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I am a breeder and I love my little babies with all of my heart.
Not long ago, we nearly lost a small puppy because we fed toxic dog food to our pets. Since this particular letter concerns only chicken "jerky" type treats, I won't go into detail of this incident. But the experience made me very cautious. I have been extremely careful to select only foods and treats made with pure meat and other identifiable ingredients from U.S. sources.
Chicken jerky type treats were among our dogs' favorites. We loved to see our pets happy so we fed these jerky treats regularly.
One day, very suddenly, one of our pups became extremely lethargic. She was vomiting and had runny bowel movements. I was in a panic because she was acting much like the pup that nearly died from dog food poisoning!
I RUSHED her to the vet! My regular vet could not find the cause, except to say that her symptoms included severe dehydration and an extremely high white blood count and temperature. They had me rush her to the emergency facility (2 hours away).
More of Little Pink's story...click here to expand
When I arrived, I checked my sweet girl in and was hopeful that she would recover.
The doctors examined her and told me that she was very ill, and that they did not know if she would last the night but they would do everything they could for her.
By morning she was gone.
This beautiful girl went from an active, intelligent, curious pup to the Rainbow Bridge within a matter of 24 hours!
An autopsy did not indicate that she had any physical abnormalities and they could only speculate as to the cause.
I have no clinical proof that the chicken tenders caused her death...but I KNOW they did! Other pups in this litter were acting ill, and I immediately stopped feeding the treats and watched them carefully. I began giving antibiotics to the rest of the litter and they recovered.
I later discovered the TINY print on the package of chicken tenders, "made in China".
I have since read every single label on every chicken jerky type chicken product I find and, without exception, they are made in China!
I hope that consumers become aware and that through this awareness we are able to put pressure on the government powers that control this market. But what we really need to do is stop buying this poison!
It breaks my heart to watch ordinary dog owners leaving the stores, as we did, carrying these products that I now know are making our pets sick and killing the smallest and weakest of them!
These products are fairly new to the market, there is no telling the long term affect these toxins will have on the systems of our most innocent creatures. Even if we are lucky enough to see our pets survive this threat, it seems logical we can not introduce poisons into the renal systems of our pets and not expect serious effects later in their lives.
American consumers are being duped and lied to.
I hope that the consumers demand accountability from the stores profiting from these Chinese products.
Our government must be forced, by angry consumers, into enacting stringent testing protocols on Chinese products in order to protect our most beloved family members...our children and our pets!
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We will miss our little shadow so much. And I don’t know what my husband and I are going to do without our Lacie. You see, this evening we had to sit with our sweet little Lacie as our Vet had to put her down.
As a new Mommy and Daddy, we made the mistake of wanting to give our puppies top quality treats. We were told that Petsmart sold Smoke House Chicken Jerky treats, which were 100% chicken breast. So, we made the fatal mistake of buying a bag and giving them as a treat after dinner each night. Our precious puppies loved their special treats and got very excited when they saw us reach for the bag.
Soon after, both our Lacie and Misty became lethargic, and had problems with diarrhea and vomiting. The strangest thing was that they both became anorexic, in fact we had to force feed them their meals, but they would get excited when we offered them their treats.
Misty rallied when we quit giving her the poisonous treats, but our Lacie, though she tried with all her might, could not recover from the damage done to her little kidneys.
For four months, our Lacie faced the most horrific procedures to try to save her. Day after day, she would spend in our Vet’ clinic getting intravenous fluids. The whole staff at the clinic said she was such a sweet little patient, never complaining.
Lacie had no desire to eat. Every morning and night, my husband, Larry would patiently put little balls of food in her mouth and talk gently to her as he massaged her throat so that she would swallow her food. Never have I experienced a man with so much compassion and love.
Now as I sit here and ponder the sadness of these last five months, I can see that God had a greater plan. My plan was for Lacie to be a therapy dog, so that she could help the ill. But it was God’s plan for Lacie’s short lived life to be used to help not only sick, poisoned dogs, but also to help prevent dogs and their owners from going through the pain that our sweet Lacie and my husband and I have gone through.
A tribute to Lacie
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I had two dogs, and yes, they were/are the loves of my life. They loved the Smokehouse chicken jerky treats. I gave them to my dogs for several months, and they became very sick in July 2007. The ONLY thing different in their diet were these treats.
They became ill with diahrrea, and vomiting. They were not eating anything at all, and they both became dehydrated.
Elvis was a chihuahua, and Ellie is a Min Pin/Japenese Chin mix. When I fed them their chicken treats in the morning,I gave each one a treat, and little Elvis would gobble his up
and try to get hers.
They were so sick. I took them to the emergency vet, and they were treated for dehydration and released. I took them to my vet and told her what I suspected...that they were poisoned from the chicken treats.
more of Elvis and Ellie's story...click here to expand
They were both suffering from kidney failure and had to be taken to a emergency vet hospital in Annapolis, MD. They kept them on IVs for several days, and both of them lost 1/3 of their body weight. We were unable to save Elvis, and he died in August 2007. I took Ellie home to take care of her the best I could. At this point, she was very weak and could not even walk. She went from 10 lbs to 7 lbs. I ended up going to a holistic doctor and put her on kidney meds and omega 3 fish oil capsules, along with a vegetarian diet. We force-fed her for three months and finally got her back on track after a lot of hard work, prayer and hope. I could not have done this without the help of my sister. She gave me the strength and support to get thru this.
When I first took them to the Emergency Vet in Waldorf, MD, they told me that Elvis and Ellie probably had Giardia and they treated them for that. Then I took them to my vet, and she assumed the same thing, but they were not getting any better--just getting worse. I told both the vets that I knew it was the chicken treats because my dogs were wild about them, and that was the only thing it could be.
Once Bestro chicken jerky treats were removed from Walmart shelves, my vet finally realized that I was right. The problem was that we could not find the contaminant in the treats.
I had a pathology report done on Elvis after he died. It turned up nothing for melamine or cynuric acid (which I think is all they were looking for).
Kevin Morrow was my contact at the FDA. He took my initial phone call and never returned any of my further emails or phone calls.
I told my vet, and she called the FDA and spoke with Mr. Morrow. He told her that they tested 50 different treats for melamine and could find no contaminant.
The FDA said they needed to know what they are looking for in order to do any further testing and they just don't have the time or money to do this as they were overwhelmed with calls and understaffed. I will see if I can get the case number from them and have them inform the AMVA (but I doubt I will get a return phone call).
Also, since I had purchased several jars of the Smoke House chicken tender treats, I gave my vet one of the containers to have tested by the USDA Maryland State Vet. They said that they tested for 400 pesticides and toxins and could not find anything. It just doesn't make sense unless it was an uncontaminated batch that I gave them.
I have to say that the FDA is the hardest group to deal with. As of 8/09/2008,
when this story is entered on the website, I have yet to get my complaint number
from the FDA even though I have called several people at that federal agency.
I spent over $11,000 trying to save my dogs.
When we got to the Annapolis Emergency Hospital, they were both diagnosed with Fanconi Syndrome, but by that time Elvis has already gotten Pancreatitis. They tried to give him a blood transfusion because that might have helped save his life. But it didn't work. If the first vet had listened to me, I think we might have been able to save Elvis. I have moved on, and am very
thankful that I still have Ellie!!
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My dog Darby, a 5 yr old maltipoo, (10 lbs) nearly died in late 2007 from kidney damage caused by Smokehouse Chicken Jerky treats. She developed Fanconi's Syndrome, and received extensive care from our veterinarian. Although she is clinically better now, her blood values are still off, and she will be on medication for the rest of her life, as well as a special low-protein diet to reduce the burden on her kidneys.
I had been buying the Smokehouse treats from Petsmart for some time, back in 2007.
In September 2007, I went into my local Petsmart to purchase more treats, and to my surprise, the entire section on the shelf was empty. I asked a clerk what was going on. He told me that there were anecdotal reports of dogs becoming severely ill and dying from the treats.
Although it was not an official recall, they were pulling them from the shelf and putting them in the back, until they knew for sure.
Then, in November 2007, I went back into the store.The treats were back on the shelf. I purchased some at that time. Darby absolutely loved them, and it got to a point that she didn't want to eat any of her other food, just the jerky treats. Even then, I never fed her more than 1/2 treat at a time, 1-2 treats a day max. In about 3 weeks after that, is when Darby became completely anorexic and lethargic, and the rest is documented by our veterinarian.
More of Darby's story...click here to expand
At first, our veterinarian didn't think it was Fanconi's Syndrome, since it is normally seen in Basenjis, and outside that breed it is rare. After weeks of diagnosis by exclusion, she finally revealed it was in fact, Fanconi's, and caused by the Smokehouse treats. By then Darby was in dire straits, and was down to 7lbs 8oz in weight. She ended up spending several days at the vet getting IV fluids. There was one Saturday that the doctor didn't think she was going to make it. After a slow and uncertain recovery period, she started eating and is just now finally back to her normal weight.
Darby is now on daily Calcitriol, Sodium Bicarbonate, and Pepcid, and will remain on them for the rest of her life. Even with these medications, her blood levels are still not back to normal, and the vet doesn't know how this will affect Darby's lifespan.
After Darby was out of the woods, my veterinarian put her on a low protein diet and I went to Petsmart to purchase the food. While there I told one of the clerks what had happened to let her know they should take the product off the shelf because of what happened to Darby. She told me that when the dry dog food issue from China with the melamine poisoning took place, Petsmart contacted the dog food companies on behalf of the "Petsmart" dogs that got sick and their vet bills were reimbursed.
She went to get the manager so I could report this to him. He took my information and said he would report to customer service and I would be contacted by them. A few weeks later I was there again, and saw the manager who seemed surprised I didn't hear from anyone. He said he would report again, and I still didn't hear anything. I ended up calling Petsmart myself, got transferred to a voicemail and left a message.
To date I have not heard anything back from them. It is my opinion that they are not returning my call because they realize they are liable, since they knowingly put the treats back on the
shelf, and Darby got sick AFTER that.
Stories: 1 2 3 4
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We had fed our dogs Smokehouse dog treats for many months with no ill effects, so we did not suspect the dog food to be the culprit when Emma became suddenly ill with diarrhea, vomiting, and anorexia. Her veterinarian ran a number of tests. The results were puzzling, indicating a rare genetic disease, Fanconi syndrome, normally only found in Basenji's. Emma's vet consulted a local internal medicine specialist, who told her that she had seen three other cases in small dogs in our area that week. The common thread was jerky treats from China.
Emma slowly recovered after weeks of intravenous therapy and multiple medications. Her perky personality has returned, but her stamina is not the same. The veterinarian said that a full recovery could take six months.
Emma's story in the Longmont Times Call
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Stories: 1 2 3 4 |
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