sorry to hear. and IAMS i thought was adecent reliable food. the main dog only ate beneful. the dog in question was given to us by a friend (JUST LAST WEEK)who had retreived it from an abusive home. so that dog almost had twice the bad luck.
so i wonder what they do in cases like this?? i mean i did have an 85$ PET BILL. i wont do anything about it ,not needing the money that bad. but like your mothers cat, was this her only pet?? i know some people take it hard when they lose one. i would if dog one died ,but this one i hadnt had time to get attached to it really. dog one is like what your dog was to you.
My parents are the kind of people that take in every stray cat that wanders through their yard. They live out in the sticks and have a big yard so they've got 8 other cats that are "officially" theres and any number of hangers on that come around to eat and hang out. That's probably good in this situation--I was fortunate to have had another dog when my rottie died and it does make it easier to deal with.
My mom's not really thinking about it today, but she's going to consider her options after that. She probably dropped over a grand on the vet bills related to this--she had the cat in for a couple of days of tests when it first happened, and she'd been taking it in every day for the past two weeks to get fluids via IV. She's not one to go around suing people left and right, but she's thinking seriously about making an effort to at least get her vet bills covered in some way. She's meeting with her lawyer tomorrow and I'll let you know what they figure out.
I'd have to say that if my dog's death had been caused by something like bad pet food and not old age I would have tried to make *someone's* life a living hell legally. I'm not predisposed to suing people either, but if you do everything right and give your pet everything he needs to thrive including what you *think* is good food I'd certainly make a stink about it in some way or another.
You're right that Iams, NutraMax and Eukenuba have always been considered some of the better dog foods--unfortunately, as this incident underscores, a lot of that is just marketing. The same company produces the food for those brands also makes Fancy Cat which is what I fed my cat when I was dirt poor in college and didn't know any better.
Eagle Pack, which I posted the link to earlier, ain't much more expensive than Iams, etc. This incident definitely makes that extra buck or two a bag seem like a good investment...