Nutro Natural Choice Indoor Adult Dry Cat Food

[medilla]

When I returned home last Wednesday the 11th of April, all four cats of my cats were vomiting violently, and this persisted with even when they just took sips of water. We had opened a new bag of Nutro Natural Choice Indoor dry food right before we left, and they don't eat anything else -- nor was there anything around that could have poisoned them. They don't go outside. 

We one of them to the vet for bloodwork on Thursday (we picked her because she was the last to vomit at the time), but thank goodness all tests came back normal. So we took a "wait and see" approach. Testing only one was perhaps not such a wise choice, since later we would learn that two others were in renal failure. We took those two back to the vet for subcutaneous fluids on Saturday. The vet did not draw blood, because she said that if we had to go to the animal ER on Sunday, they would do it all over again there. She did send us home with pepcid and another drug for nausea and a bag of syringes. We gave shots to all four cats over the weekend at one time or another. Well, the the younger ones stopped vomiting approx Saturday night, and began eating again on Tuesday. They were dehydrated and needed fluids, but their bloodwork was fine.

However, the 6 and 11 year olds are still quite ill, have been in the hospital for 3 days, and their blood titers are way off, indicating kidney and liver damage.

I have called the Nutro company every day, and every day they have insisted that the product is not on the recall list, that it is in no way responsible. Then today, when I saw the press release of the melamine in South African corn gluten, I called again. They had not heard about it, so I gave them the site of the release and asked them to investigate the source of their corn gluten and to call me back.

Prior to this, they said they had turned my name over to their insurance company, who is supposed to contact me about the damages (I did not even ask). I guess they figure I'm going to sue them, but I just wanted my vet to have some answers to work with. She called them also, and got exactly the same party line.  I'm supposed to send back eight one-cup samples of the food in a bag they are mailing me, and they in turn will share the lab results with me. (OK, I'm not going to insert anything cynical here.) We are also looking for an independent lab, but maybe we won't have to now that the "cat's out of the bag" on corn gluten, a product in the Nutro food.

If not melamine, then maybe the food had gone rancid, or was "mishandled" -- I don't know. All I know is that my cats are sick and the vet agrees that it has to be what they eat, which is the food. I won't let them suffer if this goes on much longer, but let's hope that it doesn't.

Anyone else out there who has experienced the same with this product, please file an FDA complaint and post to this blog. Thank you.

[TAZ]

medilla-
check your PM's

[kathrynash]

I'm so glad I saw this thread. Do you guys think Nutro's Natural Choice Cat food is safe to feed? My cat's been eating this for some time. He doesn't have any symptoms, but he's young.

[Davis]

Medilla, what is the expiration date on the bag of food that is making them sick?  I don't trust this food at all. 

[garypen]

Wasn't Natural Choice included in the original Menu recall?

Personally, I wouldn't use it because of personal experience. I used their Weight Management a few years ago for a while because it was "natural" and "premium". However, one of my cats would throw up almost daily. At the time, I thought it was hairballs, as she groomed a lot.

I decided to switch to Royal Canin Light 37, and saw an immediate improvement in the cats' personalities and physical appearance. (Of course, I wouldn't feed them RC now.) So, even without tainted ingredients, Natural Choice seems to be pretty unhealthy. At least it was for my cats.

[Davis]

It's also high in rice protein and garbage fillers. I fed it to my cat for a while too, switching from Innova because I was told that it was a very healthy premium food (Ha! I know better now) and I was trying to avoid all of those people veggies in Innova.   It made my cat throw up on a regular basis too, and it wasn't hairballs or other normal reasons....it was scary bile.  I hate this food.  I believe it hurt his overalll health and I'm very disgusted.  My cat also improved immediately once he was off of it.

Gary, it was the Natural Choice wet food that was recalled.  As far as I'm concerned, the dry should be too.     This company also has a terrible attitude toward concerned customers, and they haven't stated any regrets or compassion regarding their tainted foods (at least not that I know of).  They can take their food and do you know what with it.

[PetFoodTracker]

I'm just now seeing this...

Medilla, can I have permission to repost what you wrote on my blog?  I'm listing a whole bunch of reports of Nutro dry food causing illnesses here (along with links to other sites that have lots of Nutro reports)

http://petfoodtracker.blogspot.com/2007/05/pet-owners-blame-nutro-dry-products-for.html



Thanks!

Kim
www.petfoodtracker.com

[Bonkers]

  Looks as if nothing much has changed where Nutro Dog food is concerned. Still have reports of illness continually posted at Consumer Affairs. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/nutro.html

[mainecoonpeg]

If you look back at some of the complaints, you will also see some involve cat food too