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Lawsuit Testing Finds Dog DNA in Dog Food

The court documents of a lawsuit filed in April 2020 against Rachel Ray Nutrish Just 6 dog food includes DNA test results (“DNA content analysis” – Exhibit A) that confirms what many have feared about pet food for decades. Dog DNA was found in a “Rachel Ray Lamb Meal and Brown Rice Recipe Dog Food.”

Below is a photo of the DNA lab results – Exhibit A in the lawsuit.

The ingredients listed on the label for this dog food (excluding supplements) are: “Lamb Meal, Brown Rice, Ground Rice, Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Natural Pork Flavor“.

The lawsuit is founded on the Nutrish Pet Food’s claims of “Just 6” ingredients and due to lab results finding more than what the label claims – the lawsuit states Nutrish “breached its implied warranty of merchantability because Just 6 did in fact contain corn, wheat, soy, and beef, and therefore fails to function as a limited ingredient diet.”

Surprisingly, the lawsuit did not point out that the lab results also found horse and dog DNA.

Click Here to read the complaint and view the Exhibit A lab results.

The lawsuit also provided an image of a portion of the dog food bag – that includes “An express warranty, purported signed by Rachael Ray“.

The lawsuit also quotes a statement on the Nutrish website: “Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® demands the utmost in food safety and quality from our suppliers. We maintain rigorous testing to ensure ingredient and product safety.”

How did dog DNA end up in a lamb based dog food?

It is doubtful pet owners will get any sort of an explanation – however we intend to ask FDA for answers. When/if the FDA responds, it will be shared with pet owners.


Wishing you and your pet the best –

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food


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32 Comments

32 Comments

  1. Diane Ethridge

    January 28, 2022 at 1:16 pm

    When they went with Smucker’s, that was all it took for me! BYE, BYE, Rachael!

    • Concerned

      January 28, 2022 at 2:14 pm

      As of 2021, Ray boasted a net worth of $100 million and an annual salary of $25 million

    • Diana

      January 31, 2022 at 5:18 pm

      Same thing with Blue Buffalo. They got bought by Smuckers and quality went out the window. My dog used to love BB. Now he won’t even touch it. Something is terribly wrong when a jelly company decides to make pet food 🤔

      • Susan Thixton

        January 31, 2022 at 7:16 pm

        Blue Buffalo is owned by General Mills.

      • Linda Rock

        February 1, 2022 at 1:50 pm

        This is the reason I make home-cooked Neal’s for our dogs. It is the same as we eat. Except no spices. Veggies, meat, apples, brown rice. So good for them and no more brown tears for our white Malti-Poo

  2. Lynelle Behler

    January 28, 2022 at 1:25 pm

    Wow, that’s crazy. Never buying that dog food. Thanks for sharing.

  3. Kathy Cook

    January 28, 2022 at 1:48 pm

    Not only dogs,, but horse too… How very saddening,, I just wonder if Racheal actully feeds her furry babies her food?? there is alot of unnecessary ingredients in it ,, like corn – wheat- soybeans.. things that are not good for our babies…

    • Richard Stone

      February 1, 2022 at 5:31 pm

      Kathy, Prior to I believe 1960, most of the dog food sold was horse meat, it was canned, I used a can opener to open it, put a hole in the bottom lid and blew the meat out. We didn’t have the health problems in our pets as we do now. To be honest with you, I don’t think my dog ever went to the Vet. She’d follow me to school and on my paper route. I did get a message to take her home from school on more than one time

      • Spookywanluke

        May 27, 2023 at 6:39 am

        It’s not that horse is bad (back in Australia kangaroo used to be a common food, just like horse) it’s just not in the label, therefor should not be there!

        Now Trout/turkey say sick low amounts could be contamination from a prev batch… But dog and horse?!

  4. Concerned

    January 28, 2022 at 1:56 pm

    The J.M. Smucker Company

    Who owns and manufactures Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® pet food? The J.M. Smucker Company acquired Rachael Ray™ Nutrish® pet food from Ainsworth Pet Nutrition in April 2018.

  5. Christina

    January 28, 2022 at 2:23 pm

    How did so much cattle and deer appear in a dog food that isn’t supposed to contain it *scratches head*

  6. Jayne Healy

    January 28, 2022 at 2:29 pm

    I’m not surprised at this finding. We all know what happens to a lot of euthanized dogs and cats….right into the extruder. What does upset me more than anything is the misinformation and lying from people that we thought we could trust. I used to feed this food before I started to cook for my dog and thought I could trust it.

  7. Gloria

    January 28, 2022 at 2:40 pm

    I was aghast to read about the various ingredients found, although in trace amounts, in this so-called pet food, including a variety of animal and plant materials. It really makes one realize that there’s a lot of stuff out there that we’re feeding our pets that may be quite harmful to them.

  8. LM Kelly

    January 28, 2022 at 3:15 pm

    Disgusting but not surprised and what irritates me the most are those fraudulent advertisements on tv showing the beautiful vegetables and meat. What they should show on their commercials is the rendering facilities pushing the putrid and rotting flesh into piles!!

  9. T Allen

    January 28, 2022 at 3:15 pm

    Can you say, “rendering”? Thank goodness someone FINALLY filed a lawsuit and did the work to bring these issues to light! ERIN KIRCHENBERG is a hero to all pet owners and hopefully this will succeed in changing some policies and Gov regulations! Thank you Susan for all you did to make this happen as well!

  10. Susan

    January 28, 2022 at 3:32 pm

    This is disgusting, on so many levels.

  11. Andy

    January 28, 2022 at 3:54 pm

    Rachel Ray should change her marketing to state, “We Put the Dog in Dog Food.”

    • Deborah Hays

      January 29, 2022 at 12:14 am

      LOVE IT !!! I wonder if Rachel is even aware of this ?

    • Lynn

      January 29, 2022 at 12:14 pm

      Did they also test for euthanasia drugs like sodium pentobarbital?

      • Susan Thixton

        January 29, 2022 at 12:59 pm

        From information in the lawsuit complaint, it doesn’t appear they tested for pentobarbital.

    • Kate

      January 15, 2023 at 12:05 am

      Hahahaha!! Nice pun. I’d like to think that I am usually quick witted, and with a macabre sense of humor…. That line never even crossed my mind. Possibly I was too busy being disgusted. Thanks for the laugh, this article was beginning to get to me.

  12. Beth Marousek

    January 28, 2022 at 4:53 pm

    I sent this to a few other folks and my brother caught 2 things: beet pulp is supposed to be an ingredient and yet the lab shows zero beet DNA; since dogs are used as food in some foreign countries, like China, it’s possible that ingredients imported and used in Just 6 were processed on equipment that also processed dogs (and horses, etc.). I briefly looked at the Nutrish website and could not find info pertaining to sourcing ingredients.

    • Concerned

      January 28, 2022 at 5:30 pm

      You need to look at Smuckers as they are the manufacturer on what are they using for sources. And if you can not verify their sourcing, runway very fast from using that product.

      https://talkspetfood.aafco.org/ingredientstandards

      Safety and Utility Standards

      Any ingredient or additive used must have its nutritional or technical purpose established through a legally-recognized due process. An ingredient must be used within the limits of its established safety and utility.

  13. Judith guertin

    January 29, 2022 at 1:33 pm

    Never gave bought any RR products. I am repulsed. Glad she could use her products to buy a villa in Tuscany!

  14. Sarah

    January 29, 2022 at 4:27 pm

    Susan, shady manufacturers and suppliers do not care and turn a blind eye to the FACT that chicken feed includes ground up downer cattle, euthanized or slaughtered horses (despite horse slaughter “allegedly” not allowed in the US which puts suspicion on horse meat from Canadian or Mexican slaughterhouses, arguably WORSE) and pets including cats, dogs, small furries, and birds that have been killed for one reason or another usually via gas in high-kill shelters then the remains sold to meat “suppliers.” IMO this is even worse than the practice of slaughtering endangered species for human consumption in Africa and dismissing it as merely “bush meat.” The ONLY way to make sure your dog or cat is fed healthy food is to purchase carefully sourced ORGANIC meats, fruits, and vegetables and prepare the food yourself using information provided by qualified canine nutritionists – and be careful even of those there are a lot of frauds out there selling their “services” at an unholy price. There is a religious sect which is known for its widespread puppy milling and the dead dogs – used up mom dogs, mostly, and sick pups, are milled and used as fertilizer on fields growing fruits and vegetables then sold in farmers markets or to retailers. Having lost two dogs and two horses to cancer, a terrible experience to go through for them (and for me), I have learned to AVOID all commercial pet food no matter what the label says – figures lie and liars figure – and if one still believes the US government agencies which cannot even get PEOPLE food right, one really needs to start educating onesself.

    • Beth Marousek

      February 25, 2022 at 1:06 pm

      I assume you are referring to Amish people; I have no respect for them after living around them the past 20 years. One local man was arrested for his puppy mill, and he told my friend that having his dogs taken was not a big deal to him but what he did object to was outsiders walking onto his property. One of the little dogs was shown on the news: you literally could not tell the front from the back because the curly hair was so overgrown and matted. I’ve been in their barns, cows in stalls standing two feet taller than they should be because of the layers of manure and corn stalks they were standing on. Goats in the barn had dirt and a few corn stalks to lay on. A friend of mine who is good friends with the local Amish said that one of the farmers was so ignorant that after using black plastic on part of a field (a bad idea to start with), he plowed it in the next year.

  15. Jennifer

    January 30, 2022 at 6:55 pm

    Woww I feed this same exact Racheal Ray food. My daughter sent me this article and so glad she did, because I need to buy new food this week, and looks like I’ll have to a lot of research and find a new food for my Piper. This is disgusting and RR should be ashamed.

    • Linda Rock

      February 1, 2022 at 2:06 pm

      Hi we make home prepared food for our dogs. Just meat vegetables brown rice apples no salt or garlic. We could eat it but it’s bland. Research home cooked. Good luck

  16. Robert

    January 31, 2022 at 7:05 am

    0.008% is 0%. These tests are not perfect. Please use your critical thinking skills even if you are not a scientist like I am. This was also immediately dismissed because there is clearly nothing there.

    • Susan Thixton

      January 31, 2022 at 9:36 am

      Hi Robert – The scientist that performed the testing stated “Corn, Soy and Wheat are all detected at significant levels.” Wheat was found at “0.023%” with 99.99% accuracy. The amount of dog DNA is low, with an accuracy level of “99.95%” – BUT – if 0.023% Wheat is “significant”, how can you consider 0.008% zero?
      We have to suspect that the dog DNA was in the lamb meal (a rendered ingredient) which also appears to have been contaminated with multiple other species including horse at 0.012%. If you’ve ever seen images of rendering facilities (many Google Earth images are provided on this website), you’ll see multiple species of animals are processed.
      We also know that these results were based on this one single sample from one bag of dog food. A different sample from the same bag might have shown different results, and a different sample from a different bag might have shown different results. But…the results could go either way – lower levels of dog or horse DNA or higher levels.

    • Pamela Edwards

      February 2, 2022 at 3:20 pm

      Agreed!

  17. Booples

    February 1, 2022 at 10:26 pm

    Working in the pet industry in different stores and warehouses, private and public, dogs and cats are used in pet food. Not a large amount but meat meal is pretty much any animal. Meat meal in the US can legally be made from roadkill and it absolutely has been –
    look up “meat meal”.

    Rachael Ray food is made along with other brands on the same conveyors – brands that contain meat meal. You clean them as best you can, but there is a reason it is law to state that PEOPLE food may be made in the same facility that uses ingredients such as shellfish or peanuts. Producers of human food are under much stricter cleaning procedures as well yet people with extreme allergies to certain ingredients cannot eat food processed in a facility that also processes the allergen if if it’s some miniscule amount.

    Pet food is not under the same scrutiny.

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