Warning for dog owners

Dog treats manufactured in China

Anyone who follows my "Back Story" column on this blog is surely aware that my dog has been sick on-and-off for the past couple months. It started with her ingestion of a black walnut that she picked up in our backyard - and I still believe to this day that the naughty nut was the cause of her original illness. But since then she has been getting ill with similar but not exact symptoms every two weeks or so. I can assure you she has not eaten any more of the poisonous fruit. We did, however, suspect that she has been eating other nasty objects she has managed to sneak by us.

As it turns out, we may have been feeding the poison to her ourselves in the form of what are supposed to be dog treats. The US Food and Drug Administration has been getting complaints for several years about dogs being made sick and even dying from eating chicken jerky treats that are made in China. Back in November they issued a warning that lists symptoms exactly like those my dog has been exhibiting:

• decreased appetite;
• decreased activity;
• vomiting;
• diarrhea, sometimes with blood;
• increased water consumption; and/or
• increased urination.

I just became aware of this today from a post on Facebook by Yellow Springer Linda Rudawski, whose sister Holly Rudawski McCutcheon of Springfield has been active in trying to influence the FDA to do more and to get the word out to dog-owners, since her own dog was taken ill after eating chicken jerky treats made in China. She has been interviewed for several articles and is working with Senator Sherrod Brown to get faster action out of the FDA. (See article in Springfield News-Sun). The companies involved are some of the biggest names in the business. The FDA is powerless to force them to recall these poisonous products. Any recall will have to be voluntary. Meanwhile, I won't be feeding them to my dog anymore.

Items and articles of interest:

ABC News: Toxic Treats from China Killing US Dogs, say Pet Owners

Sen. Sherrod Brown Press Release

Food Safety News

MSNBC

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