Canine Caviar Wild Ocean Warning
 

It's been almost three years since I've been here, since I lost my Lady, but I wanted to warn everyone about a serious problem with Canine Caviar.

I opened a bag of Canine Caviar Wild Ocean last Sunday and it looked just like cat kibble, not the normal disk shaped kibbles my two other bags of Canine Caviar were. This was the first time I tried this variety so I thought maybe this was the way it was supposed to look. I made the mistake of feeding it to my Bailey anyway.

I emailed Chewy.com on 2/10 and told them that the food I received from them looked like cat food, not dog food. I attached the two pictures I have attached here. Before I even received a reply, Bailey began vomiting, then had diarrhea. The higher fat content in cat food can trigger colitis which is what happened to Bailey. It can also trigger pancreatitis which can be life threatening as most of you know.

Why dog food is not for cats...and vice versa | petMD

Here is the information on my bag:

Canine Caviar Holistic Wild Ocean
Grain Free ALS Dinner
Holistic Dog Food
4.4 lbs.
SKU # 74555 90233


After several emails back and forth, Chewy.com finally understood what I had tried to tell them and confirmed that I had gotten cat food packaged in a dog food bag:

Chewy 10
FEB 12, 2014 | 04:31AM EST
Hi Marjorie,

I am so terribly sorry! You are absolutely correct, that is cat food. I will be contacting Canine Caviar again this morning to inform them that they have bagged cat food in bags labeled as dog food. Could you possibly email me back with the lot number and batch number that is located on the bag so I can make them aware as to the batch they will need to most likely recall. Also if you would like to further contact them I have placed there information below.

Once again I am so deeply sorry that this has happened. My Terrier had Pancreatitis so I know how stressful and painful it can be to watch them be so sick. We are all pet parents here at Chewy so something like this upsets us all just knowing that a fellow fur-ball has gotten so sick. We will do everything in our power to right this wrong.

Canine Caviar is available Monday through Friday 7:30am-4:30pm Pacific Standard Time. Their number is (800) 392-7898 and you can also email their support team at contact@mycaninecaviar.com.

If you ever need anything, please feel free to give us a bark - we are here to lend a helping paw 24/7!

Have a tail wagging day!

Chloe
Customer Service
Chewy.com
****************

I kept in constant touch with Chewy.com and was told that they were still awaiting a reply from Canine Caviar.

Days passed without a response from Canine Caviar so I posted the pictures on their Facebook page and exposed their error. My posts were removed quickly. A friend posted and asked why they were removed. There are several replies from Canine Caviar claiming it was an isolated incident, that they had been in contact with me (untrue) and that the removed posts were visible to me "the pet owner" (again untrue).

You can see this discussion on their Facebook page. Look on the right side under Posts By Others. Sher Silver is the poster who asked what happened to my posts.

https://www.facebook.com/caninecaviar

I was finally contacted by their Page Administrator Friday morning 2/14 who told me they had referred the matter to their corporate office. I gave him my email address to contact me.

I received an email from a Canine Caviar representative early yesterday evening and our emails back and forth went on until 2:00 in the morning, then continued again this morning.

Bottomline is that I was told they need a date stamp to track the bag and for some reason that is printed on the tear off portion of the zip lock on the bag. Of course, I discarded that on Sunday when I opened the bag. I photographed every square inch of that bag to prove to them that there was no date stamp on my bag. I resent the same pictures (attached here) over and over again to show them I my bag had no date stamp. I suggested they contact Chewy.com to see if they had records of products they received and sent out. I kept telling them that I had given them all the information I could, was tired of wasting my time sending them the same pictures and information over and over again, and that they needed to focus on correcting their error and making sure no more dogs got sick.

I will continue this in another post......

I have done some research on Canine Caviar since this happened and discovered there have been other problems:

Topic: Canine Caviar Large Breed Labeling Error

Canine Caviar has been recalled before:

Melamine contaminated Pet Foods - 2007 Recall List - detail page

If you scroll down to the Comments, it looks like other people have had problems with Canine Caviar and poor customer service.

Topic: PET OWNERS BEWARE OF CANINE CAVIAR DOG FOOD

Canine Caviar has had packaging problems in the past and consumer complaints when Pied Piper was manufacturing their products.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURT...cv-00677-0.pdf

Today Canine Caviar dry foods are manufactured by Hi-Tek Rations in Dublin, GA; can foods are made at Evangers in Illinois. As my bag was dry kibble, it was manufactured here:

Hi-Tek Rations: Dog Food, Cat Food, Pet Food

I have lost all confidence in Canine Caviar. They have done nothing so far to warn their customers or recall the suspect product. I don't want any other dog to get sick like my Bailey did so I am trying to warn everyone I can.

Yikes that's scary. I'm so sorry Bailey got sick. Its upsetting that they lied and that bothers me.

Hi Marj, Thank you for posting this warning! We've had discussions here about CC's poor customer service & deleting content on their FB page:thumbdown.
I stopped feeding my guys CC couple months ago, although they were doing well on it. They're mostly on a premade raw diet & canned food, hopefully will be 100% raw soon than later. So sorry about Bailey, hope he's doing ok!

I hope your little boy gets better soon. Thank you for posting. Their lack of concern for the well-being of pups is very concerning and disheartening.

Really? That only confirms to me that the conclusions I have come to about Canine Caviar's lack of integrity and honesty are correct.

Thank goodness my Bailey is fine although he was really sick for three days. I just don't want anyone else's dog to get sick on their food.

Hi Ladymom, I have really missed you around here. I saw an old post recently, and was wondering where you had went.

Thanks for posting the info. I have been uncomfortable with CC and their quality control, and marketing "claims" to aid in preventing cancer, not to mention a few of their formulas are extremely high in ash content (or at least they were, there were conflicting answers as to what was correct- the bags, the website, the old website, etc). And I've heard of them deleting posts on FB in the past.

I'm so sorry little Bailey got sick, and thank you for sharing.

Cat food!
 

I had a bag of the same thing about a month ago! The food looked just like it does in your picture. I wondered about it at first but then thought it was ok since it was a flavor I had never purchased. I can't believe I was so stupid! My Yorkie didn't eat much of it, but my Cavalier did--and ended up with pancreatitis!
I feel like I've just been punched in the stomach!

Oh jeez. :( You don't happen to have any food left do ya? To take pics?

Aren't you sweet to remember me? It feels good to be back!

Yes, Canine Caviar seems to make quite a few marketing claims about cancer, reduced alkalinity and other health benefits that they don't substantiate. The rep I spoke with from their corporate office gave me the PR spin instead of listening to me.

I got this email from him at 2:00 in the morning!

"Whole reason Jeff started the company as the vet said the family dog Moguls was going to have to make that decision as his kidneys were starting to shut down. Jeff formulated the Special Needs food the very first formula Canine Caviar made and it was for his personal dog Moguls a great dane who lived to 17 years as that was almost 10 year past when the vet told him! So thank you as why I take this so serious as we pride ourselves in the best formulas in the world. First food to ever use a multi-layer poly bag. First company to have such high omega 6:3 ratio. First and only company to be Akaline based to help create an environment that cancer cells can’t survive in. We are a very small family owned business and nutrition has always been our number one goal!"

Jeff Baker isn't a veterinarian so how can he make those claims?

This is Jeff Baker:

Oh no! This is horrible. I can't switch foods again, I've run out of options. CC is the only food both my dogs seem to do well with. I do not like that they have such poor customer service, for such a 'small' company you think they would go out of their way to make a wrong right. I will inspect the bag I just ordered carefully but i don't know what I will do if I have to switch.

I posted a picture in my first post, but here is another one.

OMG! Do you still have the bag? I'm so afraid that is what happening or will happen, that people won't realize that it is cat food, not dog food in the bag.

Wow...that's terrible that your Cavalier got pancreatitis as a result of this mislabeling situation. Did you notify CC? CC should step up and be held accountable for this. I'm surprised they haven't made some type of announcement since obviously an entire lot or whatever was affected. I guess I'm not so surprised actually...

Oh, I saw yours. :) I meant pink66, to prove she had the same problem.

In the fall I bought my second bag of CC. Both my dogs got diarrhea after eating from the new bag. The shape was different than the first bag, though it was the same flavor.
That was the end of using CC for me.

CC is insisting this was an "isolated incident". They also lied about "connecting" with me when this was posted.

I didn't save anything-the bag, the food, nothing! I just realized this tonight (Sat 2/15) when I saw OP's post. I bought the food in MD. I wonder how widespread this is. I'm going to go in the morning to the store that I bought the food from, and I'm going to open it in front of the owner--but who knows if it will be dog or cat food--heck maybe it will be elephant food!!??!

I ordered mine from Chewy.com on December 30, 2013. I also ordered a bag of Wilderness at the same time and opened that one first.

Was yours the 4.4 lb. bag, too? Wild Ocean?

I am sure that there have been others like you who opened the bag, thought it looked like cat food, but didn't believe it really could be. Not all dogs will get sick from cat food, too. My Bailey has had a couple bouts of colitis before.

It's too bad you didn't realize it was the food. I bet your vet bill for your Cavelier's pancreatitis was pretty steep!

I am just so afraid it is going to take dogs dying before the company does anything.

That is terrible. I'm glad you posted this so people can see how much they really care about your pets. I'm sorry your baby got sick.

Wow that's crazy! Please let us know how it goes...this reminds me of a post RileyDC made how her store pulled CC off their shelves bc it was making other dogs sick (yellow poo & vomiting)! Maybe it's the same thing...this was months ago! Bad CC:thumbdown ignoring the problem instead of doing something about it, unbelievable!

OMG another one! What was the shape of the kibble like...was it anything like the pic Ladymom posted?

MARJ, my gosh, I was *just* thinking of you the other day...bc I missed your presence here; I can't remember what made me think of you, but I was really wondering where you were and how you were and how I could get your little butt back here! And here you are :D. It's SO GREAT to see you! I am sorry it's under these circumstances that could've resulted in an illness for your kiddo, but I'm glad to hear all is okay.

Please don't be a stranger, as you are SO missed here. Your posts were always so wonderful, supportive, intelligent, helpful, caring...you really added a lot to this community :love:.

Btw, I'm totally disgusted as to how CC handled themselves in this manner. To see how dishonest they were is very scary and very informative as to their integrity :mad:.

I'm putting their website link into this thread in case they watch their link traffic bc I want them to see this thread and know that people WILL always know the truth, no matter how hard they try to hide it. http://www.caninecaviar.com/

Ann, you're the best! I've missed you guys, too!

Canine Caviar did change the shape of its kibble. I got this email from Chewy.com last week. Of course, the kibble I found in my bag was not disk shaped so CC's response made no sense.

Chewy 6
FEB 12, 2014 | 12:34AM EST
Hi Marjorie,

I contacted Canine Caviar for you and the food you received should be dog food. Canine Caviar said that there has not been any changes made to the actual formula, but the size and shape of the kibble has changed. The previous sizes were comparable to the size of an eraser tip off of a pencil, now the size would be a disk shape about 1/2 an inch or so in diameter.

Not like the pic Ladymom posted. It was just either flatter or rounder or something... I'm pretty sure I froze it & stuck it way in the back of the freezer in case I ever wanted it for future reference. It was the only thing I had fed them that day & they are very regular with their poops so I knew it was bad kibble.

This morning I went to the store where I got the CC. They had the same small bags of wild ocean and I did open the bag before I bought it, but this time it looked like their regular dog food. I told the cashier what had happened and asked if anyone had reported getting cat food instead of dog food, but she hadn't heard anything about it. I've been trying to remember if there was anything strange about the bag with the cat food, and I did remember that it had a really strong fishy odor. It's kind of ironic that this particular store had the cat food mistake because over the summer every time I went there all of their small bags of CC were expired by several months. The one thing that I do know is that I will not be buying CC ever again!

And the bag of CC that I bought today? Right into the garbage!

Was your bag Wild Ocean also? A 4.4 lb. bag?

I don't remember a fishy smell to the kibble, but the shape was a dead giveaway to me that it was cat food. I questioned myself, though, I suspect others have done. I checked the bag several times to make sure that it was indeed labelled dog food, then made the mistake of feeding it to Bailey anyway.

I am so sorry your Cavalier got so sick. Colitis is bad enough, but pancreatitis is very scary!

Marj, I was so excited to see you posted today, but very sorry to hear about the CC making Bailey sick. Thank you for warning others.

You have been on my mind lately too, as another member reminded me that you dealt with diabetes in Lady for so many years. My 5 yr old Meika was diagnosed with diabetes last month and I am trying to do everything possible to get it under control and give her the best & longest life possible. You did an amazing job with Lady, and you were such an inspiration to us all. I am so sorry that she passed, but happy to hear you have Bailey.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but just say I'm happy to see you here. I'll be picking your brain for diabetes info separately. Are you still making the amazing bows? Hope you'll stay on YT, you have truly been missed.