Complain about a product or service

Nutro Pet Foods

Lora of Morrisville, NC October 14, 2009

I had fed Nutro natural choice for over 10 years with no issues. In April 2008, my malamute and mal/shep mix, who had never had any health issues, both became critically ill within the same weekend. They had fevers of 105, and their liver/pancreatic levels were off the charts. The vets at the emergency clinic were stumped, only said the symptoms were consistant with poisoning. (They had absolutely no access to any poisons).

My vet bills were over 2000. My 12-yr old girl died 2 days later, My 9-yr old recovered when I began cooking his own food, but still has interminttent pancreatitis and a head-tilt from the neurological damage he suffered. I've spoken to Nutro customer service reps on multiple occasions. They read prepared statements and lie to me about looking into my case. They want all the information I have sent to their legal department, and offer no other recourse.

Dan of Lexington, KY October 13, 2009

Have been using the same food(NUTRO max senior w/glucosomine) for several years, my dog 10 year old boxer, has been having stomach problems off and on for about 2yrs. Wrote it off to boxer breed tender digestive system. She would eat grass and vomit once a week, recently, 4 months ago, it seemed worse.

Bought a fresh bag about 2 weeks ago, she became ill, vomit diarhea, and just refused to eat the food anymore. It's been 1 week since she ate Nutro, and is doing very well now. Will never use this brand again.

Karen of Gansevoort, NY October 8, 2009

I have complained before about the death of my 1 year old cat and illness of other cat after eating the recalled Nutro cat food. Just to update you my food was tested and had almost 2000 ppm zinc....way off from the 250 ppm listed on the bag and the 550 ppm that two nutro representatives have told me is the maximum found in any of the recalled food. So why is it again that mine had almost 2000 ppm? Of course no one at Nutro can address that. Slides that were taken of my deceased cats liver....the only thing that was saved....I had no idea of the recall until after she had passed away...showed that she died from a chronic toxin that poisoned her over a long period of time. Isn't it amazing that in Nutro's eyes this is not proof that the toxin that poisoned her wasn't zinc? Even more amazing is the money that we are spending on our pets while three members of the Mars family rank in at number 19 of the top wealthiest Americans with 11 BILLION DOLLARS EACH !!!!!!!

Now we know that they are saving their money by putting things in our pets food that don't belong there and providing no quality control. Check out there quality assurance statement on their website....do you think the food we are buying has been checked like they say??? It's no coincidence that they just withdrew their puppy food. Amazing that they didn't withdraw the cat food that was made on the same exact machine as this puppy food where a workers hat supposedly got sucked into a machine. Do you think production was stopped immediately when this happened. If it did would several varieties of puppy food be withdrawn or one?? No sense at all. I have never heard a word back from them about my complaint and they refused to take my food that has tested so high. What has this world come to?

Nancy of N. Eastham, MA October 8, 2009

Ok I started posting about my experiences back in February. This condition does not go away :( Here it is October and I'm going to speak with a 3rd vet about BeeBee. He had a mild seizure a month or so ago and I brought him to the emergency vet. It was very mild but it was the first one after his big one in May and I paniced. Good thing I did because I found that his blood protein is dangerously low. But he does not behave that way. He is alittle droopy and such but once he gets around people he's happy, wants attention, tail is going. I tried a few things that I wanted to in my mind (changing diet, etc) and that didn't help and with his water consistancy diarehha I opted for the ultrasound. I was there for the procedure - not that I could tell much - and had to make more calls to get the results than I thought I should have and they think it might be a loop in his intestine and there might be a tumor but since he's not clinical play it by ear but ELECTIVE EXPLORATORY surgery was suggested (1st vet), it's up to me but if I wait too long I might be faced wth a ruptured intestine but surgery was also suggested (2nd vet) - I have an appointment today with a 3rd vet who I have heard good things about as far as honesty and integrity and I will hopefully get all the pieces put together. I tired of hearing that he's not clinical - of course he's not. I refer back to Nutro to them but they don't seem interested in consumers experiences which makes me mad because everyone that has posted here who has had issues mirror mine exactly. I'll keep you posted as to what she says/what the surgery reveals if I have it done. Since there are so many posts here I also would like to see CA set up some kind of way to contact other posters. It might be helpful if a bunch of us in the same state/area all go to one Vet with our files - then maybe they would listen....

Jessica of Memphis, TN October 8, 2009

My kitten just spent the day in the vet's office after eating some of the food that was produced after the expiration date on the recall (9-01-10). The type she eats hasn't even been mentioned in the recall - Nutro Max Kitten. After 425 dollars worth of tests, X-rays, IV fluids and medicine, which produced negative results. I decided to look up recent pet food recalls and found this site.

The stories from other pet owners are horrifying. Her symptoms were the same, lethargy, throwing up, diarrhea and refusing food. Luckily we caught it early. The food is probably still on the shelf as I just bought it two weeks ago. They're trying to act like it's not that big of deal by calling it "not nutritionally balanced" but it is essentially metal poisoning.

All the while, Nutro is giving itself a big pat on the back for the voluntary recall. Nutro denies that any cats have even become ill from the items in this latest recall which as evidenced by the complaints on this site is an outright lie. My vet is in complete agreement that this pet food is what caused my cat's illness.

William of Hermosa Beach, CA October 7, 2009

I've been feeding my dog Nutro Natural Dog Food since he was a puppy. He's 1.5 years old now, and suddenly got a bad case of uncontrollable diarrhea and mild vomiting that lasted weeks. Also, he started getting skin rashes and constant itching.

After extensive and expensive tests, the vet found nothing. I moved him off packaged food and onto chicken and rice. He recovered well for over a week. I put him back on his food, and the symptoms come back at once. I'm changing his food, and I'm relieved to see others report similar issues.

Kim of dallas, TX October 4, 2009

I have been feeding my kittens nutro complete care indoor kitten food. Both my kitten have been on this food for nearly 6 months, one kitten had been throwing up off and on - not realizing it was the food. Once the other kitten started throwing up. I changes their food - the throwing up has stopped. I have made several attempts to speak with someone with NUTRO- no one has returnd my calls or emails

Melissa of whiting, IN October 4, 2009

My family has a beloved snowshoe siamese cat. he is just 16months of age and for the past 6month we have been dealing with urination issues. It took me a while to recognize what could be causing the odor in my home as i never had this problem with a pet before. After taking him to the vet i was told he had the severest case of a bladder infection and was put on an anti biotic for 2weeks. During this time my cat would not move out of a corner in the closet i thought i might loose him. a month later things weren't getting better and i found thousands of other complaints about this product. My vet now has him on a stronger anti biotic, antidepressants and has asked me to now feed him hills science diet and things are slowly getting better.

Carol of Marietta, GA October 2, 2009

Our 14 year old Cocker Spaniel, Dixie, became ill and was tested extensively at Animals first Vet Hospital. There were no medical reasons for these severe symptoms. She was vomiting, diarrhea, and finally refused to eat. She became very weak and could not walk up or down stairs. She slept almost continually. She has been leashed and rarely even leaves her own yard for walking. We thought she was just in the last phases of dying. She had been fed Nutro Ultra Senior Dog Food exclusively for years. After the Vet strongly suggested changing her food, she surprisingly recovered almost completely. After reading many of the blogs on this dog food, it seems that Dixie was probably being poisoned by her dog food.

Sarah of Murrieta, CA October 2, 2009

To give you some background, I have had cats all my life (58 so far) and I am very aware of the various health issues a cat can have. What alerted us that there was something definitely wrong was losing 5 cats in less than a year.

I have never lost that many cats in that short a time... EVER! It was also hard to pin point what exactly was going on is because the vets didn't have a conclusive reason why any of the cats were sick in the first place. One was supposedly due to old age and another was because of a congenital intestinal defect but the third there was no rhyme or reason as to why they were sick. They had just stopped eating. That was the key. They had all stopped eating.

When we had finally discovered the common element in all of their sicknesses, my fiance started searching the internet (he didn't have to search far). It seems that in February of 2008, Menu Foods purchased Nutro (you may remember Menu Foods as one of the companies responsible for the contaminated pet food back in 2007). It was around that time we started to notice a change in the appearance of the cat kibble.

In March of 2008, one of our oldest cats, Sebastian had stopped eating and so we took him to the vet. They did x-rays and said he had cancer of the intestines. We didn't want him to suffer and because of his advanced years (he was 16) so we decided that the most humane thing to do was to have him put down.

In the mean time, one of our newest cats Tiger had taken to not eating. We couldn't figure out why. We took him to the vet as well and they started doing tests. He would get better for a few days and then slip back to his old habits. In August, we finally took him to a Vet of Specialists. They told us that he had a blocked intestine and had to have surgery immediately. They did the surgery and removed a large chunk of his upper intestine. Needless to say he never recovered from his surgery.

When our next cat became sick and was diagnosed with an intestinal problem, my fiance knew something was wrong and figured he would check out the cat food we were feeding them. Bingo! We stopped feeding the Nutro immediately. Unfortunately, Esmeralda never recovered and had to put to sleep.

Well, we thought the threat was over. We had found the cause to why we were losing cats. What we didn't realize at the time was that heavy metal poisoning did not stop when you stop feeding them the contaminated food. Heavy metal is also extremely hard to get out of the cats system once it's there. In February of this year we lost Dolly. Because she was only 3-4 weeks old when we found her she didn't have any chance to recover with levels of toxins so high. So when our last cat, McGuffy, stopped eating in March we couldn't believe that it was because of the food. Our vet told us that it was again something in the intestines. We tried to nurse him back to health but again he was fair too gone for the efforts to help.

Now, to set the record straight. After the death of Esmeralda, I did contacted Nurto and told them what I knew to be true. They informed me that all the web hype was cause by a vicious blogger and a rival food company. As I explained that most of the information I had was on personal observation after reading just a few of the claimants on the Consumer Affairs website. I was told they would make note of my findings, contact my vet and then contact me with a decision whether or not to pay for the vet costs.

Of course I didn't hear anything back. So when Dolly passed on, I called them again and was told the same thing with the same response. I did hear back from them one last time saying it was not conclusive that any of our deaths were caused by the Nutro we had been feeding them. note: we also had 2 previous cat deaths that may or may not been caused by Nutro cat kibble but at the time the vet just said it was something with the intestines.

Well, since I can't measure in monetary values the emotional suffering that losing 5 cats (kids) can do to a person. I can measure the amount of money it cost us in vet bills. Low end estimates: Sebastian 500, Tiger 8,000, Esmeralda 1,000, Dolly 500 & McGuffy 2,000

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Share		Follow us on Twitter.

Back to the top |