I have two seven pound poodles. One started vomiting a few weeks ago. She wasn’t herself. They were eating Beneful. Vet thought intestional so we fed her bland for a few days. No better and back to the vet for xrays to rule out a blockage. No blockage but stomach was inflamed. She wasnt any better but not any worse so we gave it a few more days. Two days later we back at vet for more xrays and blood panel as that Morning she vomited and had blood in her stool. Diagnosis after blood panel and hundreds of dollars later. Pancreatitis. Luckily we caught it early and I was able to treat it at home. Most dogs are hospitalized. She is now on perscription Id as is my other. I wish I had read these reviews on Beneful a long time ago. I would not reccomend this food based on my experience.

I have just been told that Beneful is terrible to feed your dog. I have heard of dogs dying of kidney failure from eating this food!!

Thank god I found out when I did. My terrier/chihuahua mix is a very picky eater. When we rescued her, we tried several brands before finally finding something she would eat. Beneful Incredi-bites. For the first year and a half she seemed to thrive on this food, and never hesitated to eat it (although she did start turning her nose up and the Beneful moist food, which was her “treat”). During this time she dealt with periodic bouts of vomiting and bloody diarahea, and intermittent rounds of excessive itching, despite being free of fleas.
Then, a few weeks ago she started becoming less playful, more lethargic, was barely touching her food, drinking far more water than usual, and not “doing her business” more than once every 3 days (usually twice a day for her). She would tremble as if she was freezing, even though the temperature in the house was the same as always.
A friend shared the warnings about Beneful with me, and I started looking at all of the complaints and stories from others. I immediately picked up the rest of her Incredi-bites, bagged it up and threw it away. We went to the pet store to try to find another food she will eat (not expecting results based on our experiences when we rescued her). We finally settled on two foods (both of which are gluten free and made in the US), in order to give her body a chance to eliminate anything it doesn’t need.
Within 3 days of taking her off of Beneful, she has regained her spirit and energy, is eating again, “doing her business” as usual (and NO bloody diarahea), and appears to be returning to her playful self. While there is still no “scientific proof” that Beneful is the cause of her problems, I will NOT risk it again. We consider ourselves very lucky to have found out in time to avert disaster.

I just read several of the posts here and find in strange that the same stories are being posted on another site for Pedigree. Even down to the worms in the bags of food. Kidney, liver problems and seizures.

I am wondering now just what is going on. Who really makes these foods? Where do they get the ingredients?

I was going to try one of the more expensive foods, like Blue Buffalo but also read those are on the list of complaints.

What do we feed our beloved pets? Many are unable to cook for their dogs/cats. Sometimes it is a money issue. It seems we cannot trust any company to make a product that is good for our furry family members.

Any suggestions????

My 5 year young miniature schnauzer passed away suddenly on February 4,2013 after eating Beneful! Day prior to eating the beneful she was rolling around and playing in the snow. CHLOE ate the crap dog food which I had just purchased, threw up on Sunday night and became very thirsty and increasingly lethargic; I attempted to take the dogs for a walk around 2pm, but Chloe planted her feet onto the floor and would not go. She slept for awhile then got up drank more water, and by 4pm was glassy eyed and very listless; I called the vet immediately but the doctor had already left; I phoned every vet in the phonebook while holding and comforting our sweet Chloe but could not get help; My husband called from work and informed me that he found a vet who was in until 6pm but it was too late for Chloe. Chloe died in my arms at 5pm! Our beagle became very ill but has survived. She too drank copiuos amounts of water and peed massive amounts of clear urine. She also had respiratory issues for which she was placed on a broad spectrum antibiotic and steroids. Her urine was tested by a lab for very high amounts of protein. She is on inderal twice a day for the rest of her life. I too called BENEFUL and was told”REALLY???WE HAVEN’T HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT PROBLEMS WITH THE DOG FOOD” I said to them who are you trying to fool, if you have a computer or watch television, and you work for Beneful you certainly must have heard! I say PLEASE TAKE THE GARBAGE OFF OF THE STORE SHELVES< HAVEN'T ENOUGH DEAR PETS DIED OR BECAME ILL ALREADY!! Believe when I say I am spreading the word! Thanks

My dog came down with similar symptoms. Has been on beneful for a couple years. Took him to vet and put him on a quality food about a week ago. He stopped vomiting and his stool is slowly starting to return to normal. Vet stated no infection or blockage, just a very low quality food. How many dogs have to get sick before someone steps in with a recall. I thought I was feeding him a quality food. Don’t let the packaging fool you. Beneful should use the money to produce a food that does not harm your dog.

My Chow mix has been eating Beneful for several years, as did several dogs before. All was good until several months ago when she started acting “not right”. She didn’t seem sick, but there was something different. She seemed very lethargic, and at time would drink water like there’s no tomorrow. Occasional fits of coughing, and large amounts of time chewing on her front feet. At other time she spent a lot of time checking and licking her rear end. All of these symptoms were not continuous, but would last for a week or two, then seem to subside for a short time, then return.
I am going to switch to a different brand for a time to see if anything changes.

Beneful healhty weight not a good dog food , fed my little baby all his life developed kidney failure .
I wish i have read the reviews but to late now. Need to be RECALL.

My husband picked up a bag of this dogfood last month and 1 week into feeding our lab/shepard mix this she puked on my dining room floor. We discovered that she has started eating her own feces! I told hom that it had to be the dogfood and he looked it up on the net and found out that this dogfood was total crap. Another thing I wanted to add is that my dog stinks after eating this food. She has NEVER smelled like this ever! We will never buy this food or any purina products again.

propylene glycol,is another word for Antifreeze. You will find it in other soft dog food to keep the moisture out. And there are Many dog Treats that also have the proplene glycol. So Read the Ingredients before YOU BUY! Since I have learned about this, I NOW Read every Dog Product and You will Be Amazed how many products have this. My dog has been getting better now that she doesn’t have this in her system.
We Should ALL BOYCOTT ALL PRODUCTS THAT HAVE PROYLENE GLYCOL !! IT”s in Some of Our FOOD TOO small puddings

DO NOT BUY THIS. Less than a week ago,I bought a bag of Beneful Healthy Radiance. When I got home and opened it, the food looked very strange. After a second glance, I found several small worms crawling around in the food. It was after this that I researched it and discovered all the issues with this food. I returned it and bought Iams instead.

Two weeks ago my beautiful 4 y/o Golden Retriever started vomiting up his food. He became very thirsty and lethargic. We took him to the vet, who thought he might have eaten something which was lodged in his stomach. after x-rays we found his stomach was clear. It was then that we were asked what he eats. After telling the Vet that he has always eaten Beneful, the Vet with a look of horror on her face told us about the problems with Beneful. She then test him for liver failure. for the past week now out dog has been on IV’s trying to keep his liver functioning. It now appears that he is going to lose this battle. I am so mad at Purina right now because they knew about this problem with their food and did nothing about it. Please stop using all Purina products. It seems the only way to get their attention is to put them out of business. In the mean time I have ran up thousand of dollars in vet bills only to be told to expect his death, all because of dog food.

Vomiting, diarrhea, excessive water drinking, lethargy, weight loss (from 10 lbs to 4 lbs), bloating….these are ALL the symptoms my mothers Silky has experienced starting in July. Right after a vet check-up where my mother was told her dog was in perfect health. After an emergency vet visit, tests, scans, antibiotics, pain meds, etc., we learned she has pancreantitis. Still are unsure of how much longer we have with her. The vet told my mother she was seeing a lot of this type of thing lately. Common factor….Beneful. When my mother called Purina to voice her concerns, she was told, “Really? We haven’t heard anything. We’ll send you some coupons so you can try a different bag.”

My dog became terribly ill from beneful food and has never returned to his normal self. After researching, I found beneful food is killing dogs and causing kidney and liver failure and seizures. I posted to their facebook but they immediately removed my post with no comment. In reading other posts, this type of thing has been going on for years. The FDA recal web page interestingly has multiple kinds of food listed but Purina and Beneful are oddly no where to be found on that list. All of this appears to show Purina turning a blind eye for the sake of profit, and perhaps the FDA is beneficiary of Purina support to also follow suit. Too many deaths to ignore and yet both companies are. Look at the posts over the years…always the same things. How many years does this have to continue before someone does something? this article tells about the food, gives links to consumer affairs, shows the FDA recall page and who to contact. http://www.examiner.com/article/purina-s-beneful-dog-food-killing-dogs-nationwide-no-recall-issued-by-fda

I just put down my Siberian Husky. She was 9 years old and I was just looking at pictures of her from last Fall and she looked wonderful. I guess I didn’t really realize how bad she looked in the end. My sweetheart became very sick in late June, although she got a clean bill of health in the beginning of June. We did blood tests and they came back with slightly elevated liver counts. The second blood test specifically for liver did not point to liver disease. Next on to xray – nothing showing out of the ordinary. Next – ultrasound – showing liver changes. The doctor was looking for hepatocutaneous which the technician at the specialty hospital could not and would not say she had. My poor sweety could not walk, would not eat and had an allergic reaction affecting her paws, mouth, eyes. The vet didn’t know what to do anymore because she couldn’t diagnose her. We tried steroids and in the first few days she was getting better. I decided to put her back on the Beneful – I had been feeding her mostly table food because her appetite was so bad that at least I could entice her to eat table food. She also had sores on the edges of her mouth that made it difficult to eat and at one time I was putting the food in the blender with water added because she couldn’t eat anyting solid. Three days after she went back on the Beneful was the end. She couldn’t hold her bladder. She wouldn’t get up. When we could get her to go outside, she couldn’t hold her butt up to pee and sat in it. The vet told us she was out of options. She was jaundiced, fluid in her abdomen and labored breathing and we still didn’t know what it was. It was kinder for her to put her down. Then I read about Beneful and other peoples’ dog symptoms are and I am so upset that I fed my dog this crap and that it may have caused her demise. My two other Huskies were throwing up and I took them off immediately. I don’t know what has to be done to take this off the market but you can be sure that I am going to find a way. Here is another site with complaints that may help you guys.

http://​www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/​beneful.html

BEWARE! I strongly supect Beneful caused my precious Ladybirds’ seizurs & subsequent death. She WAS a healthy, playful 9 yr. old Lab mix who lived in-doors but got lots of exercise in the back-yard & on walks. She started vomitting one morning & became dis-oriented. By the time the vet opened an hour later, she had 2 seizures. He suspected poisoning. I found nothing in my house or yard that could have poisoned her. On his(BAD)advice, I allowed him to eutanize her. Unfortunately, money was a factor. I didn’t know that she might recover if I stopped feeding her this POISON! Last week I saw a link to consumer affairs w/ 146 similar stories! I WILL contact every retailer, vet, rescue group, etc. & continue to post about this on facebook daily until it is recalled! Enough death, illness & grief from Purina! You may post my personal info. so that others may contact me!

Beneful dog food is harming and killing dogs. Please visit http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/beneful.html to view over 113 complaints. Then reference the book: Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food by Ann N. Martin

Aug 10th 2012

In the past week and a half, Ive buried both my dogs. The first one was a 7 y/o Boston Terrier and had been sick for 2 weeks with severe vomiting abd diarrhea. after multiple vet visits which included all labs,xrays and ultra sounds, showed liver and intestinal problems. They tried different foods and medications which helped for a week and then everything went downhill fast and we ended up having her put down. Less then a week later our 8 y/o 96 pound Golden Retriever vomited during the night and I found him in shock and rushed him to the vet where he then had 1 episode of projectile vomiting of undigested “benefull” And then went into cardiac arrest in which he didnt survive. An autopsy was requested where they found severe colon damage,kidney and bladder damage. He had just had his annual physical 3 days prior to this event and was given a clean bill of health. We had just recently switched to the “healthy weight” benefull. I am still waiting on toxicology reports which I will post before I see a lawyer. Our family is heartbroken.

We have Mini Schnauzers male/female, have been feeding them Beneful for several years but always the green package bag. A month ago the green was not available so I got a different bag but it was Beneful. Our oldest Schnauzer (8yrs) started throwing up and wouldn’t eat, was eating other foods but after a few days he became where he wouldn’t eat,took him to the vet and they ran blood work and had indicated he was very low on iron, but his pancreas was ok and other organs.Noticed he wasn’t have a bowl movement so the vet gave us a stool softener to help him, this didn’t work at all. Over the weekend we tried other options to have him go and he became lathargicso we rushed him to the emergency vet, almsot 3k later they still didn’t know why or what was wrong only his red/white blood cells were fighting each other got down to 16 which is too low to do surgery and that he wouldn’t make it.Stools were blood, We had to have him put to sleep, we believe the beneful did this to him and after reading all the articles, Beneful killed my dog!!!!!Be careful everyone don’t let this happen to your loved pet.

My dog (11 yrs old) just died of liver cancer. The vet assistant said this is becoming more common and seems to be related to cheap dog food. Her comment keep playing over and over in my head. “Not me” I thought. I fed my dog good food….I fed my dog “beneful”.

After reading this website, it has become very clear that because I believed the hype, I unknowingly shortened the life of my wonderful dog. Please, PLEASE, find another dog food to feed your dog!! Do not continue to feed your dog Beneful!

Dear Sir: We have been a Beneful customer for our dog for several years. Trixie loves the dry Beneful dog food very much, along with the moist and meaty packets we give her occasionally. Unfortunately, the last two large bags of Beneful have been filled with small moths or some similar insect. I am not pleased about that situation. I found them as soon as opened each new bag. This has and does present a problem storing the dog food in the house or garage. Hopefully this type of situation will be corrected. As I said, I am NOT real happy. Thank you. Ron Gentz

Do not feed this sub par food to your pet unless you want to end up at the vets office. My sons Boston Terrier got sick after eating just part of one bag. He ran out of Nutro and picked up a bag of Beneful to get him buy until he could get his regular brand. After being rushed in to the emergency clinic for feces with blood in them he found out it inflamed his dogs intestines. He had to go on a oatmeal based dogfood for a couple months until his intestines calmed down. He also developed hot spots which are a sign of an allergy. So this not so cheap, “cheap” dog food cost my son 400 dollars in vet bills. He switched to Castor and Pollux and has not had a problem since. My son really loves his dog and this shook him up.

I am a petsitter and have to feed Beneful to two Lab mix adult dogs. One is hyper and barks madly to eat, and the other one has chronic ear infections which could be caused by the food coloring in this food. The ingredients list tells the awful story of this food….neither dog ever seems to be satisfied, they both are always hyper and begging for food. Table scraps would be better. The owners can’t be convinced to buy another brand.

Do not feed your dog this poison. Dr. Karen Becker rates it as one of the worst foods for dogs. It has an ingredient in it that is the second cousin to antifreeze. If you have this food, throw it out and buy a quality dog food, it will save you not only medical costs but also stress from not seeing your dog suffer when they do subcome to illness. I am not sure why “Beneful” is even allowed to market this poison to consumers and innocent animals. Shameful!

Toyce, I experienced the exact same thing! My skinny, active little pointer has never been interested in food, but she goes absolutely nuts for the Playful Life. I bought it wanting something with extra protein to put some weight on her, and which I could afford to feed her a lot of. Well, since she has been on it (about a month), she is twice as hyper as she was,(and she was extremely active to start with). My boyfriend jokes that there must be crack in the food, because she sure acts like she is addicted. The only thing I saw in the ingredients that might explain this is sugar. I literally Googled “does Beneful Playful Life contain caffeine?” I’m afraid she’s gonna have a heart attack!

WOW! Wish I had researched Beneful Healthy Weight before I fed it to my dog. Like others, it sounded nutritional and it was on sale at Petsmart so I figured I would try it. I started feeding my dog Beneful two months ago. I was excited when he took to the food so quickly. He couldn’t wait for me to feed him each morning. Sounds great, right! Well, I noticed he had become quite hyper when I came out to feed him each morning. He loves tummy rubs and would forgo any petting or rubbing; he just wanted his food. He started jumping up on me just to get the food out of my hand. As each day passeed, he appeared to become more and more hyper. Today, he jumped up and knoocked the food out of hand and when it fell on the porch, he went after it like it was a drug. My dog is a 95lb. German Shepherd mixed with Timberwolf and Blue Healer (Big Dog!) I’ve tried other brands, but this is the first time my dog has ever reacted to a dog food in this manner. Needless to say, I will be going to the store to get some new dog food. If anyone else has seen this reaction in their pet, I would really like to hear from you.

Please help. My 3-year-old Beagle has been throwing up about an hour or two after eating every time she eats since November 26. She has had a barium x-ray, bloodwork, exploratory surgery, and everything checks out fine. We have tried every diet imaginable. She is now on Nature’s Balance Duck and Potato food. She used to eat Beneful (we stopped giving that to her about two weeks ago). The vet is stumped and I’m at a loss. Please help.

I put my new little golden retriever puppy on this and gradually weaned her from the Iams food the breeder used. Almost immediately she started getting diarrhea. I had to take her outside several times an hour. It got worse and worse over two weeks and the vet said if it doesn’t improve pretty quickly I need to change her diet.

Well over the next week she lost interest in eating, wasn’t gaining weight, and her coat looked horrible. So I switched her to Pro Plan. The improvement was immediate and dramatic. She tore into the Pro Plan. Now a week after finishing the switch her coat is amazing, she’s porked up nicely, and has all sorts of energy. No more loose stools either. She’s so much more comfortable.

Never again would I put a dog on Beneful.

I just spent $900 to have a bladder stone removed from my chihuahua. We’ve had him on Beneful for about a year, Science Diet before that. Im pretty upset that I put him thru this for the cheaper price of food. Hope everyone get their animals off this!

Beneful is total crap.Basically it is just food coloring, Sugar( yes it is high on the ingredient list)Corn,and by products. Just a bunch of TRASH.If you are on a budget, try 4health (Tractor Supply) or Kirkland (Costco)Or Diamond Naturals. Anything but Beneful,Please,dogs are Carnivores, Beneful doesn’t even have one ingredient that is good for dogs.

If you are feeding your dog this food, look up some of the ingredients online. Look up what animal by-product digest is…the remains of unspecified dead animals that have been chemically treated so they liquify, then are sprayed on the corn-based kibble so it tasted like meat. Then there is polypropylene glycol – it is a chemical used in airplane de-icer, anti-freeze and other non-food products. Your dog would be better off in you just let it eat out of your garbage can.
If you spend a couple of extra dollars on decent dog food, your dog will eat less and poop less because it is actually getting the nutrients it needs from its food…not just a bunch of meat-flavored fillers…so in the long run it will end up costing you less.

I originally fed my lab only Beneful. Then I started reading about dog food ingredients. There are so many conflicting statements on the web but the number involving Beneful concerned me. I looked at other “higher” quality foods but the cost was up there. I decided to blend a bag of Beneful & a bag of Blue Buffalo hoping to increase the overall quality without spending twice as much. Recently, Wrigley had to have bladder stones removed. I don’t know if it was the Beneful or something else but my vet mentioned that he has had to remove stones from Beneful fed dogs. Does anyone else have experience with this?

My dog had been eating canned Science Diet I/D due to food sensitivitities for most of her life. I’ve always wanted to get her off the canned stuff, but never really found anything that A) she liked, and B) she didn’t have a reaction to. About 1 month ago, I gave her a little Beneful and she seemed to like it and did not have any immediate reactions. I was pretty excited about this and gradually transitioned her over to 100% Beneful. However, about 1 week ago, she started groaning whenever she laid down and really had trouble sleeping comfortably; groaning throughout the night. She was otherwise active and seemed normal without any other symptoms. We thought that maybe it was the early stages of arthritis, as she is 80 lbs and 10+ years old. We took her to the vet and he said she did seem to have some mild arthritis in one leg, but nothing that should be causing her apparent discomfort. We had a full blood panel run and it came back with highly elevated pancreas enzymes (aka pancreatitis) and elevated liver enzymes. We just had her blood work done ~6 months ago for a different reason, so we knew her baseline was normal. We immediately took her off the Beneful and back to the I/D. Over the course of the last 2 days, she is groaning much less, sleeping much better, and seems to be quickly getting better. I will leave you to your own conclusions, but after doing a lot of research (which I should have done before), and reading a lot of other people’s experiences, I would not recommend Beneful dog food to anyone.