This is a long-standing and sad story and many people believe that the authorities have been negligent or politically motivated in failing to step in to ban these products or at least investigate them further to protect America’s pet dogs and cats.
The health problem relates to tainted jerky. Petco are the first major pet retailer to ban the products. Will others follow?
U.S. Food and Drug Administration have reported that, over a 7 year period, more than 5,600 dogs and 24 cats became ill after eating jerky treats made in China. In fact, in addition, as at Jan 2013 there were a reported 501 dog deaths from eating this product.
The problem is that the authorities failed to find a definitive link between the product and illness. In Jan 2013, the New York State Department of Agriculture tests found some antibiotics in the jerky. This was not serious enough to ban the product but many were dismayed by the evidence of dog owners.
I welcome the decision of the Petco board and its CEO, Jim Myers. It took some guts to do it but well done. Petco have 1,300 stores. Jim Myers says:
“We know some pet parents are wary of dog and cat treats made in China, especially chicken jerky products, and we’ve heard their concerns…It has taken some time and careful thought to get to this point, but we’re proud to make the change and we believe our customers will be pleased with it as well.””
Petco have made a decision on cat and dog welfare not profit…or am I being naive? Perhaps the upside is excellent publicity for the company.
With well over 5,000 dogs becoming ill and over 500 deaths, on record, one wonders how many other dogs and cats have fallen ill without the cause being satisfactorily diagnosed? There are many idiopathic illnesses amongst pets and one of the causes may well have been this product over the past 7 years.
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I don’t buy anything made in China for my cats. People need to read the labels, although even that is deceiving because the food could be made in another country but with ingredients sourced from China. Unfortunately people trust the government to look out for them but sadly the laws for pet food allow a lot of things that are illegal for human food. Therefore I think what it comes down to is common sense to know that we should not give our pets anything that is not safe for a person. Does not matter if it’s legally allowed. The other point I would like to make is that the life of a cat or dog is not seen as valuable in money terms, so even if a company were to be held responsible for a dead animal all it would cost them is a mere pittance; the pet food industry does not have an incentive to actually protect pets from harmful ingredients. Talk about scary but we need to educate ourselves to protect our pets.
It’s about time!
We have been screaming about tainted products for years, and many people won’t buy China made products at all anymore.
And, I hope all retailers follow suit for all China made products.
Like Dw, my close friend lost a beautiful robust cat to the effects of treats from China.
I have a dear friend who lost their cat from China produced cat food. It was long and painful. Horrible. Good for PetCo. It doesn’t matter if they had an ulterior motive. They will attract new well informed customers I’m sure.
Totally agree. I am very happy that Petco took this decision. I regret to say that China has a poor reputation for quality in foods (including baby food) and animal welfare.
It’s a bit of good news that Petco have stopped selling those treats and we can only hope other pet retailers follow. It’s incredible that the authorities don’t stop the sale of suspicious products before more animals die from them, but as always, it’s about money!
I understand the loss of a pet to any pet owner under mysterious circumstances. I lost my 22 year old Alexandrine parakeet “Mittoo” mysteriously one morning.The parakeet didn’t show any signs of illness but was just found dead in his cage early morning on Monday(10-3-2014). My house has never been the same since his abrupt death and i am very careful with my two traditional Persian cats regarding their diet and health.Although my pets can never ever replace human company they still form the closest bond while i am at home engrossed as a blogger or pondering on various topics.What is the reason for the Chinese pet food being poisonous ? Has any analysis on the pet food been done and the causes identified beyond doubt ? I would never ever get over the thought that my pet died due to poisonous food purchased from a reputable company or shop.My sympathies to pet owners who lost their pets through “PETCO” food products imported from China .
Rudolph, I find this a very mysterious story and being rather cynical in my old age I tend to think that there is something odd going on in the background, perhaps something political.
Perhaps somebody in America does not want to upset the Chinese and as a result for 7 years the authorities in America have allowed the importation of this product despite a mass of anecdotal evidence that it is damaging to the health of pets.
The trouble is that, as far as I’m aware, there is no conclusive evidence on a scientific basis of a connection between this product and the ill-health of pets. That in itself is suspicious as a very large number of dogs have become ill after eating this product or have died.