Ivory Coat

Fed half a can of the grain free lamb and kangaroo stew to my 2 dogs last week. 1 ended up in hospital for 5 days, the other unaffected. Have received a refund from supplier and am about to email Ivory Coat to complain.My vet bill was 10,000 – she almost died. Very concenrining that this could happen.

OMG… so glad I did a search tonight! I was wondering why my fur baby was lethargic and constantly licking his lips today. 
I have been gradually introducing Ivory Coat grain free salmon and ocean fish for my 10 year-old boy over the past week. It’s now around a 25:50 mixture (1/4 Ivory Coat to 3/4 Hills Science chicken. 
He’s never had an accident before tonight. 
I had to go out for a couple of hours. I returned to a very smelly house with diarrhoea patches in 4 different places around the house – all are carpeted areas. 
During his daily walk in the park today, I did notice his poop to be runny for the first time ever. His poop is usually solid with barely any odour. 
Luckily, I had a brand new bottle of enzymatic cleaner for dog urine, vomit, and faeces. I spent some 2 hours cleaning it all up. The stuff really works and got rid of the mess and the smell. 

My pet shop has a 100% refund policy for all the foods they sell for up to a month. They’re getting this 3/4 full bag of “poison” back first thing tomorrow to be followed by a visit to the vet in the same building. 
I am reporting this to Ivory Coat using the link…
I’m now very, very worried.

My two dog have been reluctant to eat so we bought a new bag thinking something might’ve been wrong with the other bag and the dogs are vomiting after eating. We are no longer feeding them it.

Fed my kittens half of one pouch each mixed with their regular wet food. One of my two kittens passed 17 runny stools since. Vomited 4 times, is lethargic and has rejected multiple meals. The few bites she’s had came right back up. Very confusing as an owner how one of two cats can have such an adverse reaction whilst the other cat is completely healthy. I wish I was aware of the chance/risk I was taking by trying this brand. I’ve taken her to the vet hospital to get her vitals checked, her vitals are normal. It’s caused my kitten a lot of discomfort and pain. I’ll stick to the brands I trust and would never recommend to others taking the same risk with this brand. Given that there are so many other reports of the exact same symptoms and worse.

Have been using ivory coat kangaroo/lamb for a few years now. Bags I most recently purchased have an expiry date 06/09/2026.

Once dog recently lost 7kg in a very short period, has not been eating much for a while now and has had liquid diarrhoea and vomiting for the last 5 days. I am waiting on blood test results taken today.

The other showed elevated liver levels as part of routine bloods taken prior to a teeth clean and also required an ultrasound which showed no abnormal visual. She has not been eating much of the new kibble size and has been vomiting a few times a week.

I have spent around $1000.00 on vet fees recently and have only just come to the realisation the food could be part of it.

I would strongly recommend NOT using this brand of food. I have been feeding my cats ivory coat chicken flavour adult dry food for the past 6months. Both of my cats have been hospitalised with one requiring surgery for a urinary tract blockage. Absolutely heart breaking to see my cats suffering and I would never want to see this happen to anyone else.

Just feed my whippet Lamb & Brown Rice Loaf puppy food for the first time. She became very restless and started vomiting. She was sick for 2 days.
Have gone back to other brand with no problems.

moved to Ivory coat 5 weeks ago. Dog ate happily but 3 episodes of vomiting and latest one had frank blood in stools. I am restricting all foods to narrow down cause but Ivory Coat seems to be a common factor. one episode of gastritis many years ago . This kibble has been recommended by friends and breeder but it would be the only new diet addition/change.

My dog had been having issues on and off for a while, putting it down to sensitive gut health. A couple months ago he had blood in his stools, but we resolved with medication. More recently he went off of his food completely, including the chicken breast he eats alongside his ivorycoat. In an attempt to get him to eat again I ordered him some Lyka. It took a few days to get him to want to eat it but once he did I noticed his poos were the most well formed they have been for years.

Still not registering that ivory coat could be the issue, he began eating his ivory coat in conjunction with the Lyka and now a couple of days of ivory coat he has diarrhoea again. After reading some stories on here they seem to show all the same symptoms my dog has been and I can’t believe I’ve had no alerts to this from my vet that’s been dealing with this issue for some time. Needless to say he won’t be eating ivory coat ever again

My 1 year old staffy become extremely ill about 2 weeks ago. Severe diarreah and vomiting, fatigued and dehydrated. Has been at SASH emergency for most of this time on fluids to keep her hydrated. It has cost me so far $15,000 in vet bills with every test possible done on her from 2 X-rays, 1 ultrasound, PCRs, bloodwork, Addison disease testing and more. She comes home after 2 days in vet care and seems ok but then relapses. All tests came back negative and still no answers, she is now being referred to a medical specialist and is in SASH again for a few days due to her dehydration.

She has been on Lyka for some time as her main source of food however I generally give her half a cup of ivory coat biscuits as they are the only form of kibble she likes and she sometimes nibbles on them if she is hungry in between feeds.

I have just realised that 4 weeks ago I purchased another bag of ivory coat as we ran out, I opened this bag 3 weeks ago and she become ill not long after this.

Whilst she is on a bland boiled chicken diet for now she has still eaten some kibble the past few days when she was back home with us, this morning she relapsed again.

I have never seen diarreah like this, it constantly runs from her and no medication has helped to slow it down for more than 1 day.

I honestly believe that after reading all of these reviews and the fact that I have no answers on why my girl is so sick that it is due to the bag of ivory coat being contaminated and I plan to have a test done on the food.

Not good enough that a recall on their food hasn’t occurred recently, it is making dogs so sick.

I threw a nearly full bag into the bin. With so many bad reviews here and on other sites of similar nature, we believe this dry food might be responsible for vomiting, with blood, loose stools, lethargy, loss of appetite which had been really good before feeding our cat this food.
It looks, judging from a lot of reviews, that Ivory Coat was a good, healthy brand till they changed packaging and seemingly the formula. Cat or dog food, we would advise people to stay away from it. Strangely enough, we went to pet barn to buy another brand but were convinced by the sales person to buy this one. Later we noticed that it only had barely a couple of months till expiry which is bad enough. We hope, pet barn will look into this health concern that so many cat and dog owners have reported on, on various sites.in fact, Ivory Coat should take this seriously and not just.write apologetic comments under negative reviews. They should recall their products till these sad reports have been thoroughly investigated.

Our soon to be 7 year old cocker spaniel has eaten Ivory Coat since a puppy. Always done well on this with a beautiful coat and lots of energy BUT I believe the last bag purchased at Petbarn Minchinbury early Jan 2024 (chicken Grain Free) has caused a problem. Because of the heat in Western Sydney, we thought he was just relaxing inside a lot however, he didn’t do his usual run to the kitchen when “Breakfast” called, at dinner time he is hiding under the table, refusing to catch a bickie and has stopped bounding out the door on the “let’s eat” comand. Two days ago he threw up green bile (we thought he had eaten something he had picked up in the yard) then yesterday loose stools in the yard but last night woken by him at 4am desperate to go outside – unfortunately he couldn’t wait and had gone in the loungeroom. Will stop feeding from this bag and give some boiled rice & chicken till vet opens Monday morning. After paying top price all these years I am extremley disappointed at the obvious problen with this product.

Thank you for posting. My 16yo maltese shih tzu had the shakes, I put it down to old age. Was random and brief but intermittent. After reading this I was shocked. She has been on wellness core for 10 years no problems but I added ivory coat wet food to mix in, about a year ago. The shakes I realised appeared about the same time. I removed ivory coat from her diet after reading this and she has not had the shakes since.. now I’m mixing her wellness core with a freeze dried food like k9 and frontier pets with no further problems. So grateful for your posts about this or I may not have put two and two together.

We got a new bag of Ivory Coat Grain Free – 10 month old golden after a day or so started having uncontrollable diarrhoea with no other explanation for it.

Been feeding my Beagle Ivory Coat for over 4 Years now, Lamb and Sardine, tried the Salmon one a few months ago . After I reading the reviews I know realise what is wrong with him. Over the last 6 months noticed that he has been very thirsty, diarrhoea, shedding etc. Cant believe it could be his food!
I have brought this brand because I was recommended it by the pet store (Petbarn) as a high end good quality food. I am really angry that something isn’t being done about it. So glad I stumbled onto this site.
Just ordered him new food, poor boy can’t believe I have been pitting him through this!!!!

We have been feeding our puppy 50/50 Ziwi and Ivory Coat. Puppy loved Ziwi but found it was too expensive on its own so tried to lower the cost a little. He started getting a upset stomach, watery stools even after months of being on the diet and then eventually stopped eating. Vet said he was being fussy and to try and limit access to food until he ate again.
Once finally eating again upset stomach continued on and off, I thought there might be a chance he had a chicken allergy although his previous kibble was chicken and he was fine eating that with no stomach issues.

Our puppy then had an accident which caused him to have bloat, so he was put on a bland chicken diet while he recovered due to the fact he was still having watery stools before the accident. I was still concerned about a chicken allergy as his stomach was not getting better so we switched to kangaroo meat. After another week of no progress, we sent off a stool sample which has come back positive for salmonella.

I obviously can’t say for sure that the salmonella did not come from the boiled chicken we were feeding him, however we were also sharing the boiled chicken he was eating as we were using it as pizza toppings and in sandwiches etc, so it seems unlikely that the salmonella has come from what we have cooked (although not impossible) as we have not been sick.

Now he is on antibiotics and is getting better the vet has asked we reintroduce his kibble with his kangaroo for a more balanced diet. He has been having small amounts of his kibble for 2-3 days now and has started vomiting and drinking excessive amounts of water compared to usual.

I once again can’t rule out for certain that it isn’t the antibiotics causing the vomiting. But ironically the only food he threw back up was the Ivory Coat Kibble, none of the kangaroo meat or Ziwi so seems a little bit odd to me.

And it still leaves the question of where the Salmonella came from.

Would be interested to know if any other dogs have had stool samples sent off and found any salmonella after eating Ivory Coat.

I just lost my beautiful 8yo boy, and I suspect Ivory Coat was the cause.

He has been fed Ivory Coat for 7 years, and was completely healthy, happy, and active up until a year ago.

He too became sick with pancreatitis in December 2021. No one could figure out the cause. We nearly lost him then. A healthy 8yo lab x staffy.

He had two further milder versions of pancreatitis in 2022. And then a couple of weeks ago, he suddenly started losing weight, despite still eating. I made an appointment for him to see the vet, and ended up taking him in earlier when he went off his food. He too was drinking and weeing a lot.

Vets initially diagnosed diabetic ketoacidosis (insulin dependent diabetes). I was relieved, as I am a medical professional, and was comfortable with administering insulin and monitoring him etc.

Then the insulin stopped working. They changed to an insulin infusion. It worked for a day, and then stopped working again.

Vets ended up suspecting underlying Cushing’s Disease. They took the blood for a synacthen test, but he passed away before we got the results or could institute treatment.

Cushing’s Disease is very closely linked with both pancreatitis and diabetes. Cushing’s Disease is a disorder of the adrenal glands in which they release too much cortisol steroid hormone. This can lead to pancreatitis, and it can lead to insulin resistance.

If the new formulation of Ivory Coat is coming from questionable sources, they could have high levels of steroid in them, which is a primary cause of Cushing’s Disease.

I can’t believe I have been poisoning my baby boy, and now he is gone.

These products and the company behind them need to go!!! Nothing is worth losing an animal like that. He should have lived at least another 5 to 8 years.

Do NOT feed your animals Ivory Coat, or anything from the same (new) manufacturer.

Ivory coat meat sachets for cats. Cat has been at the vets blood in poo. Unwell, sad, 600$ plus. Avoid this food at all costs

I’m horrified – I’ve been using Ivory Coat for 5 years, mixing the flavours. Every now and then, towards the end of the bag, my Rhodesian Ridgeback would get ill with vomiting and diarrhoea. I put it down to the product oxidising so have been throwing out the last 20%, which gets quite expensive. Will be switching to another product straight away.

I moved my cat to Ivory earlier this year, a couple of month ago she had blood in her stool… she went to the vet for this. I wasn’t aware there was a suspected link?!

Our gorgeous groodle puppy has had two seperate incidents where thIs ivory coat brand had caused him extreme upset and I’m so annoyed I went back to it in a different flavour. Extreme diarrhoea and distress with larger puppy breed biscuits. Home cooked rice, chicken and vegetables did the trick and our happy boy was back. I tried to reintroduce these past two weeks regular puppy chicken flavour and he drunk so much water he had become possessed and nature had changed and so unsettled. Because I was mixing his food with homecooked meals and bowels seemed okay I didn’t put two and two together and raced him to the vet. Literally drinking litres of water. Bloods showed imbalance of electrolytes and they thought he may have diabetes insipidus. We were shattered. After racking my brain I worked out it’s the dam biscuits. We’ve stopped and day one of not giving them he is already better. Back to his normal happy self. My gosh what a relief. Please pass on our story.

Brought this wet food for my cats opened on packet smelt worse than the sewage plants I used to work on. Can’t get rid of the smell

Our 12 year old dog has become really sick after we started him in Ivory Coat for mature adult dogs a few says ago – he has been vomiting for 4 days and very lethargic. Quite unwell. The only thing different is the dog food . We googled it and found all of these reviews – similar symptoms. Now costing us vet bills. He has always been a happy healthy dog who is very active and we noticed the change within a day .I would never but this product again .

I used to feed my dog optimum grain free dry food but he went off it and so I thought ivory coat was a good brand and put him on the chicken ivory coat dry food. I shouldn’t have. My dog ended up having to be put down, I didn’t think it had anything to do with his food but now I’m not so sure after reading everyone’s stories. He started vomiting a lot, had severe diarrhoea and was severely dehydrated, and then he stopped eating. I took him to the vet and his kidneys were failing, now I don’t know and I’m not sure I will ever know if it was a direct cause of feeding him ivory coat but a happy; healthy 5 year old dog turned into an unhappy, ill and dying dog not long after I switched his food.

I adopted a cat in May last year. We were advised that Ivory coat would be a great food for our cat. She was very picky with foods and we had at the point of purchasing Ivory coat tried out many different foods. The only one she seemed to like, was the sea food from Ivory coat, The first bag was fine, but then after purchasing the second bag, she started to vomit several times per week.

Before xmas, I had taken her to the vet 4 times between june – dec 2021, they ended up taking bloods, but they could not identify the exact reason as to WHY she was vomiting, but she was missing important nutrients, that was otherwise supposed to be provided in the food.

Her coat started to look like she was sick. She stopped playing and we were quite concerned with her health.
I made a notice of that the food she was vomiting up was NOT broken down. This led me to take a small portion of her dry food, pour hot water over it and wait for it to disintegrate. This did not happen within the first 20 minutes, as you would expect from a zoo keeper point of view, nor did it disintegrate over night.

This made me quite concerned and I reached out to Ivory coat, my vet and to my local pet shop. I immediately stopped using Ivory coat and changed to other foods.

Ivory coat was very disinterested in that their products weren’t breaking down and told me that hot water wasn’t stomach acid. I advised her that I have a zookeeping degree and forensic science degree and no matter what, the foods should have softened up and broken down. The lady I spoke to did not care.

The vet and the pet shop was very supportive and advised to stop the food immediately.

The pet shop also did the hot water experiment and they checked the food daily, but it didnt soften up after a week. Needless to say, they never advise people to purchase Ivory coat.

Luckily, our little girl is still alive.

We lost our Border Collie Marley in April 2021. Ivory Coat was her main source of food. We thought she had got a bout of gastro and placed her on antibiotics. She lost her appetite (this had built up over a month or two of eating less / leaving her pellets), but drinking loads of water, she was also more lethargic – slowing down on her walks and not playing as much at home. She had black bloody stools on and off and ended up at an emergency vet. They tested for cancer and autoimmune diseases and couldn’t find anything. Meanwhile her body was slowly shutting down and she got weaker and weaker. We lost her at 6 years old. It wasn’t until I was alerted to articles circulating about Ivory Coat that this all started falling into place. I read the articles below and all present with very similar symptoms. Given the vets found NO indication of serious illness I can’t help but conclude that you poisoned my dog to death. I will NEVER feed a dog over processed s….t like this again.

My 6 months old poodle is normal healthy and active until I start feeding him Ivory Coat Chicken for grain free for puppies recommended by a Pet Stock staff. He has diaorhea and watery stool 3 or 4 times at one sitting after feeding. His upset tummy also messes up his toilet training. He has no previous issues with Advance chicken puppy food. I’ll definitely stop feeding him with Ivory Coat.

In January 2022, my very healthy and spritely 13 year old kelpie cross suddenly had severe and explosive bloody gastro, vomiting and collapsed with lethargy after she ate from a new bag of Ivory Coat ocean fish and salmon. She was in hospital for 3 days with the worst gastro the vet had seen in a long time and had to have a rectal foley inserted for 3 days. My 8 year dog also had some mild diarrhoea but he’s younger and maybe has a better immune system. They’d always been on Ivory Coat so it wasn’t a case of transitioning from one food to another.

The vet’s assessment read: “…presented in compensated hypovolaemic shock with differentials including pancreatitis, severe gastroenteritis, neoplasia, anaphylaxis and others”. Her faecal results were positive for CLOSTRIDIUM PERFINGENS – a bacteria caused by toxins in contaminated foods. The vet sent me lots of information about this bacteria! Everyone should know about this.

Aside from the Ivory Coat biscuits, my dogs always eat very natural healthy diets. I went back and told the City Farmers shop manager about what had happened and returned the unopened bag and she was very concerned as she always recommends this brand to customers. I no longer had the bag of the suspect biscuits and couldn’t give her the batch number. She was going to notify head office anyway but obviously, nothing happened from there. I got a refund for the unopened bag.

After 3 days under intensive care at the emergency vet, my old girl came home but it took double courses of antibiotics for her to finally recover and a very strict diet. She was very lucky.

The emergency vet took a small sample bag from me of the biscuits as she said there was another vet there that would be interested in testing it out. However, when I checked back, nobody knew anything about it and that was that. Very disappointing.

Why on earth isn’t there a recall on Ivory Coat with so many similar instances of poisoning?! I will now never buy any product manufactured by the Real Pet Food Co.

My whippet ended up very sick, unfortunately it was a couple of vet visits before we realised it was his food. We went ahead with treatments and an investigative surgery which cost a lot. Once the food was eliminated he returned to normal. Symptoms included unexplained lethargy, vomiting, diahorrea, gunky eyes, inability to move very far, sore stomach (would yelp when touched), no interest in food or water. We feel very lucky that he has survived this experience but feel he came very close to passing. Total nights at the vet were 6 for all the occasions he was sick.

Sept 2020 our guy ended up very sick, explosive from both ends, lethargic, wobbly and not his lab self. Even refusing to eat biscuits!! started from new bag, stopped feeding and gave limited diet, slowly improved, tried a small amount a week later and explosive again. Poor guy was very ill, really bad gastro like symptoms. Nothing else was given, vet agreed it was the food, thankfully no further illness. The biscuits didn’t smell right and a different colour to usual. IC Ocean fish 13kg.
Had fed Ivory Coat for years without issue, unfortunate as was great, especially for allergies. The violent reaction to even a few biscuits is not worth our dogs health/life.
Spoke to Real Pet Food Company, apparently they tested batch and no issues found, offered a new bag (didn’t take). Pet Barn refunded.

My boy started with excessive wind and looked unwell. It quickly progressed to frequent vomiting and bloody diahhorrea. His back legs were wobbly & shaking. He deteriorated rapidly, became paralysed and died a cruel and torturous death. My other dog had the same symptoms but she survived. The vet said she had elevated liver enzymes on her blood test. For anyone reading this, I urge you to share the link to help with public awareness. It will save lives. 

Low fat turkey 
May 2020 

I became suspicious of Ivory Coat Seniors Low Fat dried food after opening a new bag (exp Aug 22). During feeding the Ivory Coat bag before this one (exp Feb 22) I noticed low level gastric issues, lethargy and lack of interest in food. With the new bag it was exacerbated. The week that she ate from that batch she drank frequently, urinated frequently, gagged after eating and more often, passed wind, stools were very soft and mucus was present. I spoke to vet, gave cooked chicken and rice and slowly introduced another brand of food. The tummy issues went away, she stopped the gagging, happily ate the new dried food and was more energetic.