Prayers for Hercules - WARNING: Possible Authority Dog Food Contamination

(Please scroll down to LATEST UPDATE for the warning, which applies only to Authority Senior dog food, at this time.)

Hercules has been eating four meals a day, but only gets fed twice. Yes, he’s been vomiting his breakfast and dinner (along with his cancer and pain meds), then re-eating it. He had been periodically gagging for about a week, without production. The gagging increased and the vomiting started about 4 days ago. He upchucks his breakfast just before dinner, and his dinner comes back up about 5 hours later, so the food is obviously not properly digesting.

I started grinding his food again this morning, hoping it would aid in digestion, but he just upchucked it and I managed to remove it before he could re-eat it this time. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks slowly transitioning him from Pedigree Healthy Joint to Authority Senior (first ingredient is chicken, not corn). He’s now getting 95% Authority each feeding. I’m wondering if the food is the problem, or if his mouth cancer has spread to other internal organs. Since he’d been eating the Pedigree for the last 5 years, I’m going to buy another bag today and see if it helps. I phoned my vet and am waiting for a callback.

Please say a prayer for my big boy. It’s killing me inside knowing that I’ll have to let him go . . . much sooner than I had ever imagined. :O(

UPDATE:

I’m back from the vet with 132 lbs. of dog, 50 of which is high-voltage energy packaged in a little body – yah, Zeus, whew! The vet gave Hercules an injection of Cerenia to control the vomiting, and agreed that I switch back to Pedigree. “Cold turkey,” he said – no mixing and definitely no more Authority. He wants to take the conservative approach for the next 24 hours to first rule out the food as the issue. So, I am to give Hercules 2 TLB of Hills i/d every 3 hours until 1 AM. Tomorrow, he gets ¼ c. of Pedigree 4x, 20mg Pepcid and 100mg Tramadol 2x, and 30mg Piroxicam. If the vomiting continues by the afternoon, we’ll go back for a series of tests to determine whether the cancer has spread or something else is going on.

Needless to say, I skipped school tonight to comfort my beloved Portie and nurse him back to . . . well, “better” health. He’s on the floor next to me, hugging his moo cow stuffie – so cute, but he’s so lifeless that I keep looking down to see his stomach moving for signs of breathing. Here’s hoping he feels much better by tomorrow. Thank you all so much for your prayers, kind thoughts, and support!

LATEST UPDATE: Thank you all so much for your prayers! They worked! Hercules is doing much better and keeping his food and meds down. I’ve been feeding him limited amounts of Pedigree and the canned Hills every 4 hours. Tomorrow we’ll see how he does on his regular 2-meal/day routine on just the Pedigree.

I phoned the 1-800 number on the Authority Senior dog food bag to report possible contamination and was told that testing would be conducted. I then called the Petsmart store manager and suggested all bags from that batch be removed from the shelves pending the test results. I later drove over there with the unused portion of my bag and the receipt from my vet visit. The manager was very friendly and apologetic. He authorized a refund for the dog food, assured me the bags from that batch were pulled, said he’d submit my vet bill for reimbursement, and would call to let me know the status on that and the test results.

This was quite a scare! I changed the title to this thread to warn everyone of possible contamination, though I don’t know of anyone here who uses Authority Senior dog food. Again, I don’t know if it IS contaminated, since we’re awaiting the results.

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Permalink Reply by Ricki and Tara (doodle) on August 29, 2011 at 3:48pm

Keeping you and Hercules in our prayers! So sorry...

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Permalink Reply by Denise & Hunter!!! on August 29, 2011 at 4:25pm

You and Hercules are in my prayers Barbie. {{{HUGS}}}}

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Permalink Reply by Anna and Achilles on August 29, 2011 at 4:58pm

Hugs and prayers all around.

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Permalink Reply by Barbie on August 29, 2011 at 5:21pm

I updated my initial post above with the results of our vet visit. Hercules went outside with Zeus and me a few minutes ago - figured it'd do him some good to get a bit of fresh air. He held his stuffie the entire time, and does appear to feel slightly better.