DoggyBling.com Reports Potential Problems with Toxic Mold in Beneful Dog Food
Did you recently buy Beneful Dog Food and have noticed your dog looks sick? DoggyBling.com is following the current investigation into whether or not some of Purina’s Beneful Dog Food has been tained with toxic mold. Follow this link to the DoggBling.com News page for more information.
Here is where I put in a plug for buying pet food in pet food stores. Any time dog or cat food is kept stored for a long time (as often happens in warehouse stores) there is a much greater possibility that the food can become wet or that anything in the food can cause other problems. I love my warehouse store (Costco) and probably spend way too much there but the one thing I won’t buy there is dog food. Dog treats, dog beds, dog toys — yes. All those things either turn over much quicker or are not subject to potentially lethal molds. Dog food — not on a bet! Other people may have never had problems with it but I’d rather spend a little more and rest assured that my furbabies’ food is a little safer.
Thanks to the K9 Amber Alert List for publicizing this issue. Here is part of the article that ran on their recent email newsletter.
Beneful Dog Food is Suspected of Causing Sickness and Deaths
www.DoggyBling. comHEALTH ALERT! …..
Discontinue use of Beneful until this is resolved!
Multiple Reports We have received multiple reports of dogs becoming sick or dying after eating Beneful dog food. The first reports were placed in our new forum and was overlooked by DoggyBling.com staff until we received direct emails last week and then another today. After speaking on the phone with the lady who emailed us today, we feel that there is sufficient cause for alarm. Dog lovers make a lot of effort to take good care of their dogs and will want to know if they are feeding them something that could be harmful. Most of the alerts by email, forum and phone cited Beneful dog food that was purchased at Wal Mart around Christmas of 2006.
We spoke with Terri Culp at Beneful this morning and were assured that they are aware of the situation and are researching the problem. We assured them that this won’t go away and we would be alerting our email base of the problem and posting a news item on our site. We also told her that DoggyBling.com visitors and dog lovers everywhere would be evaluating the way the Purina Corporation (Parent to Beneful) handles the potential crisis.
Symptoms
The symptoms reported have been very similar. The reported symptoms include some or all of the following: General weakness or sluggishness, glazed eyes, not interested in food or water, white gums, lack of control of bodily functions. Some of the callers reported dogs that have died and others say they had gotten sick but had recovered. I am inserting the first forum post about a dog that became sick, but didn’t die.A week before Christmas we bought a bag of Beneful dog food at Wal-Mart, DeFuniak Springs, FL. On 12/23 I noticed a tan mold like growth on the dog food. Our 14 year old Dalmatian mix had been getting weaker by the day and by 12/24 she was near death. Glazed eyes, couldn’t stand, eat, drink or control her functions. Her gums were white. We had to carry her to the yard and hold her up so she could go. The only thing she would eat was ham and turkey scraps. I spoke with a microbiologist and she said the mold growing in the dog food was toxic. It took a week for Sparky to regain her strength. I did notify the manufacturer of Beneful, they were very sorry and are sending coupons. Said it was a rare happening.
I will echo Joy’s caution about buying pet food from warehouse stores. As a former premium pet food rep, I spent many hours in many warehouse stores. During slow periods, to fill the time, I’d go through the shelves looking for expired products to pull. Petsmarts and Petcos were by far the worst. In one Petsmart alone, I pulled 26 bags of expired Science Diet dog and cat food within just a short 30 minutes time. Had I had the time to go through the other manufactures’ shelves, I’d probably have found a hundred more. And it was not unusual to find bags of kibble and cans which were expired by as much as a YEAR or more. This is especially a problem for the larger size bags of kibble (the 20 – 40 lb bags), as the store employees often don’t bother to rotate the heavier bags. Consequently, these bags will sit on the bottom of the shelves, expiring for months, until stock runs low and some hapless shopper comes along and buys it, not bothering to check the expiration date. I can’t caution shoppers enough to ALWAYS check the expiration dates before purchasing any form of pet food or treats. When pet food is well beyond it’s expiration date, the fat preservatives stop preserving and the fat oxidizes and goes rancid. This can cause serious stomach and gastric upset to dogs and cats who eat it.
On a similar gripe about warehouse stores, beware of rats. Yes, I said RATS. One Petsmart I worked at was infested with big grey rats. Shoppers who would come and go for their quick shopping trips typically had no clue to the fact that rats were everywhere within the store — crawling overhead on the ceiling pipes, hiding under the shelves, etc. I’d have to go through all my shelves checking for bags of dog and cat food that the rats had eaten through or defecated on. I would never buy my pets’ food at a store infested with rats; rats are the carriers of numerous diseases (e.g., the bubonic plague was carried by rats). And because warehouse stores store so much food, they are a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet for hungry rats. Please check for signs of rat infestation when shopping at a warehouse store – rat droppings on the floor, nibble holes in bags of food, horrible stench caused by rat urine.
One last caution to shoppers who buy at stores that allow pets inside: Don’t buy bags, cans or treats from the bottom shelves! If you knew how many dogs lift their legs and take a leak on the bottom shelves–spraying the bags and cans and toys, etc. with urine–you would be disgusted. Buy only from the shelves which are high enough to be out of the spray’s reach, please!
And now my personal comment about Beneful. Even without the toxic mold, this is not a food I would recommend. It’s #1 ingredient is CORN. The #2 ingredient is chicken BY-PRODUCT meal, and it’s #3 ingredient is–guess what?–MORE CORN (in the form of gluten meal). Even worse, Beneful contains a number of chemical food dyes (Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 2, for added color). Does your pet really care about what COLOR his or her food is? No! So why risk exposing your pet to unnatural and potentially dangerous chemicals for the sake of “added color”?
Okay, I’m getting down off my soapbox now. End of rant and peace out.
Lucy
Thank you so much for barking in! You gave us all a LOT to think about and be aware of when shopping! I thought I was a pretty smart shopper but you have definitely taught me a few things today!
Thank you!
I wish that I knew about this a few weeks ago. We just dealt with this luckily noticing that the mold were actually micro sized bugs that look like saw dust. We just had to completely throw out everything in our entire pantry. Our dod went to the vet last week as she has been eating this food for the las 45 days and was sick. The vet did not realize what the problem was but luckily put her on antibiotics. These micro sized bugs took over our pantry and part of our kitchen as they were on everything. Beneful owes us and many of you. I beleive that we (my kids, wife and I) we consuming the same thing as it appears to have gotten into all food in the pantry – gross.
I also bought a bad of Beneful with that powdery stuff in it at Wal-Mart in St. Charles late November of 2006. Only fed one cup of it to my dog before I noticed it. Called Purina and they said they had not heard of it , but distroy it and they would send out coupons. Got the coupons and I am not going to finish giving the rest of the bag to my dog. Not taking any chances. She did throw up some and eat alot of grass for a few days back in December, but is fine now. Giving her a better brand of food helped.
Thanks for keeping up on this problem.
Sandra
We purchased a bag of Beneful from our local Target store and after about a week we noticed what looked like sawdust near the dog food. Upon closer inspection I realized it was micro sized bugs. Our entire kitchen pantry is covered with them. I don’t think this is from the stores. Too many different stores are involved in the selling of the product. It has to be from the manufacturing plant. This will cost me hundreds of dollars. I have also noticed that one of my dogs has lost control of some bodily functions. Something needs to be done about this. These posts date back for months.
Brian
You didn’t mention it or not, but have you had your dogs checked at the vets? I am so sorry to hear about your experience and how your dogs have been affected.
I agree that something must be done to better control our pet foods. But at this point we’re having trouble just keeping poisoned products out of the stores. Your best bet is to never, ever buy pet food in a warehouse or big box store.
Here’s hoping the best for your furbabies.
Joy,
This is obsurd, we purchased our Beneful dog food from Publix and have had the exact same problem that everyone else has had. This tiny little white bugs have taken over our kitchen and we have thrown out over $100 worth of food and both of our dogs have gotten sick. This is obviously a problem in Purina’s factory and I plan to notify our local media, because there are many documented cases of this online.
I was just about to feed my dog Beneful (which I have been purchasing for the longest time) and found these micro-size bugs in our container. It’s filled with them! Unfortunately, this is the second time this has happened to us! I thought the first time was due to bugs that had gotten in the container we use to store the dog food. But now that it’s happened again, I know it’s the food itself. I can’t believe I’ve been feeding my dog this stuff! No more Beneful fo us!
We also had problems with the micro-sized bugs in two different bags of Beneful that we bought. Luckily we keep it stored in the laundry room so they didn’t invade any of our food, but we’ve had to wipe down everything!! What a pain, and I’ve got an infant at home that I hope didn’t come in contact with this nastiness! I will never buy Beneful again!
Does anyone know what these tiny white bugs are? I also found them in some Beneful dog food. Are they harmful to our dog’s health?
I just discovered a large brown bank next to my dog food container, covered in what I thought was a dust, until I wiped it and the dust started moving. Absolutely disgusting, we opened up the can we keep the dog food in, crawling everywhere. It is Beneful dog food that our dog has been eating for at least a year – his bowl was also covered. How far have these things gone in our home? Our clothing, food, toys, anything and everything? I don’t know what to do! I’m so absolutely disgusted! Where do I start?? Please help me get rid of these and keep them out of my house, and my poor dog, what do I feed him and feel good about him eating??
Bobbi, I encourage you to post your questions in the Dogster Food & Nutrition Forum and at Dogster Answers. You will get helpful advice from our very knowledgeable members. Best of luck!
Bobbi,
Once you have the bugs cleaned out of the house then please make a point of finding a good small, locally-owned pet store. There are many excellent dog foods you can buy from non big box stores like Pet-Smart, costco, Wal-Mart and others. Read the post and the comments above for the problems with shopping for pet food at those stores.
I have found these tiny white bugs in a bag of beneful that I had bought at costcos in Ct. I just want to know what they are and how to get rid of them. I have removed the bag of food from the house and have cleaned about a houndred times and they still keep coming back. I hope that these tiny bugs don’t hurt my dog or cat! please if any one knows what these are and how to get rid of them let me and the many others that have this problem know.
We just found our house is covered with these little demons, How long has it been going on is what we are asking ourselves right now. My husband started to bring out kitchen stools out to our deck and realized that these little buggers don’t like natural sunlight. We are about to bomb our house in hopes that it kills them off. But we too now have to throw away hundreds of dollars worth of food. If anyone else has bombed and found it doesn’t work please tell us. BYE BYE Beniful! Looks like the BARF diet is what I need to move to that would probably be the safest.
Yes. had this problem. At first thought a bug got into in from our house or maybe in between transit from purchasing to our home since we live near wooded area. Not the case, millions of these little bugs, gave me the heeby jeebees!!! Totally had to clean everything out and disinfect. Crazy thing is that you do not notice the bugs right away because they just look like they could be part of the fat in the food, and you do not really see that they are moving until you really stop and study them. I am appalled and will NEVER buy that brand again, now that I know how many cases there were with the same problem. I purchased at Walmart in Charlotte County, FL.
I had the problem as well. I live in Alaska and we have no mites of any sort here. I had to throw out all my food (they even got into the fridge) and shampoo my carpet along with clean every surface and dish. The entire thing has cost me $700.
I am researching this and finding they have been knowly selling rotton dog food for over a year and done nothing but throw coupons at people.
I am seeking legal advice Monday. That they are so small and so many people might not even be aware they are feeding their animal infested moldy food makes me so upset.
The thing is, the grain mites don’t eat the grain, but the mold created in the grain. Therefore, the food is being made with moldy grain. the warehouse much be infested with these things.
I contacted the store we bought it from and let them know to check their food because it could infest all the food around Beneful. I also contacted a vet and have been printing off all the complaints and information about the mites and Beneful. I wrote a letter to Purina, but they are not open today.
I at least want them to pay for the food I had to throw out and the carpet shampooer and my vet bill and to stop selling moldy toxic food and brushing it under the table with coupons.
Ronda in Fairbanks, AK
My wife and I are now going through this problem. We just discovered hundreds/thousands of them in the garage where our dog food is kept. Little white bugs like everyone is mentioning. We only got suspicious because they were coming out of the air conditioning vents because the bag was next to the AC unit!!! I wanna throw up from all of this. Will have a bug man to do his thing first thing tomorrow.
Our dog just got sick from mites yesterday, July 27th. I filled her bowl up with food after noticing what I thought was dog food dust all over the Rubbermade plastic food container. I thought nothing of it and my wife and I left the house for a few hours. When we got back, Stella had defecated in her crate. I noticed she had eaten about half her bowl of food and remembered the dust I had seen earlier. I checked it out thinking it might be a mold that might have made her sick, but saw to my horror that it wasn’t mold but thousands of tiny white bugs. They had been crawling all over her food, inside and outside the container it’s kept in.
Stella was vomiting and had diarrhea for about two hours. We took her to the emergency vet since it was Sunday and nothing else was open. They gave her an IV of fluid and something to soothe her stomach. We threw the food container outside but the white bugs are all over the basement now (where we kept her food). We’ve been wiping down all the surfaces with hot soapy water but they keep coming back. Anyone have any good suggestions for killing them? We don’t want them to make their way to our kitchen.
We normally shop at Kroger for everything, including dog food, but we were at Wal Mart at the end of June and got a bag of Beneful for Stella there. It was the bag from Wal Mart that had the mites, and we’ve probably been feeding them to her for the past month. Either they weren’t all hatched until the 27th, or just not sufficient in number yet to make her sick throughout the month, but she didn’t show any symptoms of sickness until yesterday. That was the first time I noticed the bug dust all over the container too. We won’t be feeding her Beneful anymore. That was the most expensive bag of dog food I’ve ever bought.
Yes. had this problem. At first thought a bug got into in from our house or maybe in between transit from purchasing to our home since we live near wooded area. Not the case, millions of these little bugs, gave me the heeby jeebees!!! Totally had to clean everything out and disinfect. Crazy thing is that you do not notice the bugs right away because they just look like they could be part of the fat in the food, and you do not really see that they are moving until you really stop and study them. I am appalled and will NEVER buy that brand again, now that I know how many cases there were with the same problem. I purchased at Walmart in Charlotte County, FL
Okay, NOW I’M MAD AS HECK! BLOOD-THURSTY ANGRY! My beautiful 7 yo, Lola, boxer DIED about a month ago, and I thought it was her heart (long story, but she’s a dog I rescued 3 yrs. ago), and then my 2 cats got sick. First the 15yo, then the 6 yo. I took them to the vet, and everything came back normal, but the vet put them on antibiotics anyway, and they got better. That’s when I realized this is what was wrong with my Lola. Something got to all of them. Then I realized it must be the very large bag of Punina One – though I kept the cat food away from Lola, she was constantly getting in their litter!
I could just beat the . . . When I got Lola she was half dead she was so sick and neglected. I nursed her back to health, just to have some pet food KILL HER!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Oh my.. That’s got to be one of the saddest stories I’ve read in a long time…
I’ve lost several pets in my life, and it’s always a seriously difficult thing to deal with. But when it’s from natural causes, that’s one thing. What you are describing is really horrible because it could have been avoided.
I feel for you. I really do.
About a month ago we discovered the tiny white bugs at my parents house. They recently moved and had other pest problems in their new house. So we moved the dog food and assumed the bugs came from their carpet. We put the little critters out of our mind until tonight. For the whole month since we first found them, our dog food was very “dusty.” Tonight my husband realized that the “dust” was the same bugs. There were millions of them in our big dog food trash can. I haven’t even checked the rest of the house because I got on the internet to research these bugs. I ran across this page and now I am APPALLED!!!!! I hadn’t realized my little bug problem was such a big issue so many of you are also dealing with. Yikes!!
Ok…after reading these I ran straight to the kitchen to check around my mini schnauzer Murdok’s food and bowl because I feed him beneful and have for almost a year now. To my relief, no little white bugs any where. And they would be very easy to spot on his food bowl, its dark blue. Checked the container of food where I keep it stored. Also bug free, and I always buy the huge bags so I checked what was in it as well, ran my hand along the side and all just to be extra sure…nothing. I am so disturbed by all this though. I am so sorry this would happen to anyone and Purina should pay for everything you all have had to endure. I switch between healthy radiance and the original. And for some reason Murdok loves this food. I had him on Iams. But I guess he got burnt out on it so we switched. I hope they get this problem resolved, Murdok is very picky with his food.
OMG! This is so disgusting. I just discovered what appeared to be saw dust all inside and around my dog’s food container. Upon closer examination I noticed the pile was alive and moving, ewww. I can’t believe I touched it to take a look and these critters were moving around on my finger. I was completely mortified I headed to my computer to research what kind of bugs they were. I thought they were a form of weevil. To my surprise I see other pet owners are having the same problem. I too feed my dog Beneful. As I read all the other comments I began to get more and more upset and disgusted. I am so furious because sometimes I let my 4 year old son feed my dog and I put my baby and my pet in danger like this. What in the world are these little things and how do you get rid of them. I’m sorry but I’m contacting my local news company. NOW!
Tampa FL
Yup same problem here, but with Purina brand catfood. Just look like dust, but seemed to spread. No damage to the underlying wood etc. Only when I came across this site did I think to look into the catfood bags. Covered in this “dust”. As was there “snack bowl.” We would use the Purina catfood and mix it in their snacks, in the hope to keep their intake of “cookies” down.
Our dog is a little over 1 year old now. We have been feeding her Purina Beneful Healthy Growth for Puppies assuming we were getting something high quality and healthy.
This week, our normally very energetic and happy dog has moped around a lot more, and we wondered if she was sick. I too have gotten symptoms and a cough (related?).
We have scrubbed her water dish several times because it got white floating particles in it over and over. Last night I noticed those particles were covering the water bowl and crawling. I then noticed the entire outside of her food storage container was covered in them.
Long story short, we removed a ton of stuff from the pantry and tossed it. We bleached everything in the kitchen. I have not been able to get the white bugs off the food dishes and food container. All of the dogs things are now outside for now. We stayed up for hours cleaning the kitchen and bedroom in fear and disgust.
Everything on the floor and bottom two shelves of the pantry had a very light, fluffy, brown “dust” on them. We have never noticed it this bad before and have always assumed it was normal crushed dog food particles that floated out of the bag when we open the storage container.
We are taking our dog to the vet soon to see if she has indeed gotten sick from this. I’m writing Purina in hope that they will know what is going on, offer assistance, and take blame.
We now have the “creeps” about everything in our house and our own food not knowing if these tiny white bugs are on them.
I too just came across the sawdust looking bugs!! How long does this have to go on before this is brought to the public? It has obviously been going on for years. Does anyone know how to get rid of the bugs (or what they are for that matter)…since they don’t seem to die with household bug spray or bleach spray? Now I just need to call my vets and see what if any damage has been done to my kids!
They say the bugs themselves are harmless to ingest or have on you because they are non-parasitic. It’s more or less just a “gross” factor and a housekeeping issue. We are creeped out about every little bit of dust we see on anything now… even a week later still.
What we did was remove the source – get the bag/container of food out of the house, along with anything touching it. Also remove the dog dishes, stands, and placemat. Don’t put them in the garage – get them out to be safe. We are trashing ours probably even though they are not old.
We then used Clorox cleanup to scrub any shelves and the floor around the food storage container and the floor and refrigerator around where her bowls were. Basically just a few hours of mad cleaning anywhere near it.
Actually cleaning the stuff that had the mites on it will do no good unless you go through a ton of bleach, paper towels, and elbow grease to get 100% of them. Near impossible. Leaving the stuff outside seems to get them to go away or die after a few days if you clean them up and get all grain dust out of them. Probably not worth all the effort though.
So far, we have not seen any in our house or in the pantry on any of our food. I guess we didn’t let the problem occur long enough to get out into the rest of the house.
Okay, I am officially disgusted and pissed. We discovered these tiny mircro white bugs on the outside of our refrigerator last night. My husband though it was lint from a dust cloth (fridge is stainless). Later on he noticed that there were more of them and they were moving. I cleaned the outside with disinfectant wipes only to have them back 5 minutes later. We must have done this 6 times last night.
Move forward to this evening. I reached to get my 1.5 year old Shih Tzu some more food (Beneful!!) and noticed these critters were all over my black and stainless blender, which is also in our pantry, which is located by the fridge. Upon further inspection they are EVERYWHERE! When I was researching online it looks as if they are grain mites. We pitched everything that was in that pantry. $$$ in the garbage. My husband sprayed all over the inside of the pantry where it looked like tan dust. I am disgusted that this has been going on and there isn’t some sort of notice to consumers or a recall. I have noticed the dust around his bowl before but thought it was crushed bits of food. My poor dog has been itching himself like crazy for the past month or so, so much that he had a itched himself down to the skin. Itching is a side effect of ingesting these critters.
I guess lucky for us, if you want to call everyone who goes through this hell lucky, is that our little guy doesn’t eat much of his food anyway. He tends to live off of treats and little bits of our food and hits his bowl as a last resort.
I’m so disgusted. I want to call Purina, but it sounds like it won’t get me anywhere!
I purchased this bag at Target in Decatur, IL.
Correction to my post: this was purchased at Petsmart, not Target.
Just bought a brand new bag of Beneful at Petsmart in Wheatridge, Colorado, and a few hours later discovered the container we store it in is covered with tiny white mites. I do not think we had them before but I am concerned because we have fed this dog food to our dogs for years and recently my precious Boston Terrier Lady has come down very ill. Our vet thought it was hearty issues but now I am wondering if it could be mold in the food. My heart goes out to all of you and your doggie babies. This is horrible.
During my beagle Molly’s year checkup, which was just about 2 weeks ago, my vet tells me something showed up in her stool sample that she had never seen before. The sample was sent to a lab and returned with a diagnosis of “grain mites”. When I inquired as to how Molly could have gotten these critters, my vet wasn’t sure were or how this could have happened. Upon researching this problem I stumbled upon this site. I have been feeding Molly Beneful Healty Weight for many years and it was only recently I noticed a heavy concentraion of dust in the dogfood bag. Didn’t think anything of it until now. Last night I noticed brownish clumps on my walls and floors where I store the food. This is so disgusting. Molly has not been acting the same lately and I have another appt tonite to have her checked out. I intend to have a sample of her food tested and if it is “grain mites” this will not be the end of this. For most people, their pets are like their children. You wouldn’t allow this to happen to your kids. Petfood should be more strictly regulated as to quality. First the “wheat glueten” thing in wet foods, now this.
I got the standard “we’ll send you coupons” response from Purina. I am impressed at how quickly they responded to my web contact to them, however.
I asked about the things I had to throw away, not wanting to accept coupons for more of the same product as a response to an issue that gave me a poor opinion of Purina’s food quality. To my surprise, I’m in contact with their 3rd party claims review company to hopefully get some reimbursements.
Corey-I’m glad that you have been contacted in regard to your claim. I also called Purina and am waiting to be contacted about my claim. I am just still so disgusted by all of this. I switched my dog food to Canidae and he seems to be doing very well. It’s like a different dog now! He wants to go for walks and play again! I couldn’t believe what low quality stuff was in that Beneful. I feel so bad that I have been feeding that stuff to him for the last 4 months.
I am still dealing with the clean up of those little critters. They have migrated to the refrigerator and in the seals of the doors. I have bleached and used hot soapy water and 5 minutes a few will be back. I wipe my fridge down at least 10 times a day. I could literally go crazy over it. I could stand in front of my fridge all day wiping these things off. That alone will piss a person off and then to know that it has been going on for at least a year really ticks you off!
i too have been affected with this blight that is called grain mites – i have or should i say i had a cat and he died suddenly and he was fine and perfectly healthy before i noticed he had thrown up some the week before he died but i thought it was fur balls and that few days before had not done this after he died i noticed that the remainder of his friskies speciial diet for urinary that is made by same manufacturer as beneful purina was covered and also my entire kitchen table and also my fish tank with the little buggers i noticed that they are attracted to water around fish hood and anything that is plastic , since i threw everything away that was on the table and scrubbed it down it has gotten better i think they die off if they dont have anything to feed off of , i feel that is what killed my cat if anyone knows the symptoms of grain mites or what it does to the cats or dogs affected i would be grateful as i am trying to swallow this hard pill of not knowing what killed my baby he was only 5 years old
I too have had the same problem with these disgusting little mites. I just bought a new condo and I noticed this “dust” that kept appearing. I then noticed that my dogs food (Beneful) was all dusty too so I threw that away. I couldn’t fgure out what was going on until I realized that this “dust” was moving!!! I ended up throwing away a full bag of my dogs food, a ton of my own food, my coffee maker, my garbage can, the container I keep my dogs food and several other things.
I bombed my place twice and have scrubbed everything with clorox bleach. I have gotten most of them but I can’t seem to get rid of all of them!! It is very frustrating and it is very hard for me to enjoy my new condo (I just moved in 2 weeks ago!) with these unwanted guests. I would like to file a claim or at least make this public so nobody else has to go through this.
I’ve just read all of your posts, and I’m at least glad that it’s not just me… if there is anything to be “glad” about with this situation. I am so disgusted and I don’t know what we’re going to do. We keep our Beneful (isn’t that an ironic name??) dog food in a plastic covered bin in our coat closet since it’s right next to our kitchen, and I finally realized what this “white dust” is today. My closet is completely filled with these things, and they’re all over my coats. I’m going to have to take everything to the dry cleaners tomorrow, and I’ve thrown away almost everything in there. I now feel so gross, and I’m so afraid that these bugs are all over my house right now.
Please everyone CALL PURINA and report this!! We also have found these all over our kitchen!! We have contacted Purina to report this and our making claims or else. Also, contact your FDA. This is a serious health issue both for your pets and families! This is unacceptable and Beneful should have been pulled off the shelves along time ago as it these mites will affect other foods around these bags in stores. We discovered them on Sat. 9/28. We have disinfected with clorox, vacuumed everyday for hours (change each bag after every use), and have sprayed insecticides in our kitchen and around. The insecticide list grain mites specifically but it seems to be the only thing that provides relief. This has been a nightmare and I feel so bad for the folks that have no idea they are probably everywhere in there home.
We never ended up taking our dog to the vet, as they said it should be fine ingesting grain mites and this dust. Yesterday, we accepted a $350 offer from Purina’s claim vendor to call it case closed for us so we can replace all the things we threw away.
Thank you for the info. My dog has been sick, she has a hacking cough, weak, throwing up, glazed eyes. I knew some thing was wrong, but I could not figure it out. I started feeding her rice & cottage cheese she would start to feel better. Soon as see started eating the DOG food she would get sick all over again. I thought it was the wet food took it away, then I thought it was something out side. My friends dog has the same thing going on. I just realized its the BENEFUL DOG FOOD. I saw the saw dust thing but I had never seen anything like that before. I did not put the two together. Today I found this site and I am grateful. I am really pissed at the same time.
I’m so glad I found this website. This evening I noticed a bunch of white specks on my stainless steel fridge. The fridge is usually spotless, so I kept looking at them and noticed they were all moving. I freaked and spread the whole outside of the fridge with insecticide. We recently switched back to our dog’s regular food. Science Diet and placed the old bag of Beneful in the hallway closet to be donated. Yesterday I moved the bag out of the closed and back into the kitchen next to Fridge. I came back to the kitchen about an hour later and the fridge was covered AGAIN. I finally looked at the bag of Beneful and realized what I thought was dust were actually these same bugs. I opened the bag and it was infested!!!!! I sprayed the thing down, quickly but it in a garbage and threw into the dumpster. Sure enough, after my second round of insecticide…they were back. Finally my husband bleached the whole kitchen and so far we haven’t seen them again tonight. My poor dog… I feel so horrible..God knows how long I’ve been feeding her these bugs. And now to find out this is common…Well I can assure you that once Monday comes, Purina is going to get a whole lot of grief for this. Talk about corporate irresponsibility. How much do we have to put up with?!!!!
What I find most disturbing about all of this is that they continue to put this crap out for consumers to buy. There are thousands of people who probably have no idea that this is going on in their own home. It needs to be brought to the attention of the public so I urge everyone to contact their local media outlets whether it be by letters to the editors in the newspaper or local news. We are still dealing with this a month later. I still have my pantry completely empty and have cleaned the shelves countless times and am still finding the dust. We are still getting them on our stainless fridge. Our local pest control company stated that there wasn’t really any insecticides to get rid of them completely. Tonight I purchased some stuff called Mother Earth DE and I’m hoping it gets rid of these buggers once and for all!
I’ve been speaking with the claims company that is handling Purina’s claim and tomorrow will be faxing over an itemized list of what this has cost us. Good luck to everyone else who is going through this nightmare!
P.S. I mentioned in an earlier post that I switched to Canidae and that was short lived. My dog won’t touch it so I’ve switched him to Blue and he seems to be liking it! After food laden with fat and preservatives anything else isn’t going taste quite as good!
Against better judgement we had temporarily switched to Purina One, trying to find a food that had as little unhealthy ingredients as possible. Without getting top $ stuff from a private vet, that’s hard. We ended up switching to Nutro Max. We’d never heard of it (apparently they don’t advertise much), but so far so good. While transitioning, our dog was actually picking the Max out of the Purina One and leaving the One behind.
I have a dog, and love him to bits, for his whole life he has eaten nothing but Beneful dog food. Seemed at the time it was the only thing he liked. I started to notice, that we had gotten the same thing as everyone else. A “sawdust” looking coveing on the food. We started keeping the dog food in a rubbermaid container, and that didnt help. I just thought that there was something getting into it. We threw out all of his dog food, and have switched him to something else.
Our 4 year old pug is so sick. She wanders all around the house like an old dog: shaky legs, dull eyes, tail down, no energy, no playfulness. Beneful is her food source though she eats fruits and vegetables, plus table scraps. We took her off Beneful Sunday morning. We will feed her chicken and rice, cottage cheese, and such things for a few days and, then, decide on a new food. We do not see bugs anywhere but will check further when the sun comes up. Thanks for this site!!!
Bea – take her to the vet immediately. Better to be safe than sorry. A quick update to my post back on 10/12. After a month and half on Science diet, my lab is back to her beautiful healthy self. Her coat is thick and shiny, she barely scratches and her energy level is back. The Science diet is about $60 for a large-sized bag and she goes through it in about a month. It is worth every penny. I encourage everyone to research what they are feeding their animals and while it may be more expensive, it’s better for your pet and your wallet in the long run (vet bills add up quickly). If you still need convincing… you wouldn’t eat spam and cheese whiz everyday, would you? Imagine what your health would be like. Same thing for our animal family members. Lastly, the bugs are officially gone; death by steam cleaning. No pesticides, just boiling water. A couple of times in tight places will do the trick.
I wanted to post an update to my last post. We have officially rid of those little white bugs! It took two full months and they kind of just disappeared on their own. I didn’t put anything back in our pantry until they were gone. I switched our Shih Tzu’s food to Canidae and he seemed okay with it at first, but quickly lost interest. I then switched him to Blue, a holistic brand dog food and he is doing wonderful. He is playful again and his coat is beautiful! it is a bit pricey at $16 for I think a 5 lb bag but it does last.
Finally I did settle my claim with Purina. I will not purchase any of their products ever again though. I wish everyone else and their loved pets the best.
I am ashamed In Beniful for having toxic mold. I beileve that they should be sued more than once! Repay everyone who bought the product Beniful!
I am very angry at this no one told me!!! I gave beniful to my dog Missy and she got very sick. She lost her appitite. I think they should be sued for every penny thay have. beniful should have stoped selling!!!!
I am going to sue beniful for everything they got
Never again will I buy the product Beniful. It contained a mold which I didnt know about !This is an outrage I thought beniful was going to help my dog.
PLEASE look up your dog food before giving it to them. I didn’t realize how horrible this food was for them. It is full of preservatives and nasty stuff. You can google ‘dog food ratings’ and different sites will be brought up. Beneful received a rating of F-. Can’t get worse than that.
OMG – Don’t buy Purina Beneful dog food !!! We are in the process of a big clean up here ourselves.
We were wondering what all of this dusty brown stuff was around our dogs bowl constantly, and the powdery stuff in the container that we fed him from daily.. Then we discovered that our entire floor under the bag of food was covered with it and it was growing up the walls in the pantry behind the bag. This icky dust was even inside the caps of several bottles of sealed Mineral Water.
We returned the rest of the bag and the plastic container that we fed from daily to the PetSmart store in Vernon Hills Illinois along with a printed copy of this entire discussion. They were as appauled as us and returned our money . They evidently had not been contacted by Purina of this problem that has been going on with there food for several years.
Purina – I am so upset that you knew of this and bought people off by offering them coupons for your Toxic chow.
I will never buy Purina again and you can be sure that if I see others (even people that I don’t know) buying it I will let them hear this story.
SHAME ON YOU
so what is a good and natural dog food for a puppy
I have been feeding Beneful to my two dogs for two years now. In the last six months, I have purchased three bags that I found to contain grain mites (the extremely tiny white bugs). These bags came from two different retailers, one a big-box, the other a local grocery store. I doubt that I will ever purchase Purina products again. I am going to start purchasing a different brand of dog food from my local vet’s office. I am very thankful that neither of my pets have gotten sick.
We have the same problem. I am actually an Attorney and plan to do something about this situation.
I will do some research to see if I can figure out whether or not a claim has already been filed and if so, the proper firm to contact. If not, Lets file.
this is in no way an advertisement or an acceptance of an attorney client relationship. This is simply an inquiry to assist in finding the answers.
email : benefulsuit@yahoo.com
This problem is STILL ongoing. Tonite I discovered (basically dumb luck) that there were a ton of tiny bugs in the area of my dog food bag. Yep its Purina Beneful Playful formula. It explains some things Ive noticed lately but couldnt put a finger on. Like my lab’s eyes have been “goopy”. Lots of eye boogers. Shes been a bit “off” overall. Im so glad I found this blog tonite! The house will be bug bombed tomorrow and Ill never buy Purina products (or Nestle! Parent company) products again. EVER.
Here I thought I was doing good for my dogs. They are both aussies. They seemed to like Beneful Original but both are now eathing grass all time after only a few days on Beneful, and one of them threw up in the kennel over night. My male dog will not eat it now, but the female wants more and more and paws and sniffs the Beneful bag. I did not notice any mites or any other critters in or around the food bag or bowls. Anyway, I threw the whole bag away based on comments on this site and other web sites! My doggies are back on normal boring food now. There ought be a law!
I have a dog food bin so that bugs can not get in. Sometimes as I am running in the door with my arms full I will set my purse and keys on the bin. It was the next morning and I went to get my black leather purse from atop the bin and it was creamy colored and crawling with mites coming from my dog food bin. They also made their way into my pantry, so we had to throw out all of our food. Times are hard enough right now, but having to loose all of our food is tough. I thought my dogs were being bitten by bugs in the yard as they were always itching and one of my two dogs had bloody diarrhea in the middle of the night, everywhere. I feel so bad that I did not notice earlier. I have done a lot of research on these mites and their life cycle. It looks like we will be trying to clean them up for some time to come. It is a very unsettling feeling knowing your home is crawling with trillions of these mites. I also contacted the company who tells me that the bags got infested during shipping, that the mites are able to eat into the bags and that is how they got in. I don’t believe them for a minute. They asked me if they were little flying bugs, which of course they are not. It seems like they were trying to get me to say something to invalidate my story. I now have a claim and we will see what happens. Please warn everyone you know, and don’t know, to never buy Beneful again.
I bought a bag of beneful dog food for my two year old poodle/ terrier mix. I’ve noticed what looked like sawdust twice before but just cleaned the dish and threw the food away. Upon closer look today I noticed what I thought was sawdust was moving!! It was thousands of tiny micro sized bugs covering his water and food dish. Disgusting!! I decided to come online and google to find an answer for what it was and found this site. I checked the bag of food in the cubbard and sure enough the bag had them on it. I had to throw away his bag of food, bags and boxes of treats. I am so pissed but I am so glad that I noticed this and my dog is okay. I haven’t noticed any symptoms but will keep a close eye on my dog.
I called Purina this morning and filed a complaint about the mites in the food. They said this happens sometimes at the distribution level and with storage. They said they are likely grain mites. Ew. They are sending me a coupon for the dog food but I’m not even sure I want to buy the same dog food. I now switched to Pedigree and hopefully will not have this problem in the future.
I recently bought Beneful from Pet’smart in Southern California and discovered after a few days that it was littered with tiny bugs. My poor dog had been eating this food for several days. They are so small they went unnoticed until thousands of them formed what looked like a bit of sawdust on the lid of the container I keep her food in.
After reading all the incidents here on this site, I can’t believe it hasn’t been pulled from the shelves.
Be warned.
I recently had a cat who ate Friskies Urinary Formula (dry food) become very ill–he suddenly seemed disoriented and weak. He quickly became blind and unable to stand up. The vets said such symptoms could be caused by many things including poison, stroke, heart, viral, or neurological issues. Could it have been mold in his diet that was killing him? I never noticed the sawdust-like mites; however I did notice thousands of red mites on the pavement around his feeding dish on the outside patio. Unnerving! I can’t find any accounts of similar situations online except on this site. Anyone with insight advise or input?
I have spent yrs going from one food to another to find one than gave my boy healthy poops… everything gives him gas & the runs. I had him on Beneful yrs ago and it worked, but i Felt bad feeding him “doggie juck food” so I moved him to a series of more healthy brands to no avail. Several months ago I gave up and put him back on Beneful ( mixed the Healthy Weight with Heathy Harvest). I’ve never seen any mold or mites in the bags I bought (nor did I come here to read before now).
3 wks after going on Beneful my dog started having seizures. I didn’t make the connection… I thought it was some sudden onset of something due to age (he’s 8). After a couple of months and a multitude of tests with no definable result (within “normal” range on all counts) I’d pretty much given up. Meanwhile the occurance of seizures has been increasing.
I was searching for clues and surfing the web and found many annecdotal stories of Beneful being the cause of seizures. I told my vet and immediately switched foods.
I’ve had 2 days with no doggies seizures… his step is bouncey, and he isn’t lethargic.
I am hopeful that this is the end of the mystery… and no, I will not be purchasing any Purina products ever again.