NUTRO food contamination

ORIGINAL: trishanne420

Not sure, but MSU could be Michigan State University.. we have a huge vet school and labratories here.

I think you're right with this one. A lot of people that don't even live in Michigan will send stuff to MSU because it's pretty well-known.

Petco of Sherman, Texas has yet to receive any recall notice for any Nutro Product. I talked with them.
 
Nutro has not had any contamination issues regarding either finished product or suppliers. I talked with them.
 
Midwestern State University near Wichita Falls, Texas does not have any vet college or clinic or forensic research facilities. This is per Dr. Cate, in the Chemistry Dept, with whom I talked today.
 
SMU in Dallas, Texas does not have a vet program or clinic. They have Meadows School of the Arts, Cox School of Business, and a law school. I know this because my first wife was a graduate of SMU Meadow School of Arts with a B.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy.
 
If a research facility at university was outside of Texas, that might have helped.
 
A co-worker of mine had a dog who died suddenly and it was most likely the result of poisoning. Someone throwing something tainted over the fence for the dog to eat, just out of pure meanness.
 
According the OP, the onset of symptoms was within 3 hours of eating the food. My dog is still eats that food and is still doing fine.
 
Someone else posted that Ms. McCall noted that she didn't want her email misinterpreted and evidently that is happening. And interestingly enough, that whole ordeal ended on a gleeful note of having switched to raw.
 
Diamond sent out recall notices. So would any company, even if it was just to limit any more liability. I still haven't heard of Nutro having a state-wide rep, though that may be possible.
 
In spite of all that has happened to her, I hope she finds the true answers. Or there could be more suprises, similar to when people posted that TO was made by Diamond, in spite of Sharon, a TO distributor said such was not the case.

Not to say I know one way or the other if this is true or not, I did want to add:
 
Most companies employ "outside sales" people who work for the company as a liaison between the manufacturer and retail stores.  For a company the size of Nutra and a state the size of Texas, odds are good that they have a "rep" (representative) that works just that state (if not just Texas, I can guarantee you there is someone who represents Nutra that's terrirory includes Texas).  He could easily make a house call if he was close and if the company was at all concerned that the food was tainted they would have most probably would have called him to get it ASAP.  If he wasn't close they would have had his, potential, assistant or other come to get it.  So, I wouldn't use the fact that there was a "rep" as evidence, cause in that regard it's very plausible.
 
(I hope this post didn't come off as patronizing, I read it back and it could look that way.  I just didn't want to take for granted someone knowing or not knowing information, so I decided to start at the beginning and finish explaining to the end.)

If you will re-read my post, you will notice I wrote that it was possible for Nutro, with an o, to have a state rep, I just haven't heard of it, which may be ignorance on my part. I hope you don't take this post as defensive, though someone might interpret it that way.

Not at all Ron, glad we understand each other []   Just trying to help.  My ex worked in outside sales, so I learned a lot about it a side of sales that I hadn't known existed.  There are sales reps for anything and everything... I'm surprised that the jobs aren't more prevalent and more widely known about, eh, I think they are trying to keep it quiet cause it can pay very handsomely! [8|]

That's okay.
 
And I'm not saying something didn't happen to this woman's dogs. It's possible that the bag she had was tampered with or that someone has poisoned her dogs or they got into something they shouldn't have or they caught a contagious disease. My dog is eating the same food, bought around the same time and is doing fine.
 
But a number of companies, even Diamond, will do the right thing and publish recalls. Even if a number of other foods are made at Diamond plants, they are not necessarily contaminated and I don't see or know of problems with those other foods. Just as Purina or Iams or Eukanuba have their own food plants, so does Nutro, which allows them a tighter control on QC. And the only reason for Diamond having a problem was a problem with their QC in testing supplier shipments incoming.
 
So, we have to wait and see. Some things are just a judgement call. For example, I don't know exactly what in Innova was causing my dog to have sneezing fits as I haven't had the money for a full allergy test. I just know that when I put him back on Nutro, he's been fine. And that is certainly a common experience around here of dogs that have a problem with one brand of food but not another.
 
Nor am I going to overreact and immediately jump to homecooking just because someone had a problem with Diamond or may have had a problem with Nutro.

Did you say you actually KNOW this woman ????

i think nutro does have sales reps...its not just one tho...when i was hired by them ( i never took the job and worked for them) i was spoken to by the sales rep for MD..this is so horrid though

OK, I just called Nutro. 

This did happen and they are testing the food (she didn't say specifically where but she did say "in our labs") to see if it was the cause of the dogs illness and/or death.  It so far has been an isolated incident and no recalls have been made.  The test results are not back yet. 

She not in so many words told me the posts on the internet have created a panic and now they are doing "damage control". (Damage control-her words)

She told me within the next day or so they will be posting on their website what exactly happened and also the results of the tests when they are in. 

That is the sad situation about things like this.  You don't want to post the story and then find it was something else and you have hurt the company.  Yet at the same time, if you don't post and learn more dogs have died, you feel so horrible becuase if you had posted, you might have saved them.  It is really a catch 22.

ORIGINAL: sandra_slayton

That is the sad situation about things like this.  You don't want to post the story and then find it was something else and you have hurt the company.  Yet at the same time, if you don't post and learn more dogs have died, you feel so horrible becuase if you had posted, you might have saved them.  It is really a catch 22.

I agree, but better to be safe than sorry! I understand this person's concern and if it happened to me I wouldn't want it to happen to anybody else's dog so I would alert as many people as I know....The companies just have to realize that publicity (good or bad) is a cost of production, so "damage control" is just something to be factored in (although I hate the use of words there). 

Wonder how long the results will take?? Im very interested to see what happened!

Yeah, you know I sure don't know how to run a dog food company, but I think I would be having an EMERGENCY DOG FOOD TEST done immediately - if not sooner.   I mean its great that they are not aware of any more, hopefully that means that this is an isolated thing,,,,,,but,,,,,what if its not???
I am sure this has caused them hardship, but loosing MORE dogs will cause them bigger hardship.

Interesting. I call and they tell me that haven't had any problem. Then you call, I assume later, and they tell you their testing. Of course, I wonder if my initial call got them to wondering if something was wrong. I told them that I visit a dog forum and someone thought they had food poisoning from eating Nutro, (which has not been my experience) Maybe my call was part of the "internet panic."
 
Im still not panicking and will wait to see and find out. This is not going to magically convert me to full raw feeding. And trust me, someone is going to come along with another possible food poisoning from some other brand, with yet another conversion to raw, so on, ad infinitum.

I have also filed a report with AFCO per
their recommendation after speaking with them

 
How did she do that? According to the AAFCO website, it is for regulatory officials only. I can't find any regular contact link, etc. In fact, you have to be a registered member to enter the website. I'm just wondering how she did it.
 
Also, and I could certainly be mistaken, but I don't think the AAFCO responds to possible food poisoning cases. I think they just regulate, or try to, what grade of product a company produces, but they are not necessarily in charge of overseeing QC in pet food makers. But I could be wrong.
 
I also wonder, understanding that she is upset, why she would turn down financial help for her vet bills. Unless they require her to sign a non-disclosure agreement they can't stop her from saying whatever she wants to say.
 
So, was she referring to Michigan State when she said MSU?