High-end fresh dog food brand Years has issued a recall after receiving dozens of reports linking its meals to a painful eye condition in dogs.
The subscription-based business, which promotes tailored daily meals delivered straight to your door, sent an urgent update to its customer base at the start of the week warning that a specific ingredient in recent recipe batches might be behind the sudden spate of illnesses. With veterinary clinics seeing an unusual spike in dogs suffering from dry eye, the brand is scrambling to contain the issue while pet owners across the country check their freezers.
What’s actually happened so far?
Years, which markets itself around chef-prepared fresh meals, has urged owners to immediately stop feeding its products to any dog. By Sunday, it had received 57 suspected reports of dry eye linked to its food.
According to the company, the issue appears connected to buckwheat, an ingredient commonly used and generally considered safe in pet food, which features in a number of Years’ recipes. As of 16 August, the company said the problem appeared to have affected around 0.1% of its customer base.
One dog’s experience shows just how serious this can get.
One affected owner, based in north London, said his dog had developed eye problems after eating Years’ food for two and a half years, and estimated he’d already spent around £1,500 on vet bills and treatment. His spaniel cross had reportedly been in considerable pain, with her eyes appearing increasingly gunky before a vet was consulted.
She was initially diagnosed with a corneal abrasion, essentially a scratch on the eye that can happen when an irritant becomes lodged there. When two weeks of treatment brought no improvement, she was referred to a specialist, who diagnosed bilateral dry eye disease affecting both eyes. She’s now being treated twice daily with a steroid paste, alongside over-the-counter drops and a soothing gel.
Her owner stopped using Years’ food immediately after receiving Monday’s recall email, describing the situation as deeply unsettling given how unexplained the cause had been up until that point, and how distressing it is to watch a much-loved pet suffer.
This has hit particularly hard for Years’ loyal customers.
Part of what’s made this news so unwelcome for affected owners is the type of customer Years tends to attract in the first place. People generally choose fresh, subscription-based pet food specifically because they want to avoid cheaper, mass-produced options, believing fresh ingredients will benefit their pet’s health. Finding out the opposite may have happened has left a lot of customers reeling, and reconsidering assumptions they’d made about quality and safety.
How the company identified the problem
According to Years’ own website, the company started getting a wave of messages from worried pet owners in late July, all describing the same unusual problem: their dogs were suddenly coming down with severe dry eye in both eyes at once. By 1 August, the brand had kicked off a formal investigation alongside veterinary experts and its manufacturing teams to get to the bottom of what went wrong.
While the full product recall is already underway to stop any more contaminated or faulty batches reaching food bowls, the company has promised to share its complete findings as soon as testing wraps up. Until then, anyone whose dog has recently eaten the food and is showing signs of squinting, redness, or thick eye discharge is being told to head straight to the vet.
Symptoms owners are being told to watch for
Years has outlined a list of symptoms it wants customers to look out for in their dogs, including redness in the eyes, cloudiness, or dullness of the eyes, excessive blinking or squinting, pawing at the eyes, thick discharge around the eyes, or simply general discomfort or sensitivity in the eye area. Around 40,000 Years customers have been urged to contact their vet promptly if they spot any of these symptoms in their dog, and to specifically mention the recall when doing so.
What happens next for customers?
Subscriptions are being paused for an initial six-week period while Years reformulates its meals, replacing buckwheat with quinoa instead. The company has apologised for the worry and disruption caused, and says further updates will follow once its investigation is complete.
