Anyone else feed Annamaet Salcha recently?

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

Our vet said Ollie's fecal revealed Imeria (spelling ?) which is caused by contaminated food. Coincidentally (or NOT!) her brother also got sick recently, fed the same. We purchased new bags at the same time from different distributors, but the lot numbers have the same first five letters. Also, same story: diarrhea returned upon slowly reintroducing this kibble for him. I'm posting here just to save anyone else from this awful trouble ASAP, but also have reported.
Thanks.

[33bn7f8evnuyd]

I did a lot of research on dogfoodadvisor.com.  Some of the dog food profiles are a bit dated but it does list any recalls a food ever had.  I was originally going to feed my puppy Taste of the Wild but saw they had food recalls for salmonella and one amazon reviewer found glass in their food. After talking to several dog food vendors, they said some food might have "quality" ingredients on the labels, where they source their food is very important. Sometimes companies have to go to several sources and generally the more numerous their sourcing is, the worse the quality control. The best dog food companies are Canadian based because they have stricter ingredient standards up north. I feed our adult dogs ACANA pacifica.  I've done it for several years and they were rescues and I saw a huge difference in their energy and coat quality.  I originally got my dog Orijen; however, the high protein was causing him diarrhea so now I feed him Fromm, which is a family owned company in Wisconsin.  This food is really great for dogs with sensitive digestive tracts, simply because it has probiotics built into the food. 

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

Have you checked right here at The Food Group, Lucky? There is wonderfully helpful and updated information about recommended foods, treats, and recalls right here on DK ;)

[33bn7f8evnuyd]

Yep I've looked the Fromm is working well so we are sticking to it

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Almost all of the foods on our recommended list contain probiotics. However, most of them are worthless, for two reasons. 1. There aren't enough probiotics in any dog food to have an effect. The minimum number of live cultures required for a probiotic to be effective are 5 billion. 2. It's doubtful that there even are any live cultures in dry matter that sits unrefrigerated on shelves for months. 

Fromm is a very good brand. But I wouldn;t count on it, or any brand of dog food, to provide probiotic benefits, lol.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Eimeria is a form of coccidia, and it is indeed passed through contact with infected fecal matter or through contaminated food. What bothers me the most about this is the thought of what the food might have been contaminated by. 

I'll be waiting to hear the company's response. We may be removing them from our recommended brands. This is a BIG deal. They need to recall the food. 

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

I LOVE that you knew how to spell this - thank you. Eimeria. OK.
So, please let me (us, my friend is parent of her brother) know if there is anything more we can do.
Chewy already responded that they would take it up with their warehouse research, and thanked me for providing lot numbers, etc. and rightly credited me. No response from Annamaet yet. I also filed a FDA report. (See how productive I am when not worrying?!) ;)
I read on mayo clinic that most food contaminations happen during the handling/prep phase (rather than delivery) and considering my friend bought hers from Amazon, not Chewy, it does concern me even more. It likely wasn't just a 'hot delivery day' excuse...
BTW, vet said we didn't need to treat for it. Is that right?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Typically, coccidia is treated with Drontal, which is just a broad spectrum dewormer that most breeders use on all of their puppies. Maybe the Panacur covers it. 

Annamaet needs to do something. Good on you for filing the report with the FDA. Please let us know if/when you hear back from Annamaet.

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

FYI, More about Eimeria:
I thought I'd share since zilch shows up about Eimeria in the DK search engine, and this is probably why: according to my vet, it's NOT a dog parasite. The vet explained that it is an incidental finding in the fecal. In other words, it indicates food contamination (yes) or that the dog has gotten into poop or a carcass (not in my case) but is NOT what directly caused the diarrhea nor does it need to be treated. It just passes on through for a dog. He also said dietary indiscretions are the number one reason for diarrhea (so in my case, the contaminated food directly resulted in the diarrhea rather than the Eimeria). So, no meds, I don't need to clean, nor worry about contagion - that is great!
No word yet from Annamaet.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Very disappointed in Annamaet. :( 

But great news about the non-treatment for the parasite, lol. 

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

Here is their reply:

Thank you taking the time to contact us.

We are sorry to hear about your puppy’s recent issues.

I can assure that no batches of any Annamaet products are released from our facility until they have been thoroughly tested. We test our raw ingredients when they are received and than test the finished product. We additionally have all products tested by a third party independent laboratory and as stated no products are shipped until all testing is completed and results have been received.

The testing is extremely comprehensive looking for everything from anthrax to salmonella.

I have forwarded your message to our on-staff veterinarian, who is also a board certified veterinary nutritionist. If you would like to provide test results, I would be happy to forward them to our veterinarian for further review.

The batch in question was produced on April 1st 2016 and has been fed by consumers for the last 5 months. We have not had any other calls about Salcha concerns. When there is a problem with pet foods it is almost always a batch problem, not a problem with an isolated bag. Batches are 4000 lbs, mixed and made all together and then separated into individual bags. So it is very unlikely just one bag in a batch would go bad, you would have many bags go bad and we would be hearing from many people.

We would be happy to replace the bag in question.

I am in the process of logging a report and would be grateful if you could provide some additional information.

Size of bag?

Date of purchase?

With your permission, I would like to follow up with you with a phone call. Is there time that is good for you?

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It's possible that Olive and her brother both came home with the eimeria, since it's common in puppies and doesn't usually have any symptoms, but then we're back to what caused the diarrhea if it wasn't the food? 

It doesn't sound like Annamaet is going to do anything other than give you a coupon for a free bag of dog food, and I don't think there's much we can do about it. 

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

I suppose. But they'd never picked up the Eimeria before and this was her 3rd fecal. In any case, I feel I've done my part. I just truly hope it isn't a batch problem. There could be lots of puppies/dogs eating this and having diarrhea. How many would actually know to attribute it to the food? It didn't really occur to me...