I'm trying California Natural dry chicken and rice today for the first time, having looked at the ingredient list carefully, and after calling Natura.  I was impressed with their responses to my questions, and especially with the fact that they are testing every single batch for melamime.  The people I spoke to acted like the recall was a big deal and did not try to downplay it, as did someone at Canidae. 

Lacy,

You're right about the phenyalinine.  I had attempted to google it before and it came up as aspartame, but I must have spelled it wrong, because I tried again and it came up as a naturally-occurring amino acid in meat and other foods.  I did end up calling Natura and both people I spoke to there were very courteous, acted like the pet food recall was a big deal, and answered my questions in a way that left me feeling confident about their products.  I am off to buy a bag of California Natural for my dogs.  Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions and comments. 

Annette,
I didn't mean to imply that I thought you worked for a pet food company.  I apologize if it sounded that way and I appreciate your sharing your friend's experience with us. 

 I was really surprised that the person from Canidae was acting like the whole pet food recall situation is not such a big deal, that people blame the food when their pet actually died from something else, etc... I had hoped to get a very different response when I called, such as, "Yes, we test our foods and can guarantee they're melamime-free," but instead, I got a vague answer about the difficulty of testing for melamime and the fact that it's been around for a long time without causing problems, that people are trying to make other companies look bad, and no one actually knows if a lot of the "reported" deaths actually happened.  It almost sounded like the Canidae person could have been working for Menu or Diamond, the way she was downplaying the whole thing.  Has anyone else tried calling there? 

At this point, I guess I'll keep feeding them Canidae for now, because it's still the only one I can find that guarantees all ingredients are fom the U.S., does not produce food in any shared space with recalled brands, and has an ingredient list I feel good about-- some of the others I was looking at today (all the Natura ones) have phenyalinine (however you spell it) listed as an ingredient, which is basically aspartame.  The Karma has rice protein, and a lot of the others have corn as a major ingredient.  Or else the infamous vitamin k.   Or they are affiliated with a meat-rendering plant. After doing so much research, I would think there'd be at least one dog food that was both safe and had all healthy ingredients.  If anyone has any suggestions, please share.  Thanks !!

I just called and talked with someone at Canidae.  She basically said that their food is safe, she feeds her own dogs Canidae and "don't believe everything you hear on the Internet..."  When I asked if the food had been tested for melamime, she said that they were in the process of testing but it's complicated and time-consuming. I recommended that the results of the testing be posted on the website.  She spoke about how other pet food companies are trying to mislead people and spread things that aren't true.  Then she said she wondered how many of the reported pet deaths had actually happened and that all of this may be a coincidence, that melamime has been around for ages, isn't proven to be harmful to animals, and maybe people are trying to connect dots that aren't there (i.e. blame the food when their dog died from something else.)  When I told her about a dog I knew of that had gotten sick immediately after eating one of the recalled brands and died the next day, she said that kidney failure takes a long time to happen and it must have died from something else!  She seemed to be in denial that there is even a problem with pet food.  She was quite defensive.   Either I caught her on a very bad day, or she is largely unconcerned about PR......

Annette,

Do you know if your friend fed her dogs dry food or canned food? 

T.Eric,

Did you have the dry or the canned Canidae tested (or both)?

Right now, my dogs are on both dry and canned.  I'm trying to figure out what to do, as no other brand available in my area seems nearly as good as Canidae, and they both love it, but if there's any chance of it being contaminated, it's a big concern....

Thanks, Ally!  I appreciate the additional info and am glad to hear that your dogs and your friend's dogs are all doing well on Canidae. 

If anyone has any information that could substantiate or disprove this rumor, please post.  After much research, I put my dogs on Canidae, and they are thriving.  This is the one brand I could find with all U.S. produced,  human-grade ingredients made in factories that are not affiliated with any recalls, that had an ingredient list that fit what I was looking for.  I am very confused by the statement that melamime was found in the food, but not in high enough amounts to recall.  I would think that ANY melamime would be enough to recall a brand of food, and how could melamime get in something made of only U.S. ingredients in factories that had not been contaminated?   If anyone could shed some light on this, please do.  I'm keeping my dogs on Canidae unless I hear solid proof of something being wrong with it, as everything else I've heard has been positive and I don't want to switch from a food that's working well for my dogs based on an unsubstantiated rumor.

My dogs have been on Canidae for several weeks (All Life Stages dry with a little wet mixed in).  They are thriving and seem to enjoy the taste the most of any food they've tried.  They have switched food several times (off the recalled stuff, then onto another that I quit when I learned more about Diamond), and I'd really like to keep them on Canidae, as I spent hours and hours researching various companies, ingredients, etc and Canidae came out on top.  I was especially impressed that they are the recommended food for the guide dogs program.  I am hopeful that this rumor will turn out to be unsubstantiated.  All Canidae's ingredients are from the U.S., and neither of their processing plants are affiliated with any recalls, as far as I can tell.  So, in the interest of not completely upsetting my dog's systems by yet another switch when everything else I've heard about Canidae is very positive, I plan to keep them on it for now.  If anyone knows anything specific about Canidae that could substantiate or disprove the post titled "rumor," I'd be very grateful if you could reply to this message.  Thank you!

California Natural and Canidae don't use any products from China.  At this point, I'm checking my own food labels, too-- I don't want to eat anything from China or feed it to anyone in my family after all of this.

I am under the impression that Diamond lies a lot.  My dogs had both been eating Nutro Ultra (a recalled kind) for about 6 weeks before the recall was announced.  I immediately stopped feeding it to them and decided to switch to Chicken Soup.  I spoke with someone from their company and was assured that they do not use any products from China, and that, following their problem last year, had completely overhauled their quality control procedures and now rigorously tested every ingredient multiple times.  Now I hear that they have products recalled due to contaminated rice gluten FROM CHINA.  I've since switched to Canidae and my dogs are doing well.  I feel that they've dodged bullets twice now and my heart goes out to everyone whose pets have been sickened or killed.  I'm very upset with the way the FDA has "fallen asleep on the job" or worse, intentionally looked the other way.  In the last few months, there has been tainted spinach, green onions, peanut butter, now so much animal food.... where will it end?  It is my hope that we will get a completely different set of people at the helm (who actually have some competence and who care enough to do their jobs) with a new presidential administration.  I think most democrats care about the safety of our products, while the general republican mentality is to put profit for big business ahead of all else.

I thought the ingredients looked good and I like the fact that all the food is from the U.S.-- I no longer trust anything from China-- I'm glad that this company is going to open up its own canning factory and sever ties with menu foods.  My cats both recently made the switch and seem to be doing fine.  They both appear to like it.  Fingers crossed.....

I checked into just about every brand on the "safe list" and ended up choosing Canidae All Life Stages.  I like it because all the ingredients are from the U.S. and none of the Canidae food is produced at the same factories as the recalled foods-- they have no affiliation with Menu foods or Diamond-- so there's no concern about cross-contamination.  My dogs both seem to like it, have lots of energy, and have had no stomach upset.  The ingredient list looks healthy:  there are no meat by-products, no glutens, none of that vitamin k I've heard should be avoided, no corn, no artifical ingredients, and the yucca (which is in almost every wholistic brand) is balanced out by probiotics.  This one seems like a good product to me!