Anyone Else Have a Sick Dog?

teriwtt
Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:24:25 +0000

intparent

I definitely know they are having unresolved production issues. This was the chain of events when I first heard about the recall: Got a call from the vet’s office letting me know that the food that I had ordered wouldn’t be arriving because of the recall and they didn’t know when the plant would be back in production. I still had about half of a 12 lb. bag left (I order two bags at a time) but it was not included in the recall. So as I began to run low on the food I had left, I began to slowly introduce a new Hills prescription food that was also a formula for renal dogs. However, once the switch was complete, she began to throw up about every other day and the vet said she thought the food was probably too rich for her. She wanted to try a different prescription food, but they would have to order it and it would take a week or so to get in. In the meantime, this is when they gave me the recipe for home-made food. They were also calling Iams every week for updates on production; it was their understanding that Iams was completely closing down the current production facility and they were having to build a new place and once the new place was up and running, production would begin again. The initial projections were a few weeks. After I made my dog’s food for a couple of weeks (in smaller batches, which wasn’t very efficient, but I kept thinking the new food would come in) I began to get concerned about the amount of time I was spending and sent Iams an email myself, asking if they had any idea of when the food might be available. At this point, someone at Iams was telling our vet’s office (on a regular basis), “Oh, it’s on backorder, but probably next week.” But in the response to my email, I was told they had no idea when it would be back in production, meaning not only was it not on backorder, but it wasn’t even in production yet. That’s when I accepted I was going to be making food… I didn’t want to keep running experiments with new foods when she was obviously handling the homemade food well (minus the soft stools). Once we added the pumpkin into the food, it also made a huge difference. So I’ve stopped asking about the future of our formerly prescribed early renal diet.

We also used to give our dog raw carrots, but she wouldn’t chew them up very well, contributing toward a lot of gas. I hadn’t thought about trying cooked. I know she misses her carrots. For a long time, it was one of the only treats she’d get.

So yes, Iams is definitely having production issues and I can’t believe they haven’t been able to correct it in almost three months!