disappointment

I was just visiting one of my favorite daily reads, The Daily Coyote and noticed in the twitter something about a dog injury from a Four Paws toy. And since I haven't written a ranty post lately I figured it was time! :P

I often am very disappointed in the quality of products, not just toys but food and care products as well, that are produced and sold for pets. One example I have personally is trying to purchase cat toys WITHOUT catnip. Morris can't handle it. He gets crazy and nasty and remains that way for hours. So I don't like to buy anything with catnip in it. Have you ever tried to find out what exactly is in the toys your are buying?? It is nearly impossible to discern what has catnip and what doesn't. And if you can actually find someone that works in the store, they have no idea if it does or doesn't.

Often it seems to me that many of the companies that make animal products don't really care very much about the impact of the product. If they did we would not have the dog and cat food that we have and we would not have lost thousands of pets last year to poisoning. We as consumers need to be more aware of how the products are made, what goes in them and whose products we purchase.

This big fellow, Chai, was playing with a Four Paws Pimple Ball with Bell and got the ball lodged on his tongue. The suction grew worse and his person dad could not remove it. He rushed Chai to the vet and ultimately Chai's tongue had to be amputated. As a result, he has created a blog about Chai to warn others about the balls because he was not receiving the response he wanted from the company. Here is a quote from his blog:

"I sent this information along with the reference to Petunia the french bulldog to Four Paws Inc, and it is their position that there just aren’t enough instances to do anything about this. I told their Insurance company’s case manager that was not a good enough excuse, It was inferred that my dogs value wasn’t much and that his pain and suffering don’t count as he is just a piece of property."

I know that many people who don't have pets or have never had one, don't necessarily understand a pet owner's point of view. Similarly, they don't understand the importance of a pet and the love, companionship and joy that they bring into our lives. But to knowingly keep a product on the shelves that has harmed several dogs and killed at least one, is immoral. If one person's child is harmed by a product, even if it is a result of negligence on the part of the person supervising a child, the product is recalled. We have !Caution! !Extremely HOT! on coffee cups and now get lukewarm "hot" beverages because some genius placed the coffee cup between her thighs, spilled it and sued McDonalds because she was burned.

According to the American Pet Products Manufacturing Association 63% of all households have pets which equates to approximately 69 million households. Within that, Americans have approximately 73 million dogs, 90 million cats, 139 million freshwater fish, 9 million saltwater fish, 16 million birds, 18 million small animals and 11 million reptiles. Like many things in this country, people are accepting status quo because they either don't realize they can make a difference or feel like they can't make an impact.

Please take time today to check the toys you have for your pets and remove any Four Paws products. It may seem extreme, but if one product is bad how can we trust that any of the other products aren't dangerous?