Can not get orijen or acana due to fire!!!

[AllieMackie]

Originally Posted by ihartgonzo

Well... my dog almost died of HGE and cost $3000 in vet bills while eating only Orijen senior. Not even any treats. I also personally know 3 people whose dogs, from age 6 months to 5 years, nearly died of HGE symptoms on Orijen. Personal experiences shape your opinions. But the fact is - BB has been around much longer than Orijen and serves many more customers, and I've yet to hear of a bad experience with the food or a recall. And the ingredients speak for themselves. Far from crap food.

With HGE having so many known causes and even some unknown causes, to blame it specifically on a diet without knowing for sure seems an odd bias. In fact, there are many instances of HGE where the symptoms were treated by switching to Orijen or other high-end dog foods.

I could be that Orijen played a role in it for your individual dog, but I highly doubt that something in their ingredient list was the root cause. Day to day, I hear a lot more dogs having reactions, diarrhea and other related issues from BB than I ever do Orijen. It could also be because I don't recommend Orijen to everyone out there. It's a great food but it's certainly not for every dog. My co-worker's old Staffy had terrible gastric issues on Orijen Senior, so he moved to Acana Senior and is doing great.

Also, we've had some serious concerns brought up to us about Orijen/Acana from time to time by customers, and Champion's customer service has always been nothing but gracious to us. If they aren't sure why the problem happened, they log the problem and credit the customer for the food bought.

[JacksonsMom]

I'm not terribly thrilled with Champion anymore like I used to be. After reading some things, it took a long time for me to actually believe them, but I've read too many iffy reports about them lately. They were also sort of bought out recently (not like P&G boughtout) but failed to mention it, but their under new ownership and a new CEO who had no experience in dog food. The company was sold to Bedford Capital in 2011. Frank Burdzy was put in by the new owner as the CEO. Prior to that he sold propane gas and fertilzer. There was never an announcement by the company. But they have a lot of claims about their food that I find to be bogus and their very tricky with a lot of wording and ingredients. I don't know, I'm still not sure how I feel about them totally, because I used to LOVE them, my dog always did well on their foods for the most part, but I don't feed it anymore because of the price increase/bag decrease and new ingredients. Wasn't happy with all the peas, beans, lentils, etc. I question how much meat is actually in there. I also have yet to hear of who exactly formulates their food and what credentials they have etc. But I almost considered trying their Singles line again because Jackson keeps getting bad eye boogers on Fromm and he always had a clear face on Acana Singles, but I'm not sure.

I've become a lot more concerned about a lot of these 'holistic' companies than ever before. I still wouldn't feed Purina or anything, but I also don't think the majority of all these '6 star' rated foods are all their chopped up to be. But I've really done a 180 on my thought process on dog food.

I definitely don't trust Blue Buffalo either. A bunch of dogs died on their food because of a vitamin d overdose. It's also the food that I've heard MOST come up when dogs have GI issues. Not to mention they're made in like 5 different manufacturing plants. Just not sure I trust they have employees at EVERY factory over-seeing EVERY little thing they do.

Bottom line is, I don't trust many of them, but what can you do? I think you just have to go with your gut, and what your dog does best on, and what you feel comfortable with. I wouldn't feed anything by Diamond, but lots of dogs do great on it, and honestly the chance of my dog becoming ill on a food by Diamond is probably one in a million, but it's just still not something I feel comfortable with.

[AllieMackie]

Originally Posted by JacksonsMom

I'm not terribly thrilled with Champion anymore like I used to be. After reading some things, it took a long time for me to actually believe them, but I've read too many iffy reports about them lately. They were also sort of bought out recently (not like P&G boughtout) but failed to mention it, but their under new ownership and a new CEO who had no experience in dog food. The company was sold to Bedford Capital in 2011. Frank Burdzy was put in by the new owner as the CEO. Prior to that he sold propane gas and fertilzer. There was never an announcement by the company. But they have a lot of claims about their food that I find to be bogus and their very tricky with a lot of wording and ingredients. I don't know, I'm still not sure how I feel about them totally, because I used to LOVE them, my dog always did well on their foods for the most part, but I don't feed it anymore because of the price increase/bag decrease and new ingredients. Wasn't happy with all the peas, beans, lentils, etc. I question how much meat is actually in there. I also have yet to hear of who exactly formulates their food and what credentials they have etc. But I almost considered trying their Singles line again because Jackson keeps getting bad eye boogers on Fromm and he always had a clear face on Acana Singles, but I'm not sure.

I've become a lot more concerned about a lot of these 'holistic' companies than ever before. I still wouldn't feed Purina or anything, but I also don't think the majority of all these '6 star' rated foods are all their chopped up to be. But I've really done a 180 on my thought process on dog food.

I definitely don't trust Blue Buffalo either. A bunch of dogs died on their food because of a vitamin d overdose. It's also the food that I've heard MOST come up when dogs have GI issues. Not to mention they're made in like 5 different manufacturing plants. Just not sure I trust they have employees at EVERY factory over-seeing EVERY little thing they do.

Bottom line is, I don't trust many of them, but what can you do? I think you just have to go with your gut, and what your dog does best on, and what you feel comfortable with. I wouldn't feed anything by Diamond, but lots of dogs do great on it, and honestly the chance of my dog becoming ill on a food by Diamond is probably one in a million, but it's just still not something I feel comfortable with.

Our Champion rep informed us about the change in ownership. Usually that kind of thing isn't sent down the line because 98% of consumers could care less about those details. I don't have time at the moment, but maybe a Google search would yield something. If not, I can try digging when I get home.

That said, don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely happy with Champion at the moment either. The ingredient changes aren't for the better, and everyone's waiting with bated breath on their freeze dried lines rolling out this/next month. No food company is going to be 100%. Hell, try looking up most big HUMAN food companies. They can be even worse.

[JacksonsMom]

Originally Posted by AllieMackie

Our Champion rep informed us about the change in ownership. Usually that kind of thing isn't sent down the line because 98% of consumers could care less about those details. I don't have time at the moment, but maybe a Google search would yield something. If not, I can try digging when I get home.

That said, don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely happy with Champion at the moment either. The ingredient changes aren't for the better, and everyone's waiting with bated breath on their freeze dried lines rolling out this/next month. No food company is going to be 100%. Hell, try looking up most big HUMAN food companies. They can be even worse.

Yeah, totally agree! It just sucks because Champion was always one of the few I very much trusted but lately, some things have made me not trust them like I used to. I want the old formulas back!!

But totally agree that no company is going to be 100%. I just really respect honesty in a company which is why I like Fromm so much.

[crazedACD]

I don't think actual death was ever linked with the Vitamin D overdose.

There is a possibility that due to the popularity, availability in Petsmart/Petco and most pet stores...that a larger portion of dog owners are feeding it, so you see more problems when in reality it is possibly the same percentage of problems as other foods. I could make a correlation against Innova myself. Nutro is another popular one that has LOADS of complaints. Taste of the Wild has complaints. I hear complaints at work about every food at one time or another and I don't really think it is always the food.

I like the sales people at BB (well of course sales people want you to like them) but they seem pretty legit and honest about the foods. There are things I can't disclose but we will see what the future brings . At the very least, they are the lesser of a lot of evils.

[AllieMackie]

Originally Posted by JacksonsMom

Yeah, totally agree! It just sucks because Champion was always one of the few I very much trusted but lately, some things have made me not trust them like I used to. I want the old formulas back!!

But totally agree that no company is going to be 100%. I just really respect honesty in a company which is why I like Fromm so much.

I've found that Champion has always been upfront and honest about things, at least how we've dealt with them as a company. Whenever we have a question about something, they give us an answer, or find out and call us back. Plus, when their one oven broke down those few months ago, all retailers received week-by-week updates until they were back in production. That's something.

Again, I'm unsurprised that they didn't mention the buyout simply because so many consumers would care less. Our rep informed us that the buyout has nothing to do with the facility, the business, the foods or the day-to-day operation (and yes, I know we've heard that song before...) so we'll see. I'm not too concerned about that aspect myself. Not yet.

[goldiefur]

Was this Blue Buffalo Wilderness that caused problems? I have fed it in the past when I could not get Orijen but I won't be doing that again anytime soon. I have still had trouble getting Orijen locally so I gave up and I am rotating between Pinnacle Peak, Go! and Anamaet Salcha. The dogs absolutely love all of them and their stools have been better. I'm not totally sure how these foods really compare to Orijen and Acana or if anyone here has fed these but I don't think I will be going back to Orijen since the dogs have done so well on these three foods.

[Lyzelle]

Annamaet and Go! are both good foods, heard a lot of good things about them. I don't have much experience with Pinnacle.

And it was Wilderness. Around the same time as the recall, however, I remember Reps pulling other bags and formulas too. Entire lists were given out to pull specific batches. Might have had something to do with one of their million legal issues...or more inconsistency in the food. Unknown.

[JessLough]

I love Go!. Fed it before, would still be feeding it if I didn't have one ferret that ingredients need to be closely supervised.

I'm thinking of picking up Go! for the new foster, though

[sassafras]

Originally Posted by Lyzelle

Yes, as opposed to BB which vets DID confirm that it was causing dogs to get sick and die, and they had several cases months in advice before the recall was pushed.

Originally Posted by crazedACD

I don't think actual death was ever linked with the Vitamin D overdose.

Lyzelle is correct. The deal with the BB was that a vitamin D supplement was made on the same equipment immediately prior to preparing ingredients for BB, which were then contaminated and resulted in the BB food having high levels of a form of vitamin D.

However, the initial testing of the dog food did not show this because standard tests look for vitamin D2 and D3, but the actual substance in the food was a vitamin D3 metabolite with a ridiculously elaborate name. Subsequent testing did confirm it. There were a number of deaths, I think around 30-40 over the course of the whole thing.

While BB was initially responsive, once the initial tests for D2 and D3 came back negative, they became... less than helpful or responsive IMO. It took some prodding to convince them to continue testing at that point. I don't hate them or anything but at the same time I don't entirely trust them.

Or really any dog food company, really. It's hard because some of these smaller companies that haven't been around very long in the grand scheme of things... they have good ideas but is there a track record there? More important to me than if a company has had any recalls is how do they respond to them and what steps do they take to prevent it happening again in the future.