Leslie, I was thinking that the small stores are likely between a rock & a hard place; they don't have that many brands, so I don't think they can risk getting rid of many. I have no idea how many of the "premium" brands are having QC issues.

While they were very careful with what they said to me, I would think the store is probably furious.

I posted under pet food brands...We have had great luck with a brand called Exclusive...Problem is, I could not find anything through my google search.

I am a rep for a Cattlehandling equipment company. I have great relations with a lot of Farm stores. Our local store stopped carrying the large purple bag of Exclusive Catfood we use. It is higher end, but my oh my, or cats do so much better than they did on Iams or Science diet. I got hooked on Exclusive by talking to our local Feed Store where i have a great wroking relationship with the owner...

So, I was working a dealer appreciation day at another store and they had a good deal on thse same large bags of Exclusive. As I bought it, the store manager gave me the impression that it was one of the few brands that they had had n issues with...

We have 9 barn cats that look better than most house cats......That s all I know and t is a little cold to walk to the barn and lok at the label. I am not sure of how widely this is distributed or if there is anything they make that your cat would be not allergic to. I just know we are happy with it,

Gooduck...Hopefully out of all f this we can find companies worth supporting,

Pat

rce-I tried one can of Pinnacle probably 4-5 years ago. It was so devoid of any moisture and kinda tuff to put a spoon into to take any out of the can. I smelled it and decided to throw it away and not give it to my dog. Something just didnt' seem right with it.

       Geff, Let us not forget about the rice four also. The light formula contains powdered cellulouse for added fiber and in the guaranteed analysis it states it has 9%. That is extremely high. I used the regular Exclusive cat food for about 2 years untill I became more edumacated.

So, you were able to find some faults, ........What would you suggest instead?

   Hello Patsbeef, Sorry if we seemed to be somewhat critical of the Exclusive, but I think the majority of us tend to freak out when we see any glutens listed in a pet food. Menadione is synthetic Vitamin K. There is a discussion on that here: http://itchmoforums.com/miscother-pet-discussions/menadione-t39.0.html  I am also providing a link that will offer tips on choosing a pet food. You could also check the Cat food experience threads. http://animalwellnessmagazine.com/art/aV72_14.htm

I had been feeding our husky mix Innova (regular, green bag) since he was a pup, he's 11 now and has always been in excellent health, great energy, beautiful coat, no illnesses.

Last week, though, he suddenly refused to eat any of it. We thought he was just picky from stress, we were traveling, so we tried all kinds of things mixed in- cooked chicken, grated cheese, yogurt, rice, etc. He refused to eat any from two different bags, he went for 3 days without eating anything. We thought he had lost his appetite entirely and were very worried!

Then I remembered that on many of the forums, people said dogs often had refused to eat food that later turned out to be bad. All the same week he had some digestive problems, diarrhea and drinking lots of water, but he has always had a sensitive stomach, and again we thought it was the traveling stress. But when he stopped eating a light went off in my head. So, I cooked him some rice with chicken & broccoli, and he ate about 3 cups of it in under a minute! The rest of our trip we fed him only that, no Innova, and the diarrhea stopped the first day of the switch, and he went back to normal water intake.

Now, I'm really frustrated beacuse I obsessively watched everything I could during the recalls, and thought Innova was ok. He has done so well on it all these years, but I'm not going to feed him any more. It's upsetting, since this is only one instance, and I hate to switch from a food that was so good for him without "official laboratory proof" type info, but his symptoms do match the ones discussed on the www.petfoodrecallfacts.com site, and they cleared up instantly when he finally got us to pay attention by starving himself.

He seems to be fine now, he's a strong fellow, and I'm going to have to find new food, but I wanted to be sure to share this since other folks' posts on this forum were so helpful to me in all my research during the big recall. Any food suggestions would be appreciated, also!

-leavesofjoy

leavesofjoy:  Leslie is right.....you need to do some reading here (about different brands) & other websites......like the pet food list or pet food tracker.  Lots of good info there too.  Making any recommendations is a no-no simply because none of us really know anymore what's good & what's not.

You were right in paying attention to what your dog was telling you.  They know better than we do.  They probably smell something odd in the food which is why they refuse to eat it.

You do know that you shouldn't be leaving your dog on the same food for long periods of time, right?  You should have at least two or three that you trust so you can rotate these foods from time to time.  What one may be missing in nutrients, the next one will make up for......at least we sure hope so!

Many are home cooking or feeding raw but this is not right for everyone.  There are still good pet foods out there but you have to do your research......