Bones in Wellness Dry

[Geff]

Crap. I just found a piece of Complete Health with a short but VERY SHARP fragment sticking out of it. I would GUESS it's a fish bone.

[Bonkers]

  This situation seems more similar to the problem with the fish bones Champion was having with the Orijen last year. If my memory serves me correctly (please correct me if I am wrong), it was not found to be bones that were in any of the Natura products back in 2007. So to not confuse the separate issues, lets keep this thread strictly dealing with any problems concerning any bones found in Wellness.

[Bonkers]

Crap. I just found a piece of Complete Health with a short but VERY SHARP fragment sticking out of it. I would GUESS it's a fish bone.

  Geff, exactly which formula of the Complete Health are you referring to? Is it the deboned chicken?

[Geff]

Blue bag. Complete Health 30/October/09 Z3

I am only aware of one variety of "Complete Health". The 1st ingredient is deboned Chicken.

[Geff]

  This situation seems more similar to the problem with the fish bones Champion was having with the Orijen last year. If my memory serves me correctly (please correct me if I am wrong), it was not found to be bones that were in any of the Natura products back in 2007. So to not confuse the separate issues, lets keep this thread strictly dealing with any problems concerning any bones found in Wellness.

I don't think we ever found out for 100% certain what was in the Natura. There were LIKELY several different contaminants.  Speculation was plastic was at least one of the items. Reason I brought it up is Betsy's picture looks similar to some of the Natura photos I've seen..

[Bonkers]

Blue bag. Complete Health 30/October/09 Z3

I am only aware of one variety of "Complete Health". The 1st ingredient is deboned Chicken.

  They also have a "Complete Health" Salmon, Salmon Meal & Deboned Turkey Recipe for cats.

[Geff]

I dropped off 2 pieces of kibble with the bone(?) sticking out of them at my vet's today. I'll likely get a phone call from her no later then Monday. I will post her opinion.

[Geff]

I spoke with my vet today. Please keep in mind that I am only finding an average of 1 kibble with a sharp object per small handful; while others with different varieties are reporting a much higher rate of sharp objects.

I gave my vet the 2 worst pieces I've found, each had a very sharp object sticking out. Her opinion is that for CATS, the occasional sharp object shouldn't be an issue, as cats eat bones like this in the wild with no damage.  She said she would be concerned if this was Dog food; she stated Dogs don't handle sharp bones as well as cats do.

She also said that after examining the sharp pieces she ground up one of the pieces & didn't find anything that concerned her. She also was happy with the food's odor. She suggested that I continue to feed it at this time.

Again, I want to emphasize I'm talking about a variety that has a very small percentage of kibbles with sharp objects. Based on Betsy's photo, some varieties appear to be much worse then what I'm feeding. (Blue bag. Complete Health 30/October/09 Z3)

[GreyGhost]

I would be concerned that your vet is not concerned about "sharp" objects for cats but not dogs. Dogs also eat bones in the wild so what would make them different. The part that would bother me is that these sharp objects could scratch, cut, or punctures something anywhere in the digestive tract. It wouldn't matter if a cat or dog. I would actually be more concerned with it being a cat since they are much smaller and the esophagus and so forth are much smaller. When Orijen had the issue with sharp bones in their dog food, every vet I asked about it said no sharp objects anytime no matter what; weather a dog or cat. ( I work around them all the time so I asked at least 9 or so.)

[Betsy]

GG,

My vet said the same -- they shouldn't be sticking out or that sharp.  And while they would not likely be hurt if they accidently ate a piece or two, I wouldn't take the chance & knowingly feed it.  Plus I would argue that these pieces seem harder than a natural fresh bone -- they are as hard as a tooth or solid piece of plastic, which may be due to processing?  And the food claims to be "deboned" -- not sure what the Regulations are on this.  I'd estimate the bag I found was about 30% bad.

PS -- I sent an e-mail Friday morning to follow up with QC on the issue.  No response yet, but hopefully in the next day or so.

[Geff]

I'm not an expert, but i believe my vet's point was that cats tend to eat small sharp bones in the wild (small birds & fish) where as she believes Dogs don't. I did bring up the intestinal issue with her. She felt that based on the sample I gave her it wasn't an issue here.  And Again, what I found was no where near as bad as Betsy's photo, though still quite sharp.

I HOPE she's correct. She is one of the 2 best vets I've known in my 50+ years.

[Betsy]

I got a call from Teresa, Consumer Affairs at Wellpet with a formal response.  She read to me over the phone, the written response back from Wellness Quality (& probably Legal as well) -- so here goes:

- They confirmed bones in the food samples measuring 2 - 4mm, and that the bones and the amount of bones were not typical & more than normal
- Sometimes bones can pass through the grinders and screens
- The size of the bones were small enough to be considered non-harmful/ would not cause harm to your pets (in their opinion)

I asked if I would be getting a copy in writing -- answer "no" -- so I made sure to take notes & made her repeat what she said.  Then I read everything back to her & she confirmed that I heard her correctly.  She said she would be calling my pet store with the same response.

So I asked her the following questions: What is being done to correct this? What will Wellpet do to ensure it does't continue? What happens now? Can I expect to receive further updates?  Will I get a response fron Karalyn, QC, since I had sent her an e-mail last week & heard nothing back?

Her responses: No further updates & nothing in writing; They will be reviewing their internal manufacturing processes to see where they can improve; She was surprised I didn't get a response from Karalyn.

Although I am not surprised, I am disappointed -- I felt like I was being written off and that this won't go anywhere.  I'm not sure what else I expected, but I feel like I need to do more.  Any insights or suggestions from anyone?

While my cats were not harmed & probably would not be if they ate a few pieces, no one knows for sure.  Plus the food claims to be "deboned" on the package.  Does anyone know what the Regulations &/ or Quality standards are?  What agency regulates pet food?  Is this worth pursuing further?

Thanks!

[Bonkers]

    Hmmm, as I had previously posted, this is very similar to what Orijen experienced last year and Wellness's response is practically the same also. It is up to you whether you want to pursue this further. As you, it bothers me that they claim the chicken is deboned, so from where did the bones originate and what type of bones are they? Fish, chicken or something else? I am attaching an article that will help to explain pet food regulation. http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?action=library&act=show&item=petfoodregulation

[Betsy]

Thanks Bonkers!  I will read this --

Don't know what type of bones either because Teresa was only allowed to say what was written in the formal report, of course.  Originally Karalyn fron QC said she thought fish bones based on my photo, but that was not validated in their statement.

I agree that if the food is deboned to begin with, then how & why do the bones even make it to the grinding/screening part of the process?  Although in my earlier phone conversations, they did say that ground up bones provide calcium....I haven't figured out my next move yet, but I definitely would like to pursue this further.  Only thing I do know for sure is that I will not go back to solely feeding Wellness.

[Geff]

That's really disappointing. Sounds to me like the standard cover thy corporate rear response to issues we've been getting from most of the PFC's since day 1 of the recall.