We wanted to make a place where pet owners on ICHC can discuss their updates — everyone here was very helpful and I hope this can provide a place where you can vocalize your story (you can reply to comments and have a conversation of sorts). We think itchmo.com is doing a good job, however you might have info or a story you wish to share with our friends here on I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER about how the pet food recall has affected you. Feel free to use this post and the comments below to do this. 
I’ll leave the link on the side bar once a few days pass so you can easily navigate to the site, and so you can link back to this post to discuss. More timely updates will be posted here, and if you have another useful link — send them in or add them in comments.
HTH,
cheezburger & tofuburger
-
-
Copy & paste this:
My cat (Peaches, aka Mr. Catburger) has been eating Innova canned for quite some time now, and I’m rather pleased that there’s been no issue with it (in re: recall) because it’s the *only* food I’ve found so far that allows him to have normal bowel function.
I’ve been considering putting him on a raw meat/bones diet (the one mentioned on the itchmo site) for quite some time, and fortunately I will have a source of contamination-free chicken if I do so. I want The Catburger to lose some weight, and getting rid of *all* grain in his food should help that. I had him on Innova Evo for a while — that’s Innova’s no-grain canned food — and OMG was there massive stinkybutt. Too much fish in the recipe. (:
There’s a food out there called “taste of the wild” for kitties and puppies, and it’s an all natural grain free food. My kits freaking love the stuff … eat it all the time … and no sitnkybutts!!! There’s also the brand “Wellness” that makes an all natural canned and dry food, also available in grain free … these i think are totally worth it, as my kits have never been more vibrant, looked leaner, and have never had such shiny coats!!! I’ll give it my full recommendation!!!
The solution is to feed your cats only cheezburgers!
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Thanks for the link. We also suggest that people sign up for our recall and safety alerts at http://www.itchmo.com/alerts where we will send you the latest recall or safety information.
U CAN HAS RECALL ALRTZ!
I do haz recall alrtz! Thnx!
personally, I’m having a hard time sleeping w/o my packet of tender vittles before bed, but eventually I’ll adjust
SO kidding ;o)
I work at a PetSmart store, and while the recall has caused the company and employees alike a headache and a half, I feel that we have been very good with it. We remove all recalled food from the shelves as soon as we receive word of a recall, and we try to educate our employees on how to deal with customers’ questions. Though it has been agravating, it is good to know that the company I work for has taken the recall seriously.
Petsmart killz animulz
I feed my cat Newman’s Own Cat Dry Food, which is an organic pet food. I know it’s more expensive, but after reading about this devastating recall, I’m so glad I switched.
Ditto: I am also really glad my cats hate wet food, and that we chose a “natural” dry brand.
I feed my angels a pet store brand — Nutro’s Natural Choice in pouches — and I pay a premium for it. I was shocked to see that MY cats’ food was on the recall list. Even worse, I had three pouches left (from the 12 I buy at a time) that had one of the offending UPC codes on it! The date was October as opposed to the Dec and Jan dates that were on the tainted packages, but it still really bothered me. So close ….
My guys love Nutro and I haven’t been able to find any wet food that the boys will eat other than Nutro (my female will eat anything!). I will more than likely go back to buying it when it is back on the shelves. But Nutro really should be kissing my butt right now …
They were quick to recall the bad products — which is great — but they are not doing much in trying to save relationships which really surprises me. Isn’t spin marketing what America is all about?
We have switched to giving the dog food that we prepare. Most nights it’s chicken or hamburger. She had gotten regular dog food before that, and she was terribly sick for three days. I think she was almost one of the casualties.
I hope there is a class action lawsuit or some people go to jail on this thing, because a lot of other people were not so lucky–their dogs didn’t come out of it. 
Miss Beanie does not get the gushy foodz. She eats the Nutro Dry formula for indoor cats – no problems in the litter box.
But she does love some people food: Spaghetti, scrambled eggs and American cheez. She is trained to the sound of the toaster in hope for some little drip of melted butter that slides off the bagels.
all ur cat ever wanted… was to poop outside. D:
It’s times like this that I’m… ALMOST… glad that my kitteh had a kidney failure when young and is dependent on a certain brands Kidney diet (even though it kills my wallet)
Whilst I do hope that all puddys affected are ok I do like the fact that I get all the cheezburgers.
Now…
I can has a good diet?
Kthnxbai
I work in a privately owned pet store and we had to take a bunch of stuff off of our shelves, even though we carry the more “premium” type brands… kinda scary!
Anyways. I would advise staying away from any grocery store brands for a while. If you are concerned about the brand you give your pet, two brands that I can guarantee will cause you NO problems are Eagle Pack and Merrick. They do not share their production facilities with any other companies and get all their ingredients from reliable sources. Both make cat and dog food, wet and dry, so you should be able to find something your pets will like. =) The only thing is, it’s hard to find people who carry those brands… so you’ll have to use a store locator.
eaglepack.com and merrickpetcare.com… woo =)
Our Feline Overlord didn’t eat on of the recalled brands, but this scared me witless. Our last fur baby had kidney failure and it was hell for all of us. We didn’t want to take that risk with this boy.
So I ordered the Feline Future packaged enzymes, amino acids, etc. which you add to raw turkey or chicken. The Overlord said “yuk” to begin with and I had to mix a tiny bit of it with his canned food, increasing by a smidge each meal. Now he yummers up the raw food and does a little dance in front of the fridge when he’s hungry. He’s a Maine Coon and weighs 23 pounds so he has a good appetite. We were buying premium cat food for him already, so we haven’t noted any increase in cost to feed him this way.
We’d noticed over this past winter that he had slowed down, was not as playful and rambunctious as he once was, but we figured that he’s now eight years old, etc. He also had constipation and horrible stinky butt.
Within a few days of eating the raw food his ornery came back. He’s runnning all over the house (literally) bouncing off the walls, which he finds fun. Six weeks later his coat glows when he’s in the sun. He looks as if he’s been polished. He’s very red, so you can really tell the difference between a dull coat and a shiny one. His fur is also very much softer. He’s no longer constipated and his stinky butt is so much better we often can’t tell if he’s laid down his daily load, or if he just widdled. So I can’t say enough about the raw food diet. It’s a bit more work than using the can opener, but you make up abouth 10 days supply and freeze it in small containers or baggies, using one a day.
23 POUNDS!!!
As soon as I’m done messin around here, I’m gonna look in to that Raw diet (for dogs?). I don’t have cats, I have a parrot and no amount of convincing my hubbie that the bird can defend himself will get me one, but I do have a lab mix that I just recently adpoted. his former owners fed him grocery store food and he will not touch the Nutro Max that I bought him. So it’s back to the kibbles n bits, and I want him to be as healthy as possible, so I’m definitely lokkin into to it.
We feed Royal Canin, and they did recall some of their stuff – mostly dog food- due to a *possibility* of a problem, not any actual problems, which I thought was pretty classy. I was so relieved to see that our kids’ food wasn’t on there – ours have tummy problems and finding food they can stand to eat (and that we can stand for them to have) is a bit of a headache, to say the least . . .
The thing that boggled my mind was finding out that so many cheap generic/store brands, big expensive brands like Eukanuba and “boutique” brands like Blue Buffalo are all made by the same company. Does that mean that there really is no difference between the fancy-schmancy and the el cheapo?
Most human foods (generic & non-generic) are made by the same companies, but there’s a definite difference in between *most* of them.
Just the same companies, but different equipment/rooms/locations that would knock out generic fruit loops or brand name stuff. Same with pet food.
As for pet food, most generic brands are not the same as the higher priced brand stuff via the ingredients. Higher priced pet food *usually* has less filler junk and more meat…which is better for pets. Generic foods usually have more of the ‘junk’, instead of higher priced meats.
I switched my babies to Natural Balance before it was recalled thinking it was a better food. Stupid me! The one that ate the canned is now in early stage kidney failure and eating a Rx diet along with getting daily sub q fluids. My other one has always refused to eat any wet other than Fancy Feast pate style so he dodged that bullet. It goes without saying that this recall has been a little hard on my furbabies but at least, for now, my girl is still with me and thankfully she wasn’t one of the immediate casualities. I just hope we can get her stabilized and keep her around for a bit longer. Any future kitties are getting a completely different diet and quite possibly raw.
I’m sorry to hear about your babies, but mine are eating Natural Balance with no problems. They’ve never had the one recalled flavor (and that recall was voluntary since they couldn’t guarantee the ingredient was safe) – in fact, they are pretty indifferent to any flavor besides Ultra Formula. I hope your girl is better soon!
Babs – you should count yourself lucky! I have chatted with several people from Itchmo who fed the bad Natural Balance and now their pets are sick (or worse). I hope yours stay healthy!
Well, this actually is the first I’ve heard of anyone having problems with Natural Balance. What are the others saying?
Well first of all it has been confirmed that some of their food was contaminated with melamine and the company has admitted they were receiving complaints of sick pets; secondly, there is a new recall of Nutra pet foods today that is being linked back to cross contamination due to lack of cleaning after a batch of tainted Natural Balance was processed through the same machine, and finally the comments from pet owners are endless. If you go over and search and take some time on the site or even post a question about Natural Balance you will find people with sick pets related to feeding NB. Mind you, I have no intention of making you feel bad or putting doubt in your head about what you’re feeding your pets. All I know is that mine were eating the NB, one rejected the wet (but he’s a finicky Fancy Feast addict – was that way when I adopted him) the other ate the NB and now she’s on daily sub q’s with elevated BUN and CRE and I’m just hoping for a miracle. It seems obvious to me it was the canned NB that caused the trouble. Like I said – I hope your pets remain healthy but you should count yourself lucky because you may have dodged a bullet. Go hug your babies.
Last January, before I had even heard of the pet food recalls, I had fed my kitten Nala her usual dinner. She had been raised on Iams and since she was only 4 months old at the time we were keeping her on the same brand of pet food for a bit until we could switch her over to a food of our choice. To spice it up some, I had bought some of the food pouches (chops & gravy) to add to her diet. She ate her dinner at 5PM, and around 6PM she was casually laying on my boyfriend’s lap.
She then got up, walked a few feet, and started to howl – the usual “oh god I’m going to throw up everywhere” sound for cats. It was her first time throwing up, so I tried not to make it worse for her – just waited for it and knew I’d have to clean it up wherever it landed. After she had finished, I looked at the damage, and noted she had thrown up far more than what was her dinner – alot of it was her breakfest, too. Before I knew it she started to throw up again, and there was even MORE food than the first time. I decided to put her in the bathroom, encase she had anymore to throw up, while I cleaned the carpet. After we finally got it under control, we opened the bathroom door to find she had not only thrown up more, but had diarreah. We rushed the litter box to her, and as soon as we set it down, she got into it and had diarreah again.
At this point I was in a panic. She continued to dry heave, not having anything more to throw up. It was around 7PM when we finally wrapped her in a blanket, put her in her kitty carrier and took her to an emergency animal clinic.
We stayed there until midnight, and no one saw us. There was a goat and a dog in surgery, and apparently that was keeping the doctor’s hands full. This was before the pet food recall was a big news item, so I guess they didn’t see her symptoms as anything to be concerned about.
The next day I took her to her usual vet, who galdly made time and saw us. Nala was given fluids and from what the vet could see, nothing else was wrong with her.
We’ve been lucky. I can’t be 100% sure if it had anything to do with the pet food recall, because none of the vets could tell me what it could of been that would cause her to be so sick, but I had Iams food with the codes and dates that matched the recall. By the time I learned of the recall I no longer had the packages from the food she ate that night so I couldn’t ever verify my suspisions. Luckily, probably because she is a kitten and so small, it seems as if her body purged everything that was harmful rather than absorbing it, cause she’s had no symptoms of what the other pets exposed have experienced. I still keep a close watch on her, but from what I can tell, she’s in great health.
We’ve since completely switched away from any brand made my Menu. She’s now 8 months old and eats Pet Promise – which she LOVES and I’d highly recommend to anyone. She especially likes the chicken, but that’s all this cat will eat is chicken flavored stuff. She’s a chicken only kitten
Bless you and your baby!
I was feeding my guys (my roomie’s cat Cassidy, aka “Mush”–12 yrs, >20 lbs (yeah, he’s one of “my” guys); BadCat–6 yrs, >18 lbs; and Snickers, 1 yr, normal-sized cat)…anyway, we were feeding the guys Purina Cat Chow regular. I’d thought from time to time about buying a “premium” brand–after all, I love my cats!!–but then unemployment intervened, and all changes were postponed.
When the recall came out, I was worried that Cat Chow would end up on the list, so I went to Itchmo. When I finished reading there, I was not only REALLY worried, I was REALLY pissed. You read down that list of recalled pet food names and it’s like “Precious Kitty” “Your Dear Pet” “Family Companion”–brand names to some faceless company, but actual FACTS for some people whose animals had DIED because of stupid corporate greed. I am a typical Hypocrite-American–you know, one of those folks who hates corporations, but buy from them anyway because I find it’s too hard to investigate every marshmallow and scrap of toilet-paper that comes into my house. But something about this was a line in the sand for me.
THEN I started investigating what goes into cat foods and why. Now, I made up my mind to ignore the most-extremist claims–roadkill, rendered pets, etc (some of it was like reading Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” all over again)–but even the basic science was enough to change my thinking about cat food. I started reading up on raw diets, started transitioning them almost immediately, and finished making the jump about three weeks ago. I get my ground whole rabbit/chicken/turkey (with bones and organs) and the chicken hearts (for taurine) from http://www.hare-today.com, which is a farm in PA which raises animals for raw-feeding. They ship everything to my house frozen solid, and their service is great (/unsolicited plug). Then I just add fish oil, egg yolks, and vitamin B and E and some extra taurine, smush it all together–it looks like meatloaf mix!–and freeze it in baggies. It takes an hour a week, maybe, and though it’s a LITTLE more expensive, it’s not prohibitively so.
The results: absolutely positive. All three cats have more energy. Before the new diet, whenever Cass or Snick went near the designated poop-box, cats and humans alike fled the vicinity in anticipation of the horrifying OMGWTFBBQ!!1!!11!!!!! stinkybutt to come….now, that’s GONE. No more kitty-funk. (I’m now thinking of transitioning one of my roommates onto a raw diet, however.) They love the new food, though BadCat takes a little convincing once in a while–a capsule of salmon-oil opened over his bowl does the trick whenever he’s being picky.
There is one drawback. When we had dry food, we could free-feed, even though we were trying to stick to 2 meals a day. Now, for the 3 hours most immediately preceding any given meal, Snickers becomes MR. BUTTHEAD THE WONDER-KITTY, who (to hear him tell it) clearly has never been fed in his life, is starved and abused, and must act out his wrath by jumping on kitchen shelves, the top of bookcases, the toaster-oven….This lasts til he hears the ziploc bag being opened for dinnertime. Then: HAPPITAIL!!!!!
I’ve had a great experience with raw-feeding–there’s more stories on my blog, linked to my name above–and if you’re interested in looking into raw food for your cats, I’d recommend http://www.catnutrition.org for solid info. This recall was really a wake-up call for me.
lol… mr butthead. sounds like me when i need lunch… MOOOOOVE IT! *NOM NOM NOM*
Tommy (10)has eaten IAMS for several years, and Ms Vickie (12) also got Meow Mix in the gushy pouches. He has been a serial barfer for years, it didn’t matter what the brand of dry food was, but we’ve always noticed that he throws up when he’s had access to a little more food than usual and we thought it was because he had gorged himself.
Vickie hasn’t had nearly so much tummy trouble over the years.
When the information started to appear in the press, we bought a bag of California Natural and a bag of Newman’s Own. They both like the California Natural, and are not impressed with Paul Newman’s product, no matter that I’ve shown them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The barfage has been reduced dramatically and now we wonder if it was the IAMS all along and not Tommy being a piggie.
Vickie still gets her Meow Mix in the pouches, and Tommy now seems to like a little of that too.
I will say that years ago we tried dry Meow Mix and our cats all threw up, so I never bought it again. That was many years ago, they may have reformulated it after Ralston was sold to Nestle and were forced to cut Meow Mix loose (it was independent until last year when Del Monte bought them).
I used to work in a veterinary clinic and a veterinary emergency clinic and I just wanted to say that not feeding any wet or canned food at all is really not a good idea. Cats don’t drink a lot of water (if they are drinking a lot, there’s ususally an underlying medical condition and you should have your vet check it out), so to prevent them from having kidney issues later in life, a little bit of canned or wet food is good for the kidneys. Of course, the dry food is better for their teeth. I give my cats a little bit of canned food every other day or so–just a tablespoon on their regular food. Although of course now I’m extra careful to make sure it’s a “safe” brand.
Also, it’s very difficult for those of us who work with animal rescues to avoid some of the cheaper brands of food! I work with a dog rescue and a cat rescue and all of our food is donated by the local grocery stores and Petsmart! I used to work at a shelter and IAMS/Eukanuba donated a lot of their food. It’s scary to think what could happen! Also, I volunteer with a group which provides pet food to indigent people–and usually the stuff we get donated is from the grocery store–Pedigree and such. I really feel for the people (myself included) who can’t afford Innova or those brands! I have been thinking about cooking for them, but I have 6 dogs right now (4 of my own and 2 fosters) and several cats I’m fostering!
Within the last 12 months, The Spouse had started to read up on cat foods and decided that we needed to find a brand of dry cat food that had extra-high protein levels and zero “by products” for our three kitties. So we switched from IAMS and Science Diet over to a newer Purina premium brand called Purina Pro Plan. About 6 months later, news of the recalls broke, and we were relieved as hell that we had switched. The Boyz also split one can of gushy food between the three of them, and we’ve been using Fancy Feast for a couple of years.
I know Purina is a ‘big brand’ but they were only minimally affected by the recall, our cats love the stuff and are healthy and happy.
My cat Puff just died from kidney failure. I’m almost certain it was due to Western Family brand cat food, flaked tuna flavour. It was her favourite. Unfortunately I had just thrown out/recycled all the empty cat food cans so I can’t prove she got any of the contaminated food, but it is a pretty big coincidence that she suddenly developed kidney failure right around the time the food was recalled.
My two cats, Buddy, 30 lb 6yrs, and Carmon, 9 lb (guess) 1yr, eat Science Diet light, and senstive tummy, and whiscas. My other cat gracy died from food poisoning in IAMS… We managed to save buddy and now hes healthier and happier, and slimmer on the new food
My 2 cats were killed by poisoning, were 15. it sucks so bad.
The same thing that poisoned the kittehs and goggies is now killing babehs in Asia. Bad China is bad.
I’m extremely thankful that our cats and the dog were OK. They are both on special prescription diets (well, the male is due to a UTI, but he’d steal the regular food we left out for the female), and the particular kind they eat was not affected by the poison. The dog was fine, too, since Purina One foods weren’t affected, either.
During the recall, I did work at a grocery store, and was there when the recalls went out. You’d be surprised how many customers tried to buy the food anyway before we could get it all off the shelves, despite being told that it was killing pets. “But Fluffy won’t eat anything else!” Well, Fluffy’s going to have to deal for a bit, or suffer organ failure.
I’m worried about what my cat is eating (Tuck) specialy cause I bought him food with “greens” the day before I first got the notice. If Tuck get’s unhealthy I sue.
(not really, but I will scream and throw a fit and vandalise cat food bags)
The latest information on pet food recalls.