Wellness & Fish Bones
I just found a youtube video about Wellness Fish & Sweet Potatoe Formula and finding bone fragments in the bag. When I saw this, I immediately went on the search for more information. Most of what I found was on other dog forums. A lot of owners who give this food to their pets said that they did in fact, see some bone fragments.
I feed my dogs Wellness CORE Ocean - so after seeing this video, I went to the kitchen and checked the food. I didn't see anything suspicious.
So, if this is true - I think it only has to do with the Fish & Sweet Potatoe Formula and not their other fish based diets.
I don't know if this is true - but I found this response:
"Youtube Video about Wellness dry food
Admin | January 9, 2009 2:36 pm
Over the past week or so I have received quite a number of emails with links to a Youtube video in which a person claims to have found dangerous fish bones in a bag of Wellness Fish & Sweet Potatoes formula.
Of course I contacted the company and asked what was going on, remembering that Orijen had a similar issue not too long ago (which was promptly addressed by the manufacturer in a lengthy letter).
Here is the response I received from Mr. Kean, the vice president of Research and Development:
We wanted to address your question about a YouTube video being circulated in which a consumer alleges that their bag of Wellness Fish and Sweet Potato Dry Dog food contains harmful fish bones. This consumer approached us and told us that the video was “available for purchase”. When we refused, he posted the video on YouTube.
All of our testing (and retained samples) clearly shows that there is no safety issue with this product. We put a tremendous focus on our product quality working closely with our co-manufacturers to continuously track product quality from ingredient selection to final production. The Wellness quality assurance program maintains the most rigorous standards of food safety, exceeding industry guidelines and following the same strict standards that are applied to human food. With over 80 years of dedication to pet nutrition and health, we stand proudly by the quality of our products and their safety.
For those of my readers who don't know, a "retained sample" is a certain amount of product held back from each production batch, for the purpose of being able to do additional testing, should there be any issues in the future. Every reputable pet food company takes and stores such samples as a safety measure.
Personally I have not heard about a single incident with this product from anyone I know (friends or clients) and no reports of any bone fragments in this food have been emailed to me through the Dog Food Project site. Usually when there's a widespread problem, I hear from a lot of people about it.
When Orijen was informed of a batch of their food containing bone fragments, Champion Petfoods was able to identify the batch number of the affected lot fairly quickly, informed consumers accordingly and discussed the issue with their supplier. This kind of approach is in every company's best interest, after the whole pet food recall disaster in 2007.
I am sure that Old Mother Hubbard would have done the same thing if there actually was something wrong with their product. As it is, some of their products are made by Menu Foods and not a single one was affected by the 2007 recalls - thanks to strict quality control.
I will update on this issue should I hear anything new."
I think if the bone fragments were that common in the food and that big of pieces, people would noticed when they poured the food into the bowl. I mean, in that video - he takes 1 scoop and finds all those pieces of bone...it doesn't really seem real...otherwise i'm sure Old Mother Hubbard would have definitely taken action already, right?
I feed my dogs Wellness CORE Ocean - so after seeing this video, I went to the kitchen and checked the food. I didn't see anything suspicious.
So, if this is true - I think it only has to do with the Fish & Sweet Potatoe Formula and not their other fish based diets.
I don't know if this is true - but I found this response:
"Youtube Video about Wellness dry food
Admin | January 9, 2009 2:36 pm
Over the past week or so I have received quite a number of emails with links to a Youtube video in which a person claims to have found dangerous fish bones in a bag of Wellness Fish & Sweet Potatoes formula.
Of course I contacted the company and asked what was going on, remembering that Orijen had a similar issue not too long ago (which was promptly addressed by the manufacturer in a lengthy letter).
Here is the response I received from Mr. Kean, the vice president of Research and Development:
We wanted to address your question about a YouTube video being circulated in which a consumer alleges that their bag of Wellness Fish and Sweet Potato Dry Dog food contains harmful fish bones. This consumer approached us and told us that the video was “available for purchase”. When we refused, he posted the video on YouTube.
All of our testing (and retained samples) clearly shows that there is no safety issue with this product. We put a tremendous focus on our product quality working closely with our co-manufacturers to continuously track product quality from ingredient selection to final production. The Wellness quality assurance program maintains the most rigorous standards of food safety, exceeding industry guidelines and following the same strict standards that are applied to human food. With over 80 years of dedication to pet nutrition and health, we stand proudly by the quality of our products and their safety.
For those of my readers who don't know, a "retained sample" is a certain amount of product held back from each production batch, for the purpose of being able to do additional testing, should there be any issues in the future. Every reputable pet food company takes and stores such samples as a safety measure.
Personally I have not heard about a single incident with this product from anyone I know (friends or clients) and no reports of any bone fragments in this food have been emailed to me through the Dog Food Project site. Usually when there's a widespread problem, I hear from a lot of people about it.
When Orijen was informed of a batch of their food containing bone fragments, Champion Petfoods was able to identify the batch number of the affected lot fairly quickly, informed consumers accordingly and discussed the issue with their supplier. This kind of approach is in every company's best interest, after the whole pet food recall disaster in 2007.
I am sure that Old Mother Hubbard would have done the same thing if there actually was something wrong with their product. As it is, some of their products are made by Menu Foods and not a single one was affected by the 2007 recalls - thanks to strict quality control.
I will update on this issue should I hear anything new."
I think if the bone fragments were that common in the food and that big of pieces, people would noticed when they poured the food into the bowl. I mean, in that video - he takes 1 scoop and finds all those pieces of bone...it doesn't really seem real...otherwise i'm sure Old Mother Hubbard would have definitely taken action already, right?
Comments
We've been feeding Core Ocean for a while now and have never ever had an issue. I trust the WellPet company in its entirety.
Furthermore, we feed fresh fish and some canned (in h20) fish - bone in - and even the cooked sardine bones crumble under any sort of trauma.
This dude is bogus.