Readers Respond: Opinions about Pet Food Recalls And How You Changed Your Pet's Diet

Pet nutrition takes time and thought to provide a balanced and complete diet. Many people looked into feeding raw foods or home cooked diets for their pets. Some were successful with this dietary adaptation, some not.

Others looked to smaller pet food manufacturers that stressed wholesome meaty ingredients, ensuring prolonged health for the pets ate their foods.

Now, despite what we have learned, pet food recalls continue.

How did the pet food recalls affect your household? What are you feeding your pet(s) now? Do you trust pet food manufacturers? Speak up about recalls

Recall on Alpo in 2007

My dog was unfornutately eatting a small amount of the Alpo canned food at this time as a treat along eith his uaual diet of Eukanuba. Two weeks proir to recall of the Alpo he was taken to vet because of blood in his urine. He now has kidney problems, and because I had him treated prior to recall they refuse to cover any vet bills! So now his kidneys must constantly checked, and I must keep a real close eye on him as to his urine output. I'm disabled and this costs alot more than I had normally had to spend on him prior to to this recall! I think these company's need to be held accountable for the care of animals once their tainted foods have caused damage to a consumer's pet! Since ingesting the Alpo, and all that I had was on recall my "Best Friend" has never been the same!!! Unfortunatly we must now wonder dayly if what we are feeding our" beloved pets" is going to kill them. Sad, I think we have enough to worry about, and now what we feed our pets??? My Jasper will never be the sam

—Guest sleeplessnoh10

Buyer Beware!!

Feed a healthy 7 year old dog blue buffalo dog food for 6 months and had to put my dog down because of the damage it did to his kidneys. That dog was NEVER sick or had any health problems. If you value your pet as a member of your family and love them dearly pick another brand of food!! Check out the news report that fox 5 news did and the FDA for how many pets have died from ANYTHING that blue buffalo makes!!

—Guest Helen

it's murder to loved pets!!!

i use halo dog food but i use the spot stew recipe . i was lucky in the 2007 recall but not alot of my friends and my family. watching my mother's dog die was so very hard as mom is in her 80's this just all pets are was her child.now mom has a new little girl and i give her the spot stew recipe and the puppy is now 6 months the vet said this little chihuahua is so healthy what do you feed her. he said hum maybe we should put her on you all know what they sell in the vets office. she said no thank you... that is what i say to the dog food companies no thank you i will not pay you a dime to kill my beloved 4-legged babies.but our food isn't that safe either.. gues what my vet uses homemade too. lost his very beloved schanuzer to the food recall opend his eyes and now understands my way of feeding and gave him my recipes and now his new schanuzer is eating home made dog food. and home made dog treats too!they need to be put out of business.

—Guest lynn

IAMS RX Weight Control Dog Food

I lost my sweet boy after he was consuming the IAMS Weight Control RX Dog recalled in July. IAMS is just one of the names P&G manufactures under. My heart is broken because IAMS is so incapable of distributing a quality product. My innocent pup of 8 years of age lost his life -- for what reason? IAMS incompotence! We did everything we could to try and save him and nothing did. My pup was didn't deserve that. These dog food manufacturers need to be held accountable. I reported to incident to the FDA - yet clearly they showed not once oz. of remorse for the food recalls they have repeatedly done. Do your homework while selecting dog food. Who would have thought RX dog food could have done this?

—Guest DeJay

Listen people

Commercial dog food can not be trusted period. My wonderful faithful animal doesn't deserve to eat another dog. that disgusts me. And by the way if you are a vegetarian/vegan there are healthy holistic organic recipes for homemade dog food without meat products, because again meat is not the only source of protein in the world. My dog only gets meat 2 times a week , the rest is lentils brown rice and veggies that are either frozen or pan roasted. They can eat eggs pasta and beans. Talk to your vet about making a vegan or vegetarian diet for your dog, it is the choice that will keep them happy and healthy for much longer that bagged dog food, don't force your dog to be a cannibal, its just wrong. By the way if you are feeding your dog liver everyday it is not good for them, liver is high in iron and other vitamins it can be poisonous to an animal if fed everyday.

—Guest Sarah

Wholsome diet

I have always been passionate about buying healthy organic foods, When we adopted out dog dixie she was on a premium dog food diet at the shelter, when we took her home i started feeding her blue buffalo brand dog food and she reacted horribly to it. The truth is that any bagged dog food, no matter how expensive uses food that is deemed unfit to eat for humans, and blue messes with the mineral content in the food which can make a dog ill. So I spoke to my vet and decided to go homemade, Dixie lives on a diet of brown rice, organic eggs, organic frozen veggies, lentils, organic ground turkey and chicken breast. i also put extra virgin olive oil in her food for healthy skin and coat. she gets things like blueberries, apples and carrot sticks for occasional and training treats. She is in perfect health and has a good balance and variety of foods and vitamins in those foods. i strongly recommend going homemade if you truly want your pet to live a long healthy life.

—Guest Sarah

home made

Home made dog food now all the way and joined the truth about pet food.com Slap on the wrist and a small fine? Disgusting, these people inflicted so much pain on the owners' of beloved pets and cost us so much money.

—Guest flamemcbain

recall

I have been afraid to buy any dog food on the market since the recalls had killed so many dogs including my numerous friends. i have always tried to feed the most natural including home cooking. when I learned of blue I have been using it for over a year and have complete trust in it. I appreciate the immediate info response since my dogs had the symptoms. I took them to the vet and they did all of the tests but could find no reason for the symptoms. Then I saw it on the computer and called the vet and told him. He had not heard of the recall yet so now he will know if other dogs come in with it . Thank you so much for the prompt info as I have an older dog. I took my bag back to the store where I got it and was given a very hard time about getting a new bag. They had not heard of the recall and all but told me there was no such thing sad I was lying. I did get my new bag but it was not pleasant to do. again I commend you for the info so soon on the recall.

—Sandymack

Sooo Disgusted

I have had to return more darn food because of recall. I make my own now. A delightful mixture I call pupcake. Liver, gizzards, oatmeal all puree then bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. It crumbles nicely with the vegies. The only complaint I've had is my teenage son as he spit a huge bite into the sink - "Ma, these look too much like brownies".

—diesel.diva

Blue Buffalo

I had just started to slowly switch to the feline diet from Blue Buffalo- Wilderness- and I am feeding it side by side with my other dry- Royal Canin- Maine Coon Formula... I contacted the company and heard from them immediately... it's not the cat food. Pretty upsetting to pay for a Premium food and then find out it is poisoning your pet with too much vitamin D... I will continue to use it as the company was very forthcoming and took care to analyze the problem and get it off the shelves immediately.

—8GR8CATS

home cooking now!

After feeding our gang with a high end pet food that was supposed to be the best, we found pieces of plastic garbage bags in two of the cans and bone slivers in the dry food!

—Guest mae

Not notified!

I just learned about the recall of Nature's Variety Raw Frozen medallions. I was shocked to hear about it as my dog as been on this food for several years. If I had not logged into the website, I would never have found out. I am beyond disappointed I was not notified about this recall.

—Guest OUMONT

Quality helps

I use Chicken Soup for the Dog/Cat Lovers Soul. It has no corn, wheat, by products or soy unlike all the store brands who buy from whoever has the best price at the time.

—Guest Keeta Beaubien

pet food companies

I have just learned that my most favorite food to feed both dog and cats has been bought by Procter and Gamble. The company is Natura. They produce the food called Innova, Ivo, California Natural. All good foods. No longer will I buy them as you never know what will change and we all know the change will be to cheapen the product. It is now made with human grade ingredients and this will change. I hope who all is using this product will start looking for another one. I am so disapointed in Natura for selling out. What a shame for our pets.

—Guest janeandcompany

Maeve Dog's Diet

Maeve Dog, a 5-year-old Newfoundland, is getting Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Weight Management, as her doctor says, and I agree, she's 25 pounds overweight. The problem, though, is the little snipe won't eat any dog food without Ol' Roy Jerky Strips on it. She will at the kennel because Auntie Marsha is strict with her, but I am too soft hearted.

—Guest Father Daniel