PetCo Sells Dog Food That Expired 3 Years Ago

By October 19, 2007

Marc’s puppy is ill and he suspects the culprit is some expired dog food he bought at PetCo.

This past Tuesday my Yorkie Mason began throwing up, and not having the best appetite in the world. After throwing up 6 times in one day, we figured something was wrong with him, so of course we took him to the Doggie ER. They evaluated him, and said he may be dehydrated, and did some type of procedure on him. The next day, he was somewhat ok, but still not his normal playful self. He has now been under the vets care, and has spent two nights there under the vet’s watch. I called the vet last night and told him what I discovered: Expiration dates from 2004 on the Eukanuba canned dog food I purchased. Now, I purchased 5 cans of this dog food, and 2 of them have the 2004 expiration date. I don’t know if the other cans he has finished may have had this expiration date on it since I have thrown those away already.

Now, I really want to go to PETCO and punch someones face for this, but I’m really not the violent type, so I would love for you to give me some heads up on what to do!

Yikes. We’re obviously not experts on the health effects of expired pet food, but let’s assume that the food went bad and made your puppy ill. You’ll probably want to document everything and then contact PetCo to see what compensation they’ll offer you. It’s likely that they’ll just offer to replace the food, but you may be able to get a gift card or other compensation from them if you make a good case that the food injured your pet.

This story reminds us that people should still keep an eye out for both expired pet food and recalled pet food. Stores are much less vigilant about pet products than they are about food meant for people. Give a hug to the puppy for us, he’s adorable.

Has this happened to you or your pet? What did you do?

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Comments

  1. yorkierescuemama says:
    October 23, 2007 at 4:08 am

    I’m really glad Mason is home.

    I just had an experience at Petco a few days ago. I bought 2 cans of Propan can food, both had expiration dates of 9/2009, so, I figured it was good. I usually don’t use canned food, but, one of my dogs needed wet food for her proplan dry for a few days after her dental. I opened the first can, and it was MOLD! It was the most disgusting thing you could see. I threw it away; no way would I keep it in my house. Next one I opened; same thing, same expiration date. I had also purchased a bag of Proplan small breed dry food, expiration date 2/2009. I opened it, and it seems fine; yet, I am hesitant to use it after seeing the moldy food.

    I contacted proplan directly, and sent them my receipt. They said they would reimburse me for the canned food, but, since nothing looks “bad” in the dry food, they will give me another bag, but not my money.

    So, I’m not sure this was Petco. I think this was Proplan not being responsible with their canned food.

  2. skeleem_skalarm says:
    October 24, 2007 at 6:00 pm

    My pets’ vet told me years ago not to buy anything from PetCo that could expire, because if it wasn’t already expired, it soon would be. He’d had plenty of people come in to buy products from his office because what they’d bought at PetCo was expired when they got it.

  3. insider07 says:
    October 30, 2007 at 12:34 am

    I spend time in Petco and other retailers and I do find expired or soon to expire food products.

    Keep this in mind. When the shelves are stocked they often put the new product in front. The older product stays in the back. Then when the product gets low what’s left is the older product. Or someone finally ‘rotates’ the product while facing the shelves, pulling the products from the back to the front, but fails to check the dates.

    I myself just pulled a bunch of expired dry product from a retailers shelves this past week. It was only a few months past the expiration date, not years, but still should not have been available for purchase.

    Most of the food products have a shelf life of at least 1 year.

    Check the dates. Dry food products are easy, some of the wet products use a code. Visit the manufactures website to learn how to read it.

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