their food around.
We use Nutro brand for our cats and have not had any problems. They get the adult cat dry and also get a wet pouch or two per week. We didn't use the wet pouches for a good 6 months following the recall, just in case.
Nutro has been around for years and has always been an excellent product. BUT I remember opening a new bag of food and the color was darker. The Nutro rep told me they had made changes to the ingredients. That was a few months ago and it seems to be about the time the complaints started.
We have 30 rescued cats (20 ferals) and 4 dogs. We started using Nutro last fall for both the dogs and cats.
We took several cats in for annual exams this year and they'd lost a couple pounds. Our vet was happy because they were on the porky side and needed to lose a little. But Nemo, one of the ferals has been steadily losing weight and we were going to have blood work done on him to see what was wrong. We had been finding bloody stools in the litter pan and thought it might be him. It started to worry me when we took a couple cats in that didn't need to lose weight and they, too, had lost a couple pounds. We also had several cats that were losing the shine to their fur. And our cats were no longer running to the food bowls when it was feeding time. I found I was throwing food out at the end of the day because they just weren't eating it!
Well, amazingly, the cats acted like starving strays when I switched to Eukanuba! No more bloody stool in the litter pans, fur shiny again, and Nemo is eating like he hasn't eaten in months! He's already filling out!
The problem with our cats and dogs is we were seeing different symptoms in them that appeared to be other conditions so we didn't connect it to the food. Max, our Pit Bull, was very ill for 2 weeks after we tried Nutro's Lamb and Rice. Our vet said it was gastritis caused by something he got into and we put him on meds and boiled hamburg and rice. When we started the Nutro Lamb again, he immediately started with vomiting and diarrhea. We took Max off the food thinking he just couldn't handle the lamb. The other dogs were fine so we didn't realize it was the food until Tazz, our German Shepherd, became very sick after Max recovered. We switched to Nutro's Large Breed.
They seemed to be ok on that formula. But Max started having stool problems. Soft, then hard, then soft. Our vet thought because of his age that he might need meds if it continued. Kaiser, another German Shepherd, was having to urinate 10 times a night. If we didn't get to the door fast enough, he'd urinate in the kitchen. We were going to get him in for tests. Tazz started to act disorientated and very unsteady on her feet. Tazz has arthritis and we know we're on borrowed time with her but she acted drunk. Jada, another German Shepherd, and Tazz started eating grass. And they all were drinking lots of water especially the dogs after they ate.
We switched to Eukanuba dog food. The first night after changing food - Kaiser slept all night instead of whining and pacing! When the
other dogs went out, I had to wake him up to go! Tazz is brighter and though she's stiff when she gets up, she's not acting drunk! Max is having normal stools! Jada has stopped eating grass! AND they're drinking normal amounts of water now - not guzzling water like they were dying of thirst. No more vomiting, no more diarrhea, fur is shiny again.
When there is weight loss in EVERY animal in a household, then something is wrong! We've been off Nutro for two weeks and every symptom we were seeing is GONE! I thank God we switched before we lost any of our precious babies!
It breaks my heart to read these stories of lost pets. Something is wrong and we all need answers! The stories I've read on http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/nutro.html have alarmed me terribly! I will never use Nutro again!
ON 08-08-08 I SUBMITTED A LETTER ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCE WITH NUTRO PET FOODS AND THE PROBLEMS ALL OF OUR CATS AND DOGS EXPERIENCED. I URGE YOU ALL TO CONTACT THE FDA AS I HAVE DONE TODAY. EMAIL OR WRITE TO PETCO, PETSMART AND ANY STORE THAT SELLS NUTRO PRODUCTS. WE NEED ANSWERS AND THE ONLY WAY WE'RE GOING TO STOP ANIMALS FROM GETTING SICK AND DYING IS IF WE RAISE AWARENESS AND GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS. MY HEART GOES OUT TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO HAS LOST A BELOVED PET.
http://www.fda.com
OR WRITE:
Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857
Last year there was a very bad situation involving a number of different brands of cat and dog foods. Several of the major cat and dog food brands evidently buy "filler" ingredients from china. These are pet grade fillers, or "foods", not human grade. Toxic levels of I think it was melamine (? does someone know for sure?) was found in this "filler", and was causing kidney and liver failure in pets who ate this tainted food.
There was a massive recall, and lots of news stories about this.
We love Nutro for cats. Our experience with the Nutro Natural Choice Indoor formula for kittens and cats has been excellent.
There are more expensive brands of cat food you can find which only use human grade food in the formula if you are concerned about lower grade "filler" ingredients from places like China.
We now feed our cats a vet prescribed Royal Canin diet due to one of our male cats becoming stressed out over a recent move and developing crystals in his bladder. We are very happy with the Royal Canin diet as well, except for the fact that now we have to give our cats something for the hairballs - which they never had while being fed the Nutro Indoor formula.
PET FOOD PRODUCT SAFETY ALLIANCE DID TESTS ON TWO SAMPLES OF NUTRO FOOD AND POSTED ON AUGUST 14th, 2008. THE RESULTS WERE HIGH LEVELS OF COPPER AND ZINC. The symptoms are consistent with the majority of those reported by consumers suspecting problems believed to be associated with feeding Nutro dry dog food.
http://www.pfpsa.org/news.html
Here's a link on zinc toxicity in dogs:
http://www.vet.uga.edu/vpp/clerk/Hardy/
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Nutro brand cat food
