Chicken Jerky Treats Update: FDA Documents Leaked

If you remember the post back in February entitled “Healthy Dog Treats or Poison in Disguise” I discussed discovering the FDA Consumer warning regarding the dog treats I had been feeding my pups since Christmas. It wasn’t regarding any specific brand or company but in general the chicken jerky treats that had been manufactured in China. I had two different brands of treats, some with chicken or duck and others were just yams—but all had been manufactured in China. All of the US companies that purchase and manufacture the jerky in China have stated that their products are safe and one in particular said that they “monitor manufacturing in china very closely”—but unless they have representaives in China at the food manfacturing plants I have a hard time believing that they really know what is going into their product. I believe this whole issue is why Costco discontinued stocking this product.
The last time I posted about this I received a comment from a small US business that makes their own “American Made” chicken jerky in Maine. I attempted to contact them via email thru the form on their site but I have not heard back (it’s possible there was an error). I was hoping to purchase a sample of their product to let my pups try it out and review on this site. I checked their site out and it looks pretty good. They state they purchase meat that they would eat themselves so that is ideal. www.tripomchews.com Anyway they have a lot of information about the FDA warnings as well as the leaked testing documents which I’m about to discuss.
TriPom’s posted a second comment on the last post regarding the new leaked FDA testing documents. I have yet to find an original online copy but it has been stated that the documents were verified by the FDA. This is a screen shot of the document—found on several websites. The 2012 testing was due to over 500 claims of sick pets after eating the treats. The number of claims from 2011 was at about 350 mid November but in three months the number had almost doubled to 596 claims as of March 2012.

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Metal Analysis will include testing for antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, cerium, chromium, cobalt, copper, gallium, gold, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, platinum, silver, tellurium, thallium, tin, uranium, vanadium, and zinc. All of which would cause renal failure symptoms—which is the main issue these pets are having.

The DNA analysis has a few people puzzled and Ariel Wulff of PetPardons.com states that perhaps the FDA is questioning that these treats are in fact truly made of chicken. That completely freaks me out but we will have to wait and see what the report says. Opinions from other animal advocates and pet nutrition advocates on this report can be found at Truthaboutpetfood.com and Petpardons.com. 

Also thanks to www.poisonedpets.com I was able to track down the video “Pet Food: A Dog’s Breakfast” which is a good albeit long video from a veternarian discussing what is actually in pet food. This documentary was blocked from airing in the US but did air in Canada, although I am no longer able to find the documentary on cbc.ca. Mollie has this video posted at the link below but I was also able to get the embed code from her because she rocks like that!

http://poisonedpets.com/2011/12/03/pet-food-a-dogs-breakfast-documentary-available-in-media-library-collection/

Truth About Pet Food Manufacturing…

Keep in mind that just because its made in USA doesn’t mean its safe (but I figure its probably safer) also you HAVE to read the ingredients. READ THE LABEL!!!

peace, love, & pawprints