The Forums @ Wolf-Net

huskymania · Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:59 pm Post subject: Feeding Raw Food

I went to Pet Club yesterday (Friday) to get a bag of food for Sasha as she was being finicky again. There were a couple of vendors there with coupons - one of which was for a free 1lb. bag of Nature's Variety Raw Frozen Diet. I broke apart a couple of the meat patties, giving most of it to Sasha in her dry food and a little to the others. For whatever reason(s), this food made Sasha horribly sick. She had to go out several times during the night, then had dry heaves this morning. She would not eat or drink. I gave her a little warm milk - she took a few laps and then threw it up. While I was out for an hour taking care of animals she threw up 3 more times. She was lethargic and panting when I got home and I could not tempt her with anything. I called the vet just before they closed and she alarmed me enough about the raw food that I took Sasha to the emergency vet. They did some blood work and gave her some fluids and a couple of shots for nausea and antacid. No food or anything the rest of the day. By the time we got home she wanted water, which I had to pick up.

To make a long story short, be very careful if you are going to try any raw diet. I will never use it again. It's not worth it. A "free" bag ended up costing me $450 and making Sasha miserable. I thought I was going to lose her. She's been sleeping comfortably and hopefully she'll be able to keep food down tomorrow. Will take it slow on returning her to regular food - lots of rice and COOKED hamburger or chicken.

I am going to let Pet Club know what happened to Sasha with this food, for what it's worth. I think there needs to be more warnings or instructions on this type of food. That's all I'm going to say.
_________________
Lindsey S.

Pam · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 11:08 am Post subject:

We hope she is going to be ok. We always are afraid of changing diets. Everyone here is doing great on the Costco Brand foods. Once in a while it will give Yukon gas so was just change to the chicken or lamb depending on what we are feeding. Never any problems. Will keep you in our minds.

John and Pam and the Whole Pack.

parisistack · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 4:58 pm Post subject:

I'm so sorry to hear about Sasha's ordeal. Hope that she is doing better now. We had an emergency ordeal ourselves last week -- with Koda. He seems to be o.k. now, but never found out what was wrong. Confused

ann · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 5:44 pm Post subject:

I'm so sorry to hear about Sasha and I hope she's going to be ok. My vet has warnings about raw food on their website. The only raw food that my dogs get is Honest Kitchen which is dehydrated at a temperature high enough to kill bacteria without cooking out the nutrients in the food.

huskymania · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 10:44 pm Post subject:

Thanks for all your good wishes for Sasha. Thankfully, she seems to be getting back to her regular self. She had several small meals of rice and hamburger today with no problems. It took a bit to get her started eating, but she seems to be getting back to normal. She even engaged minimally in some play with Sukari & Nakai. So it looks like we're back on track. Need to get her back on her vf meds, but will probably wait another day as they can upset her stomach.

Jill, sorry to hear Koda had some issues. It's frustrating when you never figure out what happened. Hopefully he is doing well in his vf recovery.
_________________
Lindsey S.

parisistack · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:29 am Post subject:

Thanks Lindsey - Since no issues since, we are thinking what brought him down was the VF meds combined with IBD (his sensitive tummy). We actually feed him Honest Kitchen Force & that has completely eliminated the tummy problesm. He must have gotten into something & ate it, but we never knew what.
If you ever want to consider raw, I HIGHLY recommend the HK.
Jill

ann · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject:

Yikes - I just realized that Christine is one of the demo people for Nature's Variety. I'm going to see if she was there that day.

huskymania · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject:

Let me know if it was someone you know because I would like to talk to her.
_________________
Lindsey S.

ann · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:25 pm Post subject:

It was not Christine, but she suggested that you contact Corporate about this. Raw food is getting a lot of negative PR from vets these days, so if they are going to keep selling it, they need to do something to make sure this does not happen. A lot of the rescue people make their own raw food and I have never heard of anyone's dogs getting sick on home-prepared food, so there must be problems int he prepackaging.

www.naturesvariety.com

huskymania · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:33 pm Post subject:

Yes, I've already been in contact with them. At this point things are on hold. Sasha is worse again and I'm taking her to the vet this afternoon to see if anything can be figured out as to what is going on. She was up all last with diarrhea and will not eat anything so far today. Don't know for sure if all this is related to the food, was just triggered by the food, or has nothing to do with the food. Will keep you posted. Please pray for Sasha. Sad

_________________
Lindsey S.

ann · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:40 pm Post subject:

Oh no, poor Sasha. We will all pray for her and I hope that it has nothing to do with the food. That would be horrible.

parisistack · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 5:17 pm Post subject:

Prayers for Sasha to feel better soon.
Is she on VF meds? Keep us posted.

Pam · Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 8:33 pm Post subject:

How did the vet visit go?

John and Pam

huskymania · Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 2:41 pm Post subject:

Ann & Penny B. know the whole story, but I thought I should post something back here. With HUGE thanks to both Ann & Penny, I got Sasha to see a specialist and got her the proper treatment. Just the past 3 days she is pretty much back to eating dog food (albeit not her "normal" dog food) and acting like her normal sassy, bouncy, at times bitchy self. It's so good to have her back. She'll be on antibiotics for another 2 weeks, then have her blood tested again 1st part of Feb. I'm filing a claim with the dog food company and will let you know results whenever. Thanks for all your prayers and support. We needed every bit of it.
_________________
Lindsey S.

ann · Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:46 pm Post subject:

Thank God she's getting back to her normal self. Very Happy

huskymania · Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:05 am Post subject:

Great news! I heard back from Nature's Variety today - they are going to reimburse the full cost (just under $4000) related to Sasha's illness from their food. Not so coincidentally, I saw a tweet yesterday from PetMD that Nature's Variety is recalling their frozen raw chicken diet (several different forms - including medallions, which are what I had) with a specific "best by" date due to salmonella contamination! As soon as I saw that tweet I let out a whoopee and knew I'd have a good chance. Didn't expect to hear back from them so fast though. They're obviously in a hurry to get release signed to absolve them of any further issues. Maybe I should consult a lawyer first!? Very Happy

But really, I'm so happy I'm not stuck for all those bills. I will never, ever even think of feeding raw food again. It's not worth the risk.
_________________
Lindsey S.

parisistack · Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:22 am Post subject:

GREAT news Lindsey!!

ann · Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:36 pm Post subject:

That's fantastic! I got an email from Bonnie's about that recall and wondered if that would help your case.

huskymania · Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:22 pm Post subject:

One last (unless something else happens) comment on this subject: The customer service person I'd been corresponding with via email called me today to be sure I got the email and release and to see if I had any questions. She also had on the line the pres. of the company. I won't go into specifics of the conversation, but I just want to say this company, Nature's Variety, has done everything right through this whole process. They have been prompt, pleasant and cooperative - absolutely nothing on the negative side. I strongly urged them to come up with some wording for the raw food packaging not just on how to handle the food, but what to do if your dog becomes violently ill after ingesting the food : i.e., get your dog to your vet immediately for testing/treatment.

Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that this is a good company and they have quite a variety of dry and canned foods as well as the raw. I wouldn't hesitate to use their other food, but as I told them, I will never use any raw food again - it's not worth the risk to me.
_________________
Lindsey S.