If you feed your pet blue buffalo- lawsuit

[jennynumbers]

Disclaimer - I have not done any further reasrch aside from this article. Just wanted to pass it along so you can educate yourself.

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Blue Buffalo Under Fire for Alleged False Advertising, Misleading Consumers
Written on 05/06/2014 by Brandy Arnold in Front Page News, Recalls
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bluebuffaloNestlé Purina PetCare Company (Purina) today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in federal court in St. Louis against The Blue Buffalo Company Ltd., for false advertising, disparagement and unjust enrichment – including violations of the Federal Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. §1125(a)).

Blue Buffalo’s promotion, advertising and packaging repeatedly and unequivocally state that its pet food products contain “NO Chicken/Poultry By-Product Meals.” In its complaint, Purina alleges that testing conducted by an independent laboratory revealed that several of Blue Buffalo’s top-selling “Life Protection” pet food products contained significant percentages of poultry by-product meal. Testing was done from samples of multiple formulas of Blue Buffalo pet food purchased at retail stores on both the East and West Coasts.

The complaint also alleges that testing shows Blue Buffalo “LifeSource Bits” contain poultry by-product meal and corn. In addition, several Blue Buffalo products promoted as “grain-free” actually contain rice hulls, despite Blue Buffalo stating on its website that its “grain-free” products will “free your pet from the grains and glutens that cause allergic reactions in some dogs.”

The complaint estimates that Blue Buffalo spent approximately $50 million in 2013 to promote its claims that Blue Buffalo ingredients are superior to competitors. As a result, Blue Buffalo charges premium prices for its products – significantly more than the pet food products they use for comparison purposes on the Blue Buffalo website.

The lawsuit follows a March 2014 decision of the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, which found that Blue Buffalo is engaging in misleading advertising practices with respect to its claims about competing products. The NAD decision recommended that Blue Buffalo correct its television ad campaigns by removing all of its allegations that Blue Buffalo’s competitors are misleading consumers.

A copy of the complaint and exhibits can be found at a website Purina has created to highlight its concerns: www.petfoodhonesty.com.

[OrangePixyStix]

I really wish we had an equivalent to the FDA for animal food products.
Totally not surprising, and exactly the reason we only do homemade food now.

If the horrible ingredients weren't enough, this type of misrepresentation and false advertising should indicate we certainly need more scrutiny when it comes to pet food corporations!

[jennynumbers]

I know OPS!I was feeding my cats blue until they had that gastro issue and needed antibiotics. Then I had to feed them Royal Canine GI formula. I then mixed the 2 to get rid of the blue and bought Wellness. It "claims" to be GMO free, no by-products, soy or corn. I hope they like it and have no issue.

[sitnspin]

I just switched my kitty to different food also since she was putting on weight.  Gosh, they don't make it easy!

[wineenthusiast]

SHITTTT! My mom feeds this to her dog by my recommendation.

[theatre4life]

yeah, that's what we feed ours, as well.

[glw]

How did they think they were going to get away with lying about the ingredients?!

[lexxasaurus]

Damnit, BB is what my dog eats. I'll have to look into switching or doing homemade. OPS, can you tell me about what you do for your dogs?

[OrangePixyStix]

May 8, 2014 9:17:07 GMT -5 lexxasaurus said:

Damnit, BB is what my dog eats. I'll have to look into switching or doing homemade. OPS, can you tell me about what you do for your dogs?

I follow guidance from a couple of books we read on the subject... Woofing It Down  & Barker's Grub were the two most helpful for me.

Basically, we use a mix of 50% protein, and then 30% veggies, 20% grain/starch.     We make big batches on the weekends and then freeze portions to use throughout the week so we aren't actually cooking for them daily.

A typical batch would be something like this for us (remember we have 2 dogs, each 50 lbs... could reduce the size if you have smaller dogs):    one of the 5lb tubes of ground beef, 1 bag of beans (lentil, navy, blackeye peas, just whatever is on sale), 1 bag of brown rice OR 1 small bag of small macaroni noodles, and a small bag (or half a large bag) of frozen veggies (peas, green beans, chopped broccoli, etc).   Add vitamins at the end of cooking - we use flaxseed and fish oil capsules  (about 10 of each vitamin per batch of food, or you can just wait and add the vitamin to the dog food bowl when feeding if they will eat it like that).    Corn is a common allergy in dogs, so usually we don't buy the mixed veggie bags that have corn in them, but some dogs can take it just fine.   If your dogs are chewing on their pads or itching a lot after switching diets, it could be corn that is causing the irritation.  We had that happen to our youngest and now avoid corn in their food.


You can boil a whole chicken and shred/debone it instead of using ground beef... you can also use potatoes in place of rice or pasta, and sometimes we add a little beef broth when it's done to add some flavor or keep the rice from getting dried up during the freezing.  

I have some documents to use as a guideline for "safe" foods and "unsafe" foods if you want something like that, I think it's saved on my home laptop but I can email it to you later on if you are interested... would just need your email address.

[lexxasaurus]

OPS - YGPM!