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Nestle Purina Petcare Company was hit with a class action lawsuit alleging that its Beneful dog food includes toxic substances which are capable of killing dogs.
According to the Beneful class action lawsuit filed in a California federal court by plaintiff Frank Lucido on Feb. 5, Beneful is responsible for making thousands of dogs either seriously ill or causing them to die, which happened to one of his own dogs.
Lucido owned three dogs — a German Shepherd, an English Bulldog and a Labrador. He bought a bag of Beneful for the first time in late December 2014 or early January 2015 and each dog began eating Beneful exclusively, the Beneful class action lawsuit explains.
On Jan. 15, the German Shepherd began to lose a large amount of hair and began giving off a unusual odor, which concerned Lucido and his wife, who first started to notice the symptoms. Two days later the German Shepherd became “violently ill.”
After being examined by a veterinarian, it was determined that the German Shepherd was suffering from internal bleeding in the dog’s stomach and the liver was also malfunctioning, which the veterinarian said was “consistent with poisoning.”
On Jan. 23, Lucido’s wife found the English Bulldog dead in their yard. “Post-mortem veterinary examination revealed signs of internal bleeding in the dog’s stomach and lesions on his liver, much like [the German Shepherd],” the class action lawsuit claims.
The Labrador also became ill and is being tested for similar problems.
Lucido claims that he and his wife “have suffered economic losses including the purchase price of Beneful and veterinary and related medical expenses” as result of the damage Beneful has done to their dogs.
According to the Beneful class action lawsuit, there have been more than 3,000 complaints posted by dog owners on the internet “about dogs becoming ill, in many cases very seriously ill, and/or dying after eating Beneful.
“The dogs show consistent symptoms, including stomach and related internal bleeding, liver malfunction or failure, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, weight loss, seizures, bloating, and kidney failure,” the Beneful toxic dog food class action lawsuit alleges.
Lucido gives several examples of these complaints by other dog owners.
According to Lucido, Beneful is advertised as a healthful and nutritional dog food, but his experience and others has been the opposite.
Beneful dog foods allegedly include propylene glycol, which is “an automotive component that is a known animal toxin and is poisonous to cats and dogs.”
In addition, the Beneful class action lawsuit alleges that the dog food includes mycotoxins, which are “a group of toxins produced by fungus that occurs in grains, which are a principle ingredient in Beneful.”
The class action lawsuit cites the Association for Truth In Pet Food, which tested “Beneful Original and found that it contained dangerous levels of mycotoxins.”
Lucido is looking to represent two classes — a nationwide class and a California subclass for dog owners “who purchased Beneful dog food in the past four years and who incurred any out of pocket costs due to illness, injury or death of their dog resulting from the ingestion of Beneful.”
The Beneful toxic dog food class action lawsuit is charging Nestle Purina with breach of implied warranty, breach of express warranty, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, strict products liability, violating California’s consumer legal remedies act, violating California’s Unfair Competition Law, and violating California’s False Advertising Law.
The plaintiff is represented by Jeffrey B. Cereghino of Ram, Olson, Cereghino & Kopcyzynski, by John Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group, by Karl Molineux of Merrill, Nomura & Molineux, and by Donna F. Solen of Kimbrell Kimbrell & Solen LLC.
The Beneful Toxic Dog Food Class Action Lawsuit is Frank Lucido v. Nesltle Purina Petcare Company, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
UPDATE: On Nov. 17, 2016, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen granted summary judgment to Purina, rejecting testimony from the plaintiffs’ expert that suggested Beneful dog food was the direct cause of their dogs’ illnesses or deaths.
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448 thoughts onPurina Beneful Dog Food Kills Dogs, Class Action Says
i am feeding my chis beneful wet for small dogs annd purina 1 lamb and rice dry i read ingredients i dont recognize any of items in beneful dry should i just give it up and try different brand altogether beginning to the beneful dry killoo ed my service dog 3 yrs ago he was fine then one day he couldnt walk he was sick and had to euthanize him he was 14 and healthy plz respond soon
I have lost 2 dogs which am absolutely convinced it was from Purina Weight Control food. These incidents have severely affected my well being and find myself in a state of depression..Purina dog food have killed 2 of my dogs.
Bad stuff! How are they still selling this crap knowing it kills dogs!? I wish I had known before I fed it to my dogs. Now I have sick dogs vomiting and pooping blood! I’m so angry
I will never buy this product again!
I’m so sorry Jacqueline. I had a 2 year old chocolate lab that I am for certain it was this crappy food that killed her. Wanted to try a different food for her to help with her weight and within 1 week she was stuck in status epilepticus after having a large seizure and she couldn’t recover from it. I was heartbroken and so depressed from reading reviews from people about this food.
After starting my dogs on purina weight Management. One died for no apparent reason. A second has gone blind, and the rest aren’t far behind. Eyes are glazing over. Vet claims diabetes. But how can 8 dog’s develop diabetes at the same time? With a 7yr old passing out of the blue Pissed that my babies are going through this.
The stuff made my babies both sick my son thank god said it was the food. He told me nestle an purina are thee worst company for hurting people an animals. Id like to punch the owners in the face.
My dog Myla was 10yrs old when she died of kidney failure. I only fed her Beneful. If I known this food was poison I would of never fed her this food. I now feed my new dog natural food.
Same thing happened to my dog, in 2011. Literally the same thing.
Beneful killed him.
He had severe stomach/intestinal ulcers, one of which perforated. He also started going into liver failure.
He had been eating Beneful fairly consistently for about 8-9 months, and seemed fine, until one day he vomited some sort of strange looking slop, and didn’t seem to be quite his usual self — I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but something was off. I wasn’t overly worried yet at that point, but took him to vet just to be safe. They basically just told me to keep a very close eye on him, and to call them if anything else happened. A couple days later he was completely refusing food, was extremely lethargic, and had vomited once again. I took him straight to the vet for an emergency appointment. Over the course of just those few days between vet appointments, he’d lost almost 10lbs.
My vet was perplexed, took x-rays (which showed there “might” be “something” going on, possibly an intestinal blockage, but they were not sure) & more blood (showing ever more abnormal liver counts), and wanted to keep him overnight for IV fluids & possibly do exploratory surgery to investigate the possibility of an obstruction if he did not improve by the next morning. That night while he was at the vet, he suddenly started vomiting huge quantities of frothy foam & blood, and was rushed into emergency exploratory surgery. In surgery, the vets found what was described to me as “the worst GI ulcers they’d ever seen in a dog,” including one near the sphincter of the small intestine which had perforated. They were able to repair his perforated stomach & he made it through surgery…
However, he did not come out of the anesthesia well.
He was completely unresponsive following the surgery, even well after the anesthesia should’ve worn off. When they finally let me in to see him (36-48hrs post op) was the first time he showed any signs of real consciousness. He was so happy to see me…but when I had to leave, he screamed, and screamed, and screamed for me…the most horrible, distressed noises. It was deeply upsetting. But still, I left the vet w/ my hopes up a bit, because the vets said that since he was finally showing some signs of responsiveness, that he may possibly be able to make it through after all.
Unfortunately, about 20min later I received a call at work that my beloved dog had just spiked a severe fever out of nowhere & had seized, and there was no option but to euthanize him. My place of work was less than 10min away from the vet’s office, and they said they’d hold off on the euthanasia until I got there, so I could quickly say my goodbyes to him. I rushed over as quickly as I possibly could…but he had already passed, hardly a moment after I’d gotten off the phone w/ the vet tech.
He didn’t even make it to his 2nd birthday.
This whole tragic incident was incredibly heartbreaking & traumatic for me. I was just 17, and he was my first dog of my own. I had horrible nightmares for many months following.
The vets were extremely perplexed as to what exactly could’ve cause his symptoms… They offered some possible suggestions of things he could’ve gotten into, but all were infinitesimally remote if not complete impossibilities, and none of their possible theories matched up w/ causing both the liver & GI symptoms he’d suffered. Everyone was baffled.
It was only quite some time later that I started reading up on the numerous reports of Beneful dry food causing similar/the same issues in other dogs.
I still beat myself up & feel so much guilt for my ignorance in forcing my dog to eat that poison every day. To this day, nearly 6 years later, hardly a day goes by that I don’t feel wracked w/ guilt over the circumstances surrounding that painful end of my dog’s beautiful young life.
It’s my understanding that Beneful’s recipe has been changed in recent years — thank god! I hope no other dogs will ever have to go through what mind did. But I still try to do my best to spread the word about how dangerous this food can be, and how misleading their advertising is, to anyone who doesn’t yet know of the horrors that could result from it.
My sympathies to everyone here who has lost a dog due to feeding Beneful.
I had my Boston terrier on this food for years. He would randomly throw up every couple days, had blood in his stool and became lethargic. Now that I have switched his food we don’t have any of these issues. I wish I would have figured out sooner what the problem was, I never thought it would be the food I was giving him. Glad I figured it out before it killed him.
I used to feed Purina bentiful to my dogs my 6 yr old boxer and 2 yr old lab boxer mix both had renal failure and had to put them down within months apart. Was the most devistaing thing I had to do they were like my children. Now that I know the dog food I bought thinking it was going to be so healthy for them it makes me so angry. I miss my dogs so much I hope Purina pays for taking my healthy babies out of my life.
my goodness! I stumbled upon this article while reading about ready for ownership of another furbaby. I use to feed this to my Sheltie about 3 years ago, everytime I came home from work or early in the morning, she kept throwing this up on the floor. I finally had to change to chemical and grain free, no by products. No doubt this crap food made her sick. she ended up with renal failure and I had to put her to sleep 8-16
Our 6 year old Boston Terrier became ill on a Friday. Not eating or drinking for several days , became jaundiced so we took her to a vet , after lab test he said kidney and liver results “where off the charts” and stated to “take her home to die.” She had always and only ate beneful. She had to be feed using syringe for a week before she would eat on her own. We did some research and now we cook her food. No store bought food anymore. She is doing well now eating , drinking and back to her playful self.