Natural Balance Changes Formula; Makes Dogs Puke

Hello,

I am the Director of Customer Service and staff Registered Veterinarian Technician at Natural Balance Pet Foods, Inc. When reading this post, I found it imperative to respond. Please know that ALL of our products are manufactured in the United States. They are NOT manufactured in a foreign country. As stated from our customer service representative and on our website; we removed duck meal from our formulas because there is not enough duck meal manufactured in the United States to support our products. Since Natural Balance is NOT willing to use duck meal from foreign source, we have elected to remove it from our formulas. Specifically with our Potato and Duck Dry Dog Formula, we have removed duck meal due to the reasons I mentioned above, and replaced it with more fresh duck and potato protein. Again, this product like ALL of our other products are manufactured in the UNITED STATES. For any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email or phone.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Freeman, B.S., R.V.T.
Director, Customer Service
Natural Balance Pet Foods, Inc.
jenniferf@naturalbalanceinc.com
800-829-4493 x106

Thanks for your post Jenniger. Please point me to the page on your web site that says your product is made in the USA. If this is true, I would like you to include information on where ALL of your ingredients come from. Not where it’s made, where it all comes from.

I have a few other questions as well:

1. Why does it not say on the bag “Made in the USA”?
2. Why wasn’t there information on the bags of food I purchased informing me of a formula change?
3. Why doesn’t any of the stores I went to that sell your product know nothing about the change?
4. Is Duck Protein lower in price than Duck Meal for your company to acquire?

My dog also does not like the new formula. I’m considering switching brands. He won’t touch the new kibble.

First of all, I *love* the title

Aside from what the company says, it is a fact that dogs may experience digestive problems when you change food - regardless of what you change from or to. My experience has been that the problem is at the other end, as it were.

I’m not seeing a lot wrong with the rep’s statement though.
I used to use Iams but the current guy prefers Purina (actually he prefers cat food, but that’s a different store entirely).

I hope your dog is ok.

I understand where the company would come from regarding a change, even though I believe the change was to save money. But they should know that after the recall they had back in 2007, people might be a little sensitive about a ‘ninja change’ to their dog food. They could’ve given some kind of notice on the bag or in the store to avoid the pain caused to me and my dogs. As a result of their negligence, my dog was not nourished and dehydrated from throwing up. I switched my dogs to new stuff and they didn’t have a problem with it. So I don’t believe it’s a sensitive stomach issue.

One of my dogs eats everything. She took a sniff of the new stuff and wouldn’t touch it. Something just tells me it’s just not good food anymore. There are many pet owners in forums all over the web complaining about the same thing.

Recently started my dog on what must have been the OLD duck formula and he loved it. He is 14+ (golden) and he wouldn’t eat ANYTHING and he was diagnosed with IBD, hence single source protein. New cans … he kind of eats but witout the enthusiasim with the old ones. He still is sick so I don’t want to switch food on him again but I don’t think I am going to convince him that this is the one (canned). The dry bites of this brand of food were too flat and he was eating so much so fast that he choked and now won’t eat the dry version.

We’ve had the sam problem with both our dogs and the formula change in the Natural Balance Potato & duck Formula.

We have switched to “Breeder’s Choice Pinnacle Potato & Duck dry dogfood.” Both dogs LOVED IT!

Try it!

My terrier mix suffers from food allergies and after years of trying just about every food on the market - the Natural Balance Duck and Potatoe formula worked. I can’t recall how long she was on it, maybe two years, but in that time - her ears cleared up and she stopped chewing on her paws. Then suddenly in June she developed bilateral ear infections and chewed her paws to the point they got infected and was put on an antibiotic. Then my other dog who has an iron stomach began having diarrhea. - My vet had asked if we had changed food or did our current food have a formula change. To be sure I called the pet store I purchase the food from and they were unaware of any change. I then called the company and found that they had changed from duck millet to duck protein, which my vet tells me is a significant change. I’m not sure how many bags I fed my dogs before I realized that it was the cause. We have changed foods, but my terrier mix has been sick since then. We were back at the vets on Thursday and I’m waiting for them to open this morning to bring her back today as she was extremely weak last night, to the point she could barely stand and I’m afraid I’m going to lose her.. I can’t spend any more time this morning commenting on this, other than to say the company was negliegent in not notifying their retailers well in advance of the change and not ihaving any indication on the package . They did finally put “a new and improved” label on around the of June. They should be held accountable, my dog has been suffering for over two months and it could have been avoided if they had just been upfront with the change

So glad I stumbled on this forum. My dog also was throwing up more frequently and now completely refuses to eat the Natural Balance Potato Duck formula that he’d been gobbling down since he was a puppy. His apetite is fine with other dry dog foods.

I am also reluctant to try other Natural Balance products without knowing where their ingredients originate (i.e., where do their U.S. ingredient suppliers get their components from?).

I spent almost two months trying to figure out why two of my three dogs (one who has an iron stomach) have had constant, uncontrollable diarrhea & soft “cow patty” poops. It made a mess of my carpets when the dogs couldn’t hold it overnight and I spent hundreds of dollars at the vets. I didn’t want to believe it was the food because we spent quite a bit of time finding one that my poodle (severe food allergies) could eat. Now we’re back in search for a new food - we’ve tried 4 so far with no luck. Pinnacle is the next on the list. I’m furious with the company and wish that I could be reimbursed for the 6 bags of poisonous (to my dogs) food they sold us before any warning was given, plus the vet bills and carpet cleaning services that incurred from using the food.

See my post above. This is strange — I just called Natural Balance. Evidently, the dates on my bags indicate it is the *old* formula (dated June 18, 2010)! They took down the info. He’s now been on a new dry dog food for 10 days; loves it and hasn’t thrown up once. I showed him a few NB pieces one last time — he put them in his mouth and then spit them out.

I’m switching to Pinnacle
Much better rated; on sale at Petco for $10 less
for a $30 pound bag
Why take a chance with my dog vomiting and diarrhea
Totally unacceptable what Natural Balance did. Dick Van Patten should be ashamed (or be made aware; after all, it’s
just his name)

The worst part (and EVERYONE knows when switching
ANY DOG from one food to another, to do it over 4-7 days
gradually, with percentages of the new food gradually increasing), THEY DIDN’T TELL ANYONE and let
everyone’s pet suffer with Vomiting and Diarrhea.
Disgusting. As another blogger stated, they did finally
put a label on in June. Hurrah, Hurrah.
Too little, too late

Thought I’d update - since the formula change, two of my dogs are finally doing fine on the new food, but the third (the one who always had the cast iron stomach) is still quite ill. The symptoms started (and were documented by multiple vet visits) at the same time as the formula change, so I don’t know if it is related or not, but the timing seems suspicious. My sweet Maggie is now spending her second night at the animal hospital undergoing tests to find out why she hasn’t stopped the vomiting or the diarrhea since we first fed her the new NB Duck and potato. I got home from work yesterday afternoon to find her in her crate, quite lethargic and lying in a pool of vomit and diarrhea. Rushed her right to the Vet ER. They can’t figure out why after months on a bland homecooked diet and a fortune in negative tests she is still so ill.
So, I’m left wondering if we’re the only ones out there with this problem…?

Same here!

Noticed when I opened a bag a few weeks ago that it didn’t smell as oaty as it once did. It had a more Chinese buffet smell to it. I knew something was off and noticed “new formula on the bag.”

I believe I was still buying bags that were the old formula even after they made the switch because the changes in my dog were like night and day. He had horrible gas and was not wanting to eat the food. I had to coax him into it. I feel horrible now for coaxing him because it was clear something was wrong with the food. He would know better than I would. He only had it for a few days and I decided to do some research about the changes and stumbled across this blog.
I’ve switched his food and he has no more gas! This is a dog (Papillon) that just never farts! LOL So I knew something was wrong when he started doing the whole silent and deadly thing.
I wrote the company and they sent me the same generated email as everyone else I had seen (on a forum) and went out looking for some new food. I ended up with wellness simple salmon since I couldn’t find anything else and he loved that and I called my vet to see if it was ok to just switch him. I was worried about switching his food so fast and not being able to wean him off the NB, but I was not going to feed him that crap food, but it was a smooth transition and he had no problems at all. I had to order the Breeders Choice potato & Duck and am now mixing it with the wellness simple salmon and he just loves it and no more digestive issues!

I made a post here on my blog.
http://loppyandpip.blogspot.com/2009/10/dog-food.html