Natural Balance pulls venison dog formula 4/15/07

[Therese]

According to Itchmo:

Natural Balance Pulling Venison Dry Dog Formula

Itchmo has confirmed an email from Natural Balance that they are removing two products from sale:

    * Venison and Brown Rice Dry Dog Formula
    * Venison and Green Pea Dry Dog Formula


This products do not contain wheat gluten. No deaths or serious illnesses have been reported and no recall warning has been issued. The warning applies only to products sold in the last week, according to Natural Balance.

Please know that at this time we are removing this product from the shelves, as we have had some phone calls indicating gastric upset after eating this formula. At this time, we are unsure if this could just be a particular batch problem, or simply customers switching diets too fast. However, in the meantime while we are looking further into this matter, we are not recommending to feed this formula, and are suggesting to feed our Potato and Duck or Sweet Potato and Fish Dry Dog Formula.

NOTE: I've emailed my contact at Natural Balance and am following up myself to verify.

[PetFoodTracker]

Do we have any more information on this?  I've found nothing else online (other than itchmo)

[Therese]

Not yet, but I did email the woman I've been corresponding with about their products and will put something out as soon as I hear from her. If I don't hear from her by first thing in the morning I'll be on the phone trying to get some info.

[Tracy]

Any chance of posting the original information given by Natual Balance, and by that I mean 'all' of the replies they gave to you?  Don't you think it is only fair to consumers to know about that.  I think its relevant to this especially now.

[Tracy]

Also, if anyone calls a Petco they will find out that Petco got an email today to pull the food.  I have been calling Petco's and surprised that many 'did not check their email' today yet.  But there are plenty of Petco's out there that will say this is true.

[Therese]

Any chance of posting the original information given by Natual Balance, and by that I mean 'all' of the replies they gave to you?

Tracy, as I said in an earlier post, I don't have any other info yet but as soon as hear something I'll post it.

[Tracy]

Therese, I am talking about all of the original information you had posted about Natural Balance and their answers to you about the production of their food.  I remember that at first they said something about them making the food themselves and then having it trucked to Diamond and them bagging the food, but not making the food.  This information from Itchmo is easily verified by any Petco and the news they got from Natural Balance.

I just want to see ALL of the answers Natural Balance had you post on your site, starting with their first "official" response to you.  Not just the pablum last one - people deserve to read everything that was on your site per what they told you to post about their company.

[Geff]

There is a new post on page 5 of the blog from "JC" where he states that 2 of his dogs had renal failure from Natural balance & one has died.
http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=251

Tracy, I also remember the listing you mention where their was some sort of mention of NB covering up that Diamond was doing there manufacturing. Based on what I've read, Diamond appears to be in a similar unsafe catagory as Menu.

[Geff]

I just remembered why the Diamond connection seemed so important to me. My cat got very sick 2 weeks ago on Solid Gold, to where we had his Kidneys tested. Symptoms were diarrhea, urinating in the living room & obviously very sick. Fortunately I caught it within hours & stopped feeding the Solid God.

Solid Gold is made by Diamond. Rumor has it that NB dry is also at least co-packed by Diamond. I hope Therese can find her notes on that, I suspect Diamond is in the same Danger category as menu.

[Davis]

It's possible that your cat was severely allergic to one or more ingredients in the Solid Gold formula, and that it was the company's recipe.  I'm just trying to look at all the possible causes.  I'm trying not to overeact or else I'll be frantic that now I've poisoned my cat by feeding him Chicken Soup.  Here is the ingredient list I found for Solid Gold:
Lamb, Chicken Meal, Millet, Brown Rice, Menhaden Fish Meal, Cracked Pearled Barley, Canola Oil, Flaxseed Oil, Amaranth, Blueberries, Dried Chicory Root, Taurine, Carotene, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Vitamins & Minerals

Suspect ingredients that could have caused a reaction are fish (some cats are allergic), amaranth (what is this doing in pet food?), chicory, yucca, etc.  There are certainly enough things in there to be of concern.  Another ingredient list for this same food that I found contained a high level of garlic, not listed above for some reason.  That would be highly suspect as well.

[Geff]

Hi Davis - In addition to JC's post, Go here:
http://www.itchmo.com/read/natural-balance-pulling-venison-dry-dog-formula_20070415#comments
& search "diamond".

[Therese]

Therese, I am talking about all of the original information you had posted about Natural Balance

Ah, ok....You'll find that post, along with all of the responses on the blog over at PetsitUSA: http://petsitusa.com/blog/?p=223

[Geff]

Therese, thank you for posting this. If it just saves one pet.......

[Geff]

Suspect ingredients that could have caused a reaction are fish (some cats are allergic), amaranth (what is this doing in pet food?), chicory, yucca, etc.  There are certainly enough things in there to be of concern.  Another ingredient list for this same food that I found contained a high level of garlic, not listed above for some reason.  That would be highly suspect as well.

Davis, I checked the ingredients list of the Sold Gold sample I have (I'm keeping it in case it needs to be analyzed). You're correct - it does have Garlic. I'm stunned, every cat owner over the age of 12 knows garlic is highly toxic to cats. My vet obviously wasn't aware that Garlic was an ingredient when she recommended SG. I guess we're all getting an education.

I can't believe anyone is making cat food with Garlic!!!!

[Caylynn]

Davis, I checked the ingredients list of the Sold Gold sample I have (I'm keeping it in case it needs to be analyzed). You're correct - it does have Garlic. I'm stunned, every cat owner over the age of 12 knows garlic is highly toxic to cats. My vet obviously wasn't aware that Garlic was an ingredient when she recommended SG. I guess we're all getting an education.

I can't believe anyone is making cat food with Garlic!!!!

I just checked my bag of Solid Gold, and it doesn't list garlic as an ingredient.  So the Solid Gold I bought for my cat contains no garlic - thank goodness!

I wonder if it was something that Solid Gold used to contain, but no longer contains?  My bag of Solid Gold certainly doesn't have garlic listed.

(I'm currently feeding my cat Almo Nature and Sanabelle, but bought a bag of Solid Gold to try in an effort to find a food that we can buy when we move back to Canada from Germany.)