Today we (and most especially our poor pooch) find ourselves in the unfortunate position of getting to participate in what is quickly becoming one company’s PR nightmare.
A little background - our dog Micah has been sick for the past couple of months, vomiting nearly every day, seeming to suffer from a high amount of acid in his stomach. We sought veterinary advice, spending many hundreds of dollars on testing, drugs and advice. All of the tests came back as negative - the vet couldn’t determine what was making Micah so sick.
Sometimes Micah would even refuse his food. He’s a lab, who eats everything with gusto, all the time, so we knew there was a serious problem.
Perhaps it was bowel / stomach disease, the vet suggested. Eventually, after deciding there weren’t really many options left (other than exploratory surgery to try to determine the cause), we decided to change his food - which was Royal Canin LOW FAT. This was food that was recommended and sold by the vet to help prevent any stomach and pancreas problems that had caused Micah illness (and us the cost of a Harvard education - seriously) a couple of years ago. But as a last resort, we figured, why not - lets try to give him new food. We started this change a couple of weeks ago, phasing in the new food to limit any more distress (!!) and only 1 week ago, had changed his food 100% to a new brand.
Almost exactly to the day we were giving Micah only the new food, he completely recovered. He was not vomiting, ever, and he was bounding around outside through snowbanks with energy and enthusiasm we hadn’t seen in months. We were happy - he was well, finally, after months of daily retching and suffering.
Yesterday, I received a voice message from one of the vet techs at our excellent clinic (Pretoria Pet Hospital), asking me to call because they had received a memo from Royal Canin, that said that there was a “formulation problem” with the LOW FAT food that we had been feeding our dog. It turns out, from what I understand from our vet tech, (and note that I haven’t actually seen the memo, nor am I an expert in chemistry, or nutrition or dog food….) that for the past “few months”, there was an undetected “forumulation problem”, resulting in large amounts of vitamin D3 being added to the food during the manufacturing process. It seems that the acid that was making Micah so sick, every day, was (or at least may have been) from the very food that was supposed to be keeping him well. We now feel that we may have been effectively feeding our dog ‘poison’ - even getting up at midnight to give him one last feeding, hoping to keep the vomit at bay.
OH. MY. GOD.
The vet tech was calling to ensure that I was no longer feeding Micah this Royal Canin LOW FAT food, and to let us know that Royal Canin would, on a case by case basis, assess whether any compensation for medical expenses incurred as a result of this “formulation problem” was warranted. I searched the Internet to find some mention of this “formulation problem” or any notice from Royal Canin to pet owners who may not be so lucky to have vet clinics as good as ours who were able to contact dog owners who bought the food. Nothing. Nothing on the Royal Canin itself, nothing anywhere else that I could find. I know a few things about searching (being an online strategist and search marketer) and I know a few things about the dog community (producing TorontoDogs.com and RainCityDogs.com) - but I couldn’t find any information online about the problem.
Here’s the thing - a few times during Micah’s illness, we debated just how sick we’d allow him to become - wondering how much he was suffering, how much pain he was in on a daily basis - how much we would force him to endure? In the worst moments, we allowed ourselves to think about the possibility of putting him to sleep to end his suffering. And all the time, we were making it worse by giving him more and more of the ‘poison’. I hope to the highest powers that there isn’t a family out there who did put their pet to sleep to end suffering that may have been caused by this problem at the Royal Canin factory.
I look forward to hearing from Royal Canin and wonder how they plan to compensate the dogs and families who suffered as a result of their manufacturing problem.
A friend yesterday wondered what would have happened had this company been manufacturing baby food, and not dog food. While there really is no difference, I only hope that the problem would have been noticed earlier, and that full, public, accessible notice would have been given, and remedies would made available quickly. I wonder if there are any long term implications of having ingested high levels of vitamin D3 over a few months?
UPDATE as of March 2nd 2006: We’ve received some compensation from the dog food company related to this incident. I am not completely satisfied, however. They say their dog food is 100% guarenteed. Well, then, I think they should also compensate us for all of the dog food that made our dog vomit over the past few months. This is expensive food! Of course, they did not offer to do this. They did, however, pay our vet bills for the treatment we sought for vomitting.
I am amazed at how impossible I have found it to be to communicate with this company online. And any contact to date has been from them VIA OUR VET. Never directly. Their website has no contact information at all. Their letterhead has no email information. In the letter itself, they suggest that if we have any questions or concerns, that we work through our veterinary hospital or (as a second resort), call them. Transparent? Hardly.
I’ll be mailing them a letter with my thoughts.
