Talk about heartless

[bladespark]

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.

Comments

[crystallinegirl.livejournal.com]

The pet supply store I work at refuses to carry any of Four Paws' toys. We carry their snacks, but none of their toys. We actually got a call from a blogger yesterday - she had seen on their web page they we carry their products - and told me about this. I, being fairly new, didn't know that we didn't carry their toys, but I told her I would be sure to tell my manager. Which I did, and she informed me we don't carry their toys. At all.

[maskusinc.livejournal.com]

OMG we have one of those pimple balls! I'm gonna get rid of it. Thanks for the warning!

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Snopes notes that the maker has, yesterday, issued a statement and a recall.

[anvikit.livejournal.com]

Poor dog, Unfortunatly accidents do happen.. The toy probably wasn't meant to have big chunks bitten off of it.. but dogs being dogs, that's what happens sometimes..

I've heard bad things about nylabones, dogs biting off chunks and then having them get stuck in their gutts.. and same with rawhide.. The intestines eventually start knotting over themselves, and the dog is in big trouble unless they are taken into the vet for surgery.. There have been many many cases, with the nylabone, But those are like the standard in dog chewing toys.. they still have no hazard warnings or anything.. just "recomended chew levels"

Owners really have to try to take more responsibility to check their dogs toys.. if they are cracked or well worn they need to be thrown out.. many owners fail to check though.. (Just like infants pacifiers.. if they look like they are more worse for wear torn or look like a piece can be dislodged you throw it out and get a new one.) Unfortunately most owners don't even think to check them..

But the company's don't seem to think the occurance is big enough or they just aren't regulated as well as childrens toys are to warrant the appropriate warnings.. You could bet though if it was a child that got hurt they'd be all over it!!.. I don't see why it's not the same with animals

[sulcharae.livejournal.com]

actually, the hole that sucked the dog's tongue in was pre-drilled. It came that way. :/

[anvikit.livejournal.com]

really? .. ouch!! Well someone above mentioned a recall, so I'm glad that something is actually being done about it.. probably a rare fluke, but still it doesn't need to happen again!

[harliquinnraver.livejournal.com]

*hugs* youre a wonderful person and friend.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this seems to have just now reached critical mass, as far as publicity and people knowing about it goes. I'm glad that there are stores who refuse to carry their stuff.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

*hugsback* Yeah, well, I try.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Ah, so I see. I had assumed that there had still been no recall, as I had found it readily for sale in several places when I went to find a photo of an undamaged ball. I guess it just hasn't been long enough yet for the stores to have pulled it.

[tsuyoto.livejournal.com]

photo taken of ball after vet cut away portions in order to dislodge chai's tongue

The chunks were torn off by the vet.

[feathery.livejournal.com]

There are no regulations for dog toys. There should be, in my not-so humble opinion, but there aren't. Some companies have their own internal regulations, but there are no federal ones.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, this is a major problem with all the big companies, I think. There are all sorts of completely dangerous and unnecessary items sold for birds. In particular, there are "mite protectors" sold to go on cages. It's horrible, because what they do is send out poison. It gets on the bird, on the bird's food, in the water, they breathe it, and birds are sensitive to a lot of chemicals. And the thing is, almost no indoor bird is going to have mites! Usually the only pet birds that even potentially have problems with mites (and they often don't even then, a lot of parasites are pretty species specific and you're not going to find many parrot parasites in the U.S. since we killed off our only native parrot decades ago) are those which are in outdoor flights.

Pisses me off, but the reason the stuff is available is because it sells, so education and not buying the dangerous products is so important. I'm glad you spread this info, because while I don't have a dog now, I will in 2-3 years, and it's good to know what to keep an eye out for danger in dog toys.

[wolfmare.livejournal.com]

I've always gone with the oddball option of toys both child and dog can play with. Or at least, I did, until I learned how quickly a soccer ball can be shredded...

Thankfully though, I can safely say *none* of the toys our dog has are from that company.

[khukuri.livejournal.com]

It's bad design that there wasn't holes in the ball, but... Iunno. All dog toys, and some treats, have the potential to hurt dogs, and the mantra for toys is "watch your dog with them; when they get damaged, bin them". Rope toys can cause gut blockages/intestinal harm/tounge swelling, rawhide and Greenie style treats have caused a fair amount of internal injuries, even Kongs have been responsible for quite a few injuries.

tl;dr: dogs can hurt themselves with anything and everything, it's just that this owner went to the trouble of making a blog about it.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Well, that's true as far as it goes, but unless the blog writer is lying through his teeth, the manufacturer was aware of the flaw in 2005, and had promised to change the design, and then did nothing, and then lied through their teeth and told the blogger they were the only one this had ever happened to.

I find that to be callous, and worth calling them out on.

Also, it was NOT that the ball was damaged. The ball had a pre-drilled hole. A brand-new ball would do this to a dog, so throwing it out once it's damaged wouldn't fix the problem. The photo of a damaged ball on the blog was taken after it had been cut away from the tongue, the damage was caused by cutting it off, there was no damage beforehand. The dog injured himself with the hole that the ball came with, not with a hole the dog itself chewed in the ball.

[coyoty.livejournal.com]

There was one hole in the ball, which created a vacuum that trapped the dog's tongue. If there were a second hole, there wouldn't have been a vacuum or a problem (unless the ball were also small enough to choke the dog, which is a problem with tennis balls).

Ironically, I remember playing with those balls years ago by squeezing them to create a vacuum so they'd hold onto my arm.