Quality Decreasing in Kirkland Dog Food??

1906 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by biscuit, May 26, 2006

Lina

Discussion Starter · May 23, 2006

Hi I've been feeding my bassets with Kirkland dog food (Costco) for 5 years now. I bought the Lamb and Rice formula (for various reasons, Winston allergic to corn meal and corn meal makes them has strong BO).
Last week, I bought a new bag and I noticed they start having dierrhea?
But they seem to be normal, happy, active like crazy, eat normal and everything is normal.
could it be the quality of the dog food is decreasing? may be they start using bad quality of protein mix in it? It is only $18 for 40 lbs bag afterall.
Compare to the store brand that would cost $ 30 for 40 lbs bag.

I'm thinking changing to Nutro cause they have Lamb and Rice formula and I remember I bought this brand once and Winston and Henrietta love it.

Did anyone hear anything about Kirkland dog food? Thanks!!

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Barbara Winters

· #2 · May 23, 2006

Not only might the quality of the food decreasing it may be making your dogs ill. I wouldn't feed this product as it is made by Schell & Kampeter , who also makes the Diamond Products. If you are unfamiliar with the recall on Diamond Pet Food do a search on this topic.

If it were me not only would I take my dogs off the food but I'd have them checked out by my vet with a request for bloodwork appropriate for aflatoxin poisoning.

Here is a link with some info Diamond Pet Food Warning There may be more up to date info but don't have time to search for it.

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Mikey T

· #3 · May 26, 2006

FWIW Kirland lamb and rice has never contained corn and therefore not subject to aflatoxin. This of course does not address the lack of following minimium quality control standards.

Dogs get diarhhea for various reasons rarely is it caused by comercial dog food, I would suspect other sources first.

If for what ever reason you do decide to switch brands be aware that most brands of Lamb and Rice formula dog food contain substaintial amounts of corn. You must read the back of the back for the list of ingredients.

FWIW Nutro's Natural Choice Contains no corn but has a low overall protein percentage. the Large breed lamb and rice is better but IMHO their MAX Beef meal and rice dinner or Ultra are better choices.

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Barbara Winters

· #4 · May 26, 2006

Alfatoxin can affect other grains including rice. Though there were no reports of alfatoxins affecting other grains, in light of the poor quality control it's not impossible the lamb and rice wasn't contaminated with corn. No documented evidence but after reading details of the FDA inspection Diamond Pet Food/FDA I wouldn't feed by dogs any of their products and if they all started acting sick I'd certainly want to rule out a food related cause.

I hope the people who lost dogs to this contaminated food are getting more than the value of their dog(s) from DIAMOND for what they had to go through.-

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Lina

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 26, 2006

I've been feeding my bassets with Kirkland dog food for 4 years now. They have their annual visit to vet for check-up. The vet said their overall condition is fine, except henri has a back problem (cause she is getting old). Other than that, they are definately healthy.
Except, we noticed that both of their stool is a bit soft than other dogs.

So we thought it might be the dog food! We did an experiment by feeding them Nutro Lamb and Rice for a week, during that period of time, their stool were solid and perfect (I don't know if there is such a thing called a Perfect Stool!! :lol: )

I'll take Winston for a vet visit again next week. It's about time. He needs a dental cleaning and I need to check a skin tag that I found last night. It seems pink color and getting a bit bigger! I'm worried about this one. I hope it's nothing.

The vet found a skin tag on Henrietta last year, it turned out to be nothing. So let's hope.....

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biscuit

· #6 · May 26, 2006

FWIW, there is information on the health board concerning Diamond's quality control --- Barbara posted a letter from Health and Human Services warning Schell and Kampeter Inc., the manufacturers of Diamond. In essence, there was nothing accidental about what happened. Instead, it appears it was a byproduct of sheer laziness and cost cutting measures.

And they have sold food to hog farms which contained animal products, and did so without labeling.

Given these things alone, I wouldn't touch any products from these manufacturers, be they Diamond or not.

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