# Merrick dog food - Good, bad?



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

ok, here I am again in my neverending search of a decent kibble for my four-legged kids.

I'm going to try Fromm, I already ordered a 5 lbs bag online since I can't find it locally.
But I want to find something that's good and that I can find in the stores here, and so far I have found Merrick to be one of the most decent, at least from what I have read in their site and some random reviews.

What do you think? Those of you who have fed it, what is good and is there anything bad about it?

Thank you in advance!


----------



## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

Dejavu said:


> ok, here I am again in my neverending search of a decent kibble for my four-legged kids.
> 
> I'm going to try Fromm, I already ordered a 5 lbs bag online since I can't find it locally.
> But I want to find something that's good and that I can find in the stores here, and so far I have found Merrick to be one of the most decent, at least from what I have read in their site and some random reviews.
> ...


There is nothing bad about it except it is a very average food at a very high price. It runs about 1.50lb and is really a .75lb dog food. Well marketed and that is the reason. Not worth the money unless you like the warm and fuzzy names.


----------



## Gretchen (Jan 20, 2011)

Although the ingredients look really good, both our dog and our cats do not care for this brand. Dog had soft stools on this (canned only).


----------



## IloveGSDs (Dec 13, 2003)

My dogs love it and I can get it locally. I am currently feeding Precise Sensicare due to skin issues that Cody is having but would not have changed if I didn't need to. It is one of the higher priced foods but my dogs loved it.


----------



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

Thanks for the replies!

sable, at least in my case what I like is that they seem to make their food in the US with US products (unless I'm mistaken about that). And also, comparing ingredients, is better than most foods I can find around here.

Gretchen, then you fed only the canned food? I'm looking at the dry food, I hope that one doesn't give loose stools.

IloveGSDs, thanks! What kind were you feeding? I'm thinking of getting the Whole Earth Farms one.


----------



## GSDElsa (Jul 22, 2009)

I've had Medo on it since we got him after a horrid week on Wellness. So far so good. Grammy's Pot Pie isn't agreement with him as much as the Cowboy Cookout recipe did. I might go back to that or switch to another (I will mix the dogs' food up every few bags or so).

I've found that at least for him I can feed quite a bit less than what is recommeneded on the bag.


----------



## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

Dejavu said:


> Thanks for the replies!
> 
> sable, at least in my case what I like is that they seem to make their food in the US with US products (unless I'm mistaken about that). And also, comparing ingredients, is better than most foods I can find around here.
> 
> ...


There are dozens of brands with "US Only" ingredients. Some vitamins and flax of course is sourced outside the US. Flax comes almost always from Canada. Some vitamins are imported, actually the best canine vitamin mix made today comes from Switzerland. In fact it is the the only source of Taurine that does not come from China.

It is your money. Dogs seem to like Merrick its just a rip off.


----------



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

Thanks, GSDElsa! I'll see how this food agrees with mine too, lol. I'm going to try a smaller bag and if they like it and do well on it, I'll get a bigger one later.

Thanks, sable! Yeah, I wish it was cheaper, but believe me it's not easy getting decent food around here. It's mostly Purina, Pedigree, Avoderm and then Blue Buffalo and all the Diamond products. But I had LOTS and I mean LOTS of problems with BB so I'd rather stay away from them. And I'm scared of Diamond foods so I don't get those either.


----------



## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

Dejavu said:


> Thanks, GSDElsa! I'll see how this food agrees with mine too, lol. I'm going to try a smaller bag and if they like it and do well on it, I'll get a bigger one later.
> 
> Thanks, sable! Yeah, I wish it was cheaper, but believe me it's not easy getting decent food around here. It's mostly Purina, Pedigree, Avoderm and then Blue Buffalo and all the Diamond products. But I had LOTS and I mean LOTS of problems with BB so I'd rather stay away from them. And I'm scared of Diamond foods so I don't get those either.


Well if that doesnt work Pro Plan Select is a good choice.


----------



## LARHAGE (Jul 24, 2006)

I feed the Merrick canned food daily and have fed the dry as well, my dogs LOVE it, I have never had a dog with problems eating this, and I have several breeds and different sizes, in fact I had more problems with Origen than Merrick.


----------



## IloveGSDs (Dec 13, 2003)

I was feeding Merrick Wilderness Blend.


----------



## GSDgirlAL (Jan 4, 2008)

I feed the canned food daily and my dogs LOVE it!! 

Have only fed the dry to the Beagles ... they seemed to like it but they are Beagles so of course they did  Recently switched them to FROMM ... only b/c the Merrick Senior Medley was not stocked at the store, I had to order it 2 weeks before I needed it. That is just a hassle so I switched them ... they all continue to get the canned food daily.


----------



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

Thank you all again! 
I went to Petco today and they didn't have the Whole Earth farms in stock, oh well.
I got a 5lb bag of Granny's pot pie so they can try it.

Which kind of the dry food do you feed them, LARHAGE?

Oh, and I have a little story to share. 
I was stupid and thought, ok if it turns out they don't like the Merrick or something maybe I could get a small bag of BB, just to mix it in and all.
The bags in Petco were all torn and open, no thank you. I went to Petsmart instead, and as soon as I grabbed a small BB bag... I see a maggot crawling in and out of the bag... I screamed and let go of the bag, an employee came to see what had happened and took the bag "to the back" when I showed him.
I walked out of there and I'm not coming back.
Note to self: When I said no more BB, I really meant it. No more BB in this house! EVER!


----------



## missmychance (Jan 20, 2011)

I would reccommend the Whole Earth Farms by Merrick if you can find it. Its a great price and in a 35lb bag. Frodo did fine on it.


----------



## baseballmama (Apr 26, 2011)

Both my dogs love this brand of food, I give them dry TOTW with a topping of this canned food, they get a different flavor at each meal and seem to love the variety. 

There is a flavor called Wingery or something like that and it shocked me that there were real chicken wings in there!!! Dogs loved it!! and my dogs are picky, I am the only one in the world who has two large dogs and still has to pull out the dust buster after every meal that the kids eat because my dogs are food snobs!!


----------



## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

*Loyall*

Was at my dog club meeting yesterday. Loyall seems to be gaining a ton of traction with a diverse group of owners. I saw a few Shepherd breeders at a show using it.

Anyone using it?


----------



## Alois (Feb 4, 2011)

I ordered a bag a few days ago off Amazon.


----------



## LARHAGE (Jul 24, 2006)

Dejavu,

I feed the Turducken and Grammys Pot Pie dry kibble, as well as a different canned flavor everyday, they love Merrick, I tend to rotate kibbles among different brands, but I only use Merrick canned, it's the only food my super picky Chihuahua actually dances with excitement for.


----------



## ayoitzrimz (Apr 14, 2010)

sable123 said:


> Was at my dog club meeting yesterday. Loyall seems to be gaining a ton of traction with a diverse group of owners. I saw a few Shepherd breeders at a show using it.
> 
> Anyone using it?


I wouldn't even look at it, judging by the ingredients. First ingredient is a by-product, after that all corn and rice... Look at better quality food (such as Orijen and Acana, Evo, etc).


----------



## Fafhrd (Dec 3, 2008)

Karloff and Kyra (the new girl) both love Merrick canned, especially Wingaling and Smothered Comfort, which have whole pieces of chicken in the can. Haven't tried the kibble because I'm happy with TOTW.


----------



## EastGSD (Jul 8, 2001)

I won't use anything from Merrick due to the very poor way they dealt with the GoNatural recalls and deaths years ago  It would be probably much easier for people to research it on Google than for me to recreate the situation in a post. In a nutshell something went horribly wrong and they handled it very poorly. Their quality control was a VERY large issue and has been again in other situations.


----------



## EastGSD (Jul 8, 2001)

Here, I found this link. It contains a lot of information on the situation that happened.
2003 Recall

edit to add* Merrick was the US manufacture of this food at the time. From what I remember the FDA did various testing on the product to determine what was causing widespread liver failure in dogs. One breeder lost at least 8 dogs I believe and a few puppies and she had great difficulty in dealing with Merrick in both getting a recall issued and getting answers. This was a major situation that happened and not your average recall. The odd thing also was that the preservative BHA (I believe, just drawing on memory of my talks with the Golden breeder severely harmed) was found in LARGE levels well beyond what would be normal not to mention it was *NOT* listed in the ingredients. There was so much "hinky" stuff about the recall and several lawsuits were filed against both Petcurean and Merrick. A certain breeder of Goldens was posting online about her experience but I think most of her info has been removed due to the settlement.


----------



## schroedes (Sep 10, 2010)

i fed the turducken to my GSDs, they also love the canned fod which i think is better than their dry food. i have since switched to Fromm Gold, same price, little better ingredients, and made in wisconsin at a family owned company. think i finally found a food i can stick with. check em out


----------



## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

we just bought 10 cans of food. out of the 12 cans
there's 3 or 4 different brands. i know there's 3 cans of Merrick
( 3 different flavors). i use the can food as a topping
for the kibble. this months kibble is Verus.


----------



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

EarthGSD, that's good to know, thank you! That's also one of the reasons I'm staying away from Blue Buffalo, because of the way they acted in their recent recalls.

Schroedes, can I ask where you find Fromm? I've been mixing the Merrick Grammy's pot pie with Fromm Duck and potato, but I can't find Fromm anywhere around here so I have to order it online. So far I've been keeping the bag of Merrick as a back up, but I'd loved how they've been doing on Fromm so far.

doggiedad, thank you!


----------



## EastGSD (Jul 8, 2001)

Deja, can you fill me in on how Blue Buffalo reacted to this recall? I have been offline for a while and was not aware of it.

Cherri


----------



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

EastGSD said:


> Deja, can you fill me in on how Blue Buffalo reacted to this recall? I have been offline for a while and was not aware of it.
> 
> Cherri


Sorry it took so long to reply! Here are some links about it:

Blue Buffalo dog food may be linked to serious illness | PetConnection.com

Another Friday night, another pet food recall: Blue Buffalo again | PetConnection.com


----------



## schroedes (Sep 10, 2010)

Dejavu said:


> EarthGSD, that's good to know, thank you! That's also one of the reasons I'm staying away from Blue Buffalo, because of the way they acted in their recent recalls.
> 
> Schroedes, can I ask where you find Fromm? I've been mixing the Merrick Grammy's pot pie with Fromm Duck and potato, but I can't find Fromm anywhere around here so I have to order it online. So far I've been keeping the bag of Merrick as a back up, but I'd loved how they've been doing on Fromm so far.
> 
> doggiedad, thank you!


 we have a natural pet food place here in fargo that orders it for me so theres no shipping. they just get it from their distributer in mpls and it comes on their regular shipment. $40 for 33 lbs, cant beat it


----------



## EastGSD (Jul 8, 2001)

Deja I meant info about how they reacted as you stated it bothered you? It unfortunately is a part of food production to have recalls happen, they happen often. What matters to me is how a company handles it and what was the cause of the need for the recall. Was the problem discovered in the Blue Buffalo?


----------



## Dejavu (Nov 11, 2010)

East, I'm sorry, maybe those weren't the right links. I apologize, I have to admit I do no even want to click on them, I took them from some bookmarks I had. To be honest this is a very sensitive issue for me, I'd rather not get into details, but I relate it to one of my biggest losses and it gives me anxiety attacks just to "go back in time" and read those articles/posts.

From what I remember, they didn't accept something was wrong in their formulas, and more dogs were getting sick and vets all over kept reporting that the sick dogs were eating the same kind of food BB wilderness and some other BB formulas. It took quite some time til they recalled a few of them, they didn't even clarify what the problem was just said they used the wrong kind of Vitamin D. They didn't say exactly what they used. Then a bit later more of their formulas got recalled without much explanation.
What got me was the fact that they kept "hiding" info and not accepting that they had a problem.


----------

