President's Choice wet cat food

[marymag]

Hello everyone,

I have two cats and recently one of them became very sick. She has pica and had vomited bits of a rubber band several days ago, so I assumed she might have a bowel obstruction. Over the course of a few days she became lethargic, refused food and water and persistently vomited several times a day. I brought her to the vet and they gave her an anti-biotic shot, a shot to stop her vomiting and a bottle of Lactulose to soften her stool. This was done under the assumption it was a bowel obstruction, though no x-ray or endoscopy was performed.

She did not seem to get better the first two days after her vet visit despite the shots and Lactulose. She still refused to eat, couldn't keep down water and seemed weaker than before. However after the first two days, she has started to get much better, is passing feces (which, by the way, contained no visible obstructions), has much more energy, is no longer vomiting, and generally seems to be making a great recovery.

Now I want to get to the point of this post. I used to feed my cats President's Choice wet cat food. Recently the last batch of cans I bought had an extremely watery, runny, paste-like consistency whereas before it used to be fairly solid and meaty. I thought this was unusual and was quite displeased with how they cheapened the food by adding so much water, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Both my cats ate it and only one became sick, the one with a history of pica and hairballs, but after she became sick I bought several tins of Science Diet instead. I decided I'd just give the leftover President's Choice food to my dog. Here's the thing though... my dog wouldn't touch it.

My dog will eat nearly anything as long as it's not a vegetable. She revels in anything new or different and cat food always used to qualify, but she wouldn't even so much as lick the PC cat food. For my dog this is extremely unusual and suspicious.

Though only one of my cats became sick, I suspect that the cause might have been the PC cat food as I found no obstructions in her stool. She went several days without eating and this might have flushed the bad food out of her system, and afterward when she was switched to Science Diet, she started to recover and quickly at that.

I just wanted to post this as a warning to anyone else who might be feeding their cat PC wet food. I live in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and this food can be bought at the Atlantic Superstore. The formulation of the food has changed (at least in the batch I bought) and it might be dangerous to some cats.

[Love4himies]

Good for you for feeding canned food!

I have long given up buying grocery store food for my cats, not one has the quality of meat that I would eat myself, so I wouldn't feed my cats it.

http://www.catinfo.org/

I look for companies that only use human grade meat, no grains, including rice or corn, byproducts, "meat" meal.

Here are my favourites that are available at quality pet food stores:

Nature's Variety Instinct
Wellness, grain free
Weruva (warning, this food looks so good, you'll want to eat it yourself)
Organics by Nature
GO!, grain free
Fromm's 4 star

I mix up different manufacturers to minimize any "mistakes" they may make. I also make my own cat food because feeding only highly processed food is not good for any animal, but that's just me .

[sandyrivers]

Hi,

If you still have the cans of food that your dog did not eat (though he eats everything), I would suggest taking the info about the lot number and batch number, as well as when they were made on the cans, something may had gone wrong in the factory where they make it... and calling the company. Perhaps other people had this problem.
And even if you don't have the lot numbers or other info, I would call the toll free number for customer service, tell them what happened and ask them for answers!

Sandyrivers