Talk about heartless

Dog owners PLEASE read. Or at least skip to the end. There's a dog toy that's killing dogs out there, and the maker refuses to recall it, so it's on the shelves and you may own it.

Somebody the other day called a friend of mine heartless because she had joked about a human's pain and problems. I was joking too. It was one of those "you have to laugh or you're going to cry" things, because this person was so stupid she was ruining her life. And I couldn't reach through the internet and save her. So I just had to laugh.

I can laugh at people, and I don't feel it's heartless at all. Because people have options. We're intelligent beings and we have choices. Most of the time when we hurt it is, at the very root of it, our fault. Our pain comes from the choices we make, most of the time. Even if we didn't realize the consequences when we chose. And even when somebody else has hurt us and it's not our fault, we are at least capable of understanding why.

Animals can't. They can't understand why they are in pain. And our pets don't have options and choices. We choose for them. We pick the food they eat, we pick the toys they play with, we pick the places they can go and the people they can meet. And so it's not really funny to me when one of them gets hurt. This story is particularly unfunny. Somebody's dog was hurt very badly, his life will never be the same again, and many others have been injured the same way, some even killed, by a pet toy. And instead of doing the right thing and recalling the toy, the company responsible has ignored the situation. Has even lied and claimed that Chai,the dog in that story, was the only one injured that way, when in fact he's one of who knows how many.

So if you have a dog, you're going to want to check all your dog toys. If there's anything made by the company "Four Paws", but especially a pimple ball throw it out now.

Edit: Because apparently this isn't clear enough. The "design flaw" that the blog is going on about (and which the company's press release calls a "manufacturing defect" WTF?) is a pre drilled hole in the ball. The dog didn't chew a hole in it, the ball came with one, single hole that honestly could not be better designed to create a vacuum. You could probably suction the thing on to you skin the way I used to do with the suction cups from snakebite kits. So any rubber ball with one single hole like that could be a danger to pets. But I'm not aware of any other maker that makes a ball with a hole in. (Honestly it's kind of weird.)

Also, to save you needing to read the comments, as of two days ago the balls have apparently been recalled. But I don't know how publicized the recall will be, or how long it will take them to be removed from pet store shelves. A google search turned up the product still shown as being for sale on the fourpaws site as the first result, so... (Here's the press release on the recall. It makes me eye Four Paws, given that they say it's a "defect" causing this, when it's a design feature of the ball, which has always been there. Tisk.)

Oh, and here is a story that shows the "design flaw" very clearly, so you can see the problem.

Clearing up confusion

I've edited my previous post about the dog toys, but I thought I'd post again just to make sure it's all clear. (And should make clear that I don't have any personal vendetta, and I'm not saying that dog owners shouldn't be reponsible for their pets, but, well... in my opinion the company here has been kind of scummy, and scummy or not the toys are dangerous, and people should be aware of the potential risk.)

Anyhow, clarification:

The hole in the ball was not chewed by the dog. It was pre drilled, a deliberate feature of the toy. As far as I know the toy was brand new at the time that this whole mess took place. (I can only assume it was to make the ball more "chewy" since it would allow it to be squished flat, where a sealed ball would have internal pressure keeping it round. Either that or the designers were crazed sadists, but that's unlikely.)

The toys have now been recalled. The press release says that the recall is due to a manufacturing defect. Since it's very obvious (especially if you have a look at this vet's account, though the vet himself doesn't seem to understand what happened) that the hole was a design feature, not a defet, this honestly is a HUGE strike against the company, that they would lie and invent an silly story about needing to send the VP to inspect the factory, rather than fess up to having poor design, and makes me more likely to believe the third point, which is...

The first report of a dog injured this way (badly enough that it had to be put down) was in 2005, and at that time the company promised the dog's owner that they would fix the "defect" but in fact did nothing at all.

Also, although the pimple ball has supposedly been recalled, it is still listed as being for sale on that very same Four Paws site. Hopefully this is just an oversight, but it's possible that it's not, and that the press release is really a PR smoke screen and a recall will not actually take place. Unlikely, I admit, but still possible. They've had two days to remove the product from their sales page. While I know that corporate web design can often go slowly, and removing the item and all traces of it without leaving broken links probably will take more time than they've had, simply replacing the sales text with a link to the recall page should be well within their abilities, and ought to be done, rather than leaving the sales page up with no indication that there's been a recall. Honestly how many of us look at a company's press releases? We just look at their products. If they were really as "deeply concerned" as they say they are, why have they missed the very website on which the press release was posted? (And once again I have to ask about this "defect" nonsense. The hole is very clearly a design feature, so wtf people?)

Oh, and several of their other toys, which have NOT been recalled, have this same "defect" ie. a single small hole in the side of a sealed rubber shape. So even if it's not a ball, I'd be wary of anything like that, were I a dog owner.

Hopefully all this clears up a few things.