Is anyone having problems with their pet's food making them sick?

[TorchTheWitch]

3. oh yes!

Which is why I will never ever feed my dog anything but the better foods that normally can't be had in a grocery store. I used to feed Boo (the dog I had before the current one) Iams which I had always thought was a good food until he suddenly started getting bloody diarrhea and wasn't wanting to eat his food anywhere near as enthusiastically as he usually did. I did a search on the web and found that MANY MANY other people were having the same exact problem with their dogs yet Iams never did a recallduring that period. They had done one for exactly this in the past and it was because of salmonella tainting the food. I took him to the vet, they recommended immediately switching to a different food and did a saline push because he had some dehydration. I switched him to Newman's Own and immediately the problem stopped... like that very day.

It was because of this that I looked into the healthier foods for dogs and learned all about how terrible most dog foods are, how poorly their factories are run and that many of them get some of the ingredients from China. Periodically I check for any possible issues with whatever brand and type of food I using in case there are a lot of people experiencing any health issues or if there are any recalls going on. Never had a problem with the Newman's Own, Blue Buffalo or the Innova puppy food. Though they are more expensive than the average grocery store type dog food neither Boo nor Yoshi (the doggie I have now) need to eat nearly as much of it because it isn't full of fillers like corn that just go in one end and out the other... so I actually end up spending a little bit LESS than I did with the Iams because it lasts so much longer. It took me months and months to finally figure out how in the world the same sized bag of food was lasting nearly twice as long as the Iams but Boo actually gained a little muscle weight and was much more lively and happy... he also made absolutely perfect doo-doo like clockwork and less of it (I'm not kidding, I'm still rather envious of that).

Seriously, this conundrum was driving me bonkers to the point that I was wondering if someone was somehow breaking into the house and sneaking more food into the bag periodically and even checked the Iams bag to see if was padded or something to make you think you were getting more food than you were. I finally couldn't stand it anymore and asked the vet who explained in detail how stuff like corn doesn't provide much of any nutritional value (thus basically going in one end and out the other) and why the dog would be so much more hungry when so much of what their entire diet consisted of was corn (most of these companies use an astounding amount of filler instead of actual food, and since it makes the dog eat so much more of it to maintain their weight I can guess why they do it).

Though Boo's symptoms that time were different than the one's your dog has now yours are also very very common symptoms of either salmonella or some other kind of taint in the food (the vet was surprised that Boo wasn't barfing up his food though he was doing a lot of induced barfing of just bile). I'd be willing to bet that your doggie's tummy troubles are very likely there being some kind of taint in his food.

I definitely recommend chucking that food out and permanently switching your dog to one of the better brands of foods even though they're more expensive. Like I said, over the long run even though they're more expensive I've ended up spending LESS on dog food by using them. You'll probably want to buy a smaller sized amount at first to see if your dog likes it. Boo hated the Natural Balance duck and potato, was a little bit wishy-washy on one of the dry types of the Blue Buffalo but loved the Newman's Own, so that's the one I stuck with for him until he got the cancer and I needed to add a lot of calorie packed wet food (he did really love the Blue Buffalo stew varieties in the can).

There's a few really good websites that rate nearly all the dog food brands that there are that are quite beneficial and reliable. I know I had one of them bookmarked, so I'll look for it again on my 'puter, and come back with the link for you.

I really really think you'll discover that the problem is the food and that switching to another one will be the cure, but it's very good that you're going to the vet to make sure and rule out anything else. They may want to do a fluid push because of dehydration like my vet did for Boo. What that is is that they drain in what I think is really nothing but saline through what looks like a massive hypedermic needle under the skin probably around the shoulder area, and for several hours the dog will have this giant silly looking hump of fluid that gradually goes through the rest of his body to re-hydrate them. Freaked me out a bit when I first saw his big fluid hump, but by the end of the night several hours later it was gone, and it never bothered him a single bit.

I'm sure there's others here that can recommend good brands of food to try as well.... there's quite a lot of them so it can get a little overwhelming trying to choose. Petsmart has a wide variety now of the better foods but none of the one's near me carry the Newman's Own. Check around your area for a small local dog joint, too, because there's a couple near me that are even a little cheaper than the big places like Petsmart.

Best of luck, and please let us know how it goes!

P.S.: Here's a good site to find a good quality dog food...
http://www.dogfoodscoop.com/

Incidentally, I just found out that Nutura that makes Innova, Evo, California Natural, HealthWise, and Karma Organic Dog Food had been sold to Proctor & Gamble back in June of 2010. Same company that ruined Iams when it bought them and several other dog foods, deceptively switched ingredients, lied about it and didn't change the ingredients information of the bags (which it was sued for). Been through this crap with Iams before, so no more Innova for Yoshi. I was wondering why his tummy seemed to not take to it very well and started giving him half Innova and half Newman's Own which has improved things but not good enough...
http://www.dogfoodscoop.com/natura-dog-food.html