Timberwolf Organics recalls two foods
By Christie Keith
June 4, 2008
I see it on my dog lists all the time, someone insisting their pet’s food made the animal ill, and that the company insists no one else is complaining, there’s no problem, there hasn’t been a formula change. In other words, it’s not us, it’s you.
Sometimes the story turns into a huge pet food recall — even the biggest consumer recall in American history, like it did in 2007. But usually it just fades away, never to be heard again.
Which doesn’t mean there was nothing to it. It could mean the contamination or spoilage was limited to a small batch of food, or was so mild most animals didn’t have a serious reaction, or any at all. The reality of relying on processed commercial foods is that you’re putting all the quality assurance and control in the hands of a company that, of necessity, has profit as a bottom line. And while no company makes a profit by making pets sick, and no pet food company wants to make pets sick, they’re still walking a line in which profit has to be one of their considerations. That’s reality. And sometimes that line is much harder than other times to walk. That’s also reality.
And that’s the background of my reaction to a mass-forwarded email I saw about Timberwolf Organics food the other day, in which someone insisted her dogs had become very ill after eating one of their products. She’d called the company (which in my experience has a terrific food and really terrible customer service), where she said she was assured there was no known issue with the food.
So she headed, according to the email, to the store that sold her the food, where she learned they’d been notified that the very product she was feeding, and one other, were being pulled from the shelves by the company. The author of the email stated, without offering any evidence or even details, that she’d “discovered” the company had known about this problem for eight weeks, even though she had contacted them three weeks earlier and they’d claimed not to know anything about it.
The circulating email, like so many, has no name or identifying information on it, so I actually discounted it. Can’t verify it, no evidence, chances are good it’s not true.
However, today, the recall notice is on the Timberwolf Organics website. I looked at Google’s cached version of the page, and when they last archived the site, on May 31, there was no mention of the recall. The undated notice on the page that’s up today states:
Due to recent reports from some customers, we have ordered that two formulas from three specific dates be pulled from the shelves. These are:
Dakota Bison with ‘best by date’ of 12 Feb 2009
Ocean Blue with ‘best by date’ of 20 Feb 2009
Ocean Blue with best by date’ of 8 March 2009The reported symptoms include dogs refusing to eat, diarrhea or vomiting. While the problem is inconsistent (not every dog eating food from those dates/bag show the symptoms and not every bag), to err on the side of caution have decided to pull the formulas produced with the above dates. Initial testing has come back negative for problems and further testing is pending results.
If you’re feeding these foods, they say to return them to the retailer or, if purchased directly from the website, to the company. Full details are here.
The difficult part of this for me is that this warning, which now appears to be true, was easy to discredit because of the lack of information and detail. If you’re going to warn people about something, do it with contact information for yourself, as well as some kind of sustantiating evidence for the warning. Hysterical “OMG MY DOG IS THROWING UP AFTER EATING BRAND X, FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!” just resolves into background noise these days.
More icky food news for those who feed (or eat) Tyson Chicken:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/n.....hens_N.htm (regarding bird flu)
and
http://www.sunherald.com/306/story/603035.html (regarding Tyson’s false claims about “no antibiotics”)
Tyson’s VP says basically that ‘everybody else does it’… nice.
Comment by slt — June 4, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that there is deception and outright lies in advertising!
Sure am glad that I don’t depend on such unethical
types to earn a living.
It would make me uneasy in my mind to the point that I couldn’t sleep. Or eat, knowing what we all know. It would taste like I was feeding on the living flesh of pets, like a tick, while they slowly die of poison and maybe the poison would work it’s way into me too. Who knows?, some ticks might fatten well on poison, get used to it.
Nice job if you aspire to be a tick.
Comment by LoveyHowell — June 4, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
The thing that always bothered me about Timberwolf Organics is that the food is not Organic. I guess we could sit around and ponder the definition of “is” but basically, the average consumer is going to think that food is organic because of the name IMO.
Comment by slt — June 5, 2008 @ 4:13 am
I don’t want to mention any names, but there is one food I’ll never feed again.
A few years ago, my dog was eating this particular brand of canned food, and doing very well on it, I might add. She’d been on the food for somewhere between 1 and 2 years when I brought home a new case, and discovered some of the cans were bulging. I checked the packaging, but it was well-before the best before date.
I thought, ‘Well that’s weird.’ I threw out the rest and bought another case. Once I got home and started unpacking the new case, I noticed some of those cans were bulging too. I tried contacting the company, to no avail. So I just stopped feeding that brand, and didn’t think much more of it.
Well, during a recent search for a new food to replace a couple of the brands in the roster that my dog had grown tired of, I decided to try that food again. It had been about four years since the bulging cans incident.
I fed individual cans at first, just to see if my dog was willing to eat it again. She was. So, I brought home a case, on my next food run. Everything was just fine, until one day, when I noticed a small piece of paper-like, plasticky material enrobed in a chunk of food. I pulled it out before my dog ate it, and that’s exactly what it was. (Like a small piece of laminated paper, or thin plastic, about the size of a quarter…IN THE FOOD!) I thought, ‘That’s it! They obviously have some quality control issues in their manufacturing.’
My dog was never ill, and actually did well on that food. But I just can’t trust it, for obvious reasons.
Comment by Marjorie — June 5, 2008 @ 4:58 am
Chrisitie,
I saw this email floating too. While I agree that it would have been more helpful for the person to have given more contact info. and evidence; the problem seems to be: it’s business as usual for the PFC. If you call and ask questions or complain - they say your nuts the food is fine and no one else has complained or/you are accused of harassing them. So I think we are back to square one. If someone feeds a food and sees a problem they are going to float an email and see if anyone responds with: I have that problem too or/the email will go into a trash bin ignored,until 10,000 pet owners say something is wrong and even than there is no guarantee that a company will alert. Business as usual.
For my dog; I am still homecooking.
Katie
Comment by Katie — June 5, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
Background noise?
Harsh and hateful.
Sounds like something the PFI would say.
If it is not done to suit you, then there is not a problem? Blame the victim, shoot the messenger, all that.
I have heard THAT exact line from over 50 pet food company customer service liars and it ill becomes a pet advocate. And , yanno, it is every bit as funny coming from petconnection as it was coming from the people who sell poisons labeled as pet food.
Comment by LoveyHowell — June 5, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Yanno, “Lovey,” I just checked and we know who you are now. New name, but you’re still a gutless worm who bashes others without having the courage to stand up behind your own name.
You’re on moderate here, and will be banned soon. I have no patience for your BS.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 5, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Thanks Gina. I was beginning to get tired of all the vitriol and wondering what was behind it.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — June 5, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Christie, what is it that “ethical” Lovey does for a living?
Comment by Nadine L. — June 5, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
Gina, my last comment was for you, not Christie. Sorry.
Comment by Nadine L. — June 5, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
I do not know what Lovey does for an ethical living. Maybe next time she changes names and posts, we can ask her.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — June 5, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Due to the problems I had, and the test results, I’ve watched carefully since then and will not purchase this product again.
The company had also changed formulas without changing the bag labels.
FYI:
The Timberwolf I had purchased was cat food. I had it tested because of my cats sudden rejection, runs & barf. The unopened bag in the below test was:
best before 20/apr/09 10:54 1220
It failed the Georgia Dept of Agriculture tests on the label % as did the contents from the opened bag.
Some variances like those below, upon information & belief, as well as the formula changes do cause some of the problems currently being reported with Timberwolf dog foods.
CAT FOODS:
Timberwolf Sergengeti (dry) opened & unopened.
The unopened bag is best before 20/apr/09 10:54 1220
No Melamine No Cyanuric Acid
Here’s the failure Timberwolf:
Label
Guaranteed: Opened Bag: Unopened Bag:
Protein 38%………………….29.87………..30.23
Fat 18%………….. …….19.70………..17.45
Fiber 2.5%…………………..4.0…………3.29
Comment by Ann H — June 6, 2008 @ 5:44 am
Also, I must add that the company ignored the many complaints I sent via their website. Only, when the report contained the test results did they finally respond.. and they wanted a copy of the test results. I figured the best place for them to get them was directly from the Agriculture dept.
Comment by Ann H — June 6, 2008 @ 5:51 am
Is there a link to the report where Timberwolf failed so we can see it?
Thanks!
Robert
Comment by Robert Davis — June 6, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
These 2 tests were done on Timberwolf cat food (an opened bag and an unopened bag), not the dog food.
No, I never scanned the documents for online posting, just posted the results.
Here’s the original post reporting test results in 2007 on several cat foods:
http://itchmoforums.com/pet-fo.....5#msg14175
Maybe some folks can have some tested by their state animal feed/agriculture to see what the dog foods test as. It didn’t cost anything. (Also, if you can’t find them (which office) call the Governor’s office or call the State University Agriculture Dept. to see if they can test for you)
Comment by Ann H — June 7, 2008 @ 8:35 am
I contacted Timberwolf before I ordered food, and it was two days before the recall was announced. They said nothing was wrong, so I ordered the food. Two days later the recall was issued (I ordered Ocean Blue). I called/emailed back, very mad that they said nothing was wrong. It’s a legality issue. They can’t put out information before they release their recall due to legal reasons. Timberwolf did their part, and I sent the OB bags back (at their cost). I still feed Timberwolf (wild and natural and the lamb and apples), because it’s a quality food. I think their customer service is great. They ship their food fast, and it’s a quality food (in fact, the only food my dog does well on.. we’ve tried Wellness, Innova, Evo.. she has loose stools on all of them).
Comment by Christine — June 11, 2008 @ 4:57 am
” They can’t put out information before they release their recall due to legal reasons.”
Comment by Christine — June 11, 2008 @ 4:57 am
So theoretically, if a pet becomes ill and/or dies as a result of eating food a company knows they are about to recall but doesn’t want to go against the advice of their attorney by revealing this info 2 days ahead, the consumer would feel good about that? Astonishing. On the part of the company and the consumer who feels good about it.
Comment by slt — June 11, 2008 @ 6:51 am
There are just too many quality control issues and lack of customer service for timberwolf. My dog did great on it but I kept hearing of people getting bad batches, bags that smelled rotten, off color, didn’t match the label when tested, etc… and the timberwolf customer service saying feed it anyway. One person reported they were even told to try feeding it and then let them know if the dog got sick. Of course they weren’t going to run such an experiment on their own dog and demanded the rotten smelling, off color bag of food be refunded. So after 6 months of seeing such issues on the forums I switched to flint river ranch.
Today I thought maybe I should go back to timberwolf. She did so well on it. I stop by the website to check prices and see if maybe they hammered out the issues they were having. Nope. I’m greeted by recall reports. No surprise here. I’m going to put my order in at flint river ranch again this month. They ship out just as fast for slightly cheaper than timberwolf and while the ingredients may not be quite as good in the opinion of some it’s still one of the best foods and I’ve not heard of any quality control issues. No point ordering higher quality food if your not guranteed to get a good quality product.
Comment by Sham — July 2, 2008 @ 12:37 pm