In June, a 10 year old labrador mix named Chai was playing with this toy when his tongue got stuck in the hole of the ball, leading to the amputation of his tongue. While chewing on the toy, a vacuum was created which sucked his tongue into the hole of the ball. This occurred because there is not a second hole in the ball preventing the vacuum effect from happening. Chai is recovering slowly. He is learning how to eat and drink again and is finally free of pain. Chai's owner has started a blog called The Chai Story to raise awareness about this dangerous toy. It seems Chai is not the only dog to have suffered at the hands of this poor design. Another dog, Coley, died after such a vacuum occurred in 2005. Coley's owner wrote countless letters asking for Four Paws to change the design, but was assured this was just a freak accident. Now, he is devastated that this has happened again to another dog. I have read that there are at least 13 dogs who have suffered injury from this poorly designed toy which is manufactured by Four Paws in the US.
10 comments:
Great post...I detest any soft rubber toys that allow the animal to eat the rubber too. I hope the toys you posted about get recalled soon!
So many things are dangerous to dogs and people don't realize it. My vet told me he is always operating on dogs to take rawhide from their insides as it often becomes impacted there so I stopped buying it for my dog.
The comment above was me Eurodog. I'm wearing too many hats.
Chocolate, hollow balls, such are the hazards for our canine friends. A dog visited me the other day and I was serving afternoon tea in the garden to its owners. The dog was on somebody's lap. Meanwhile the chocolate biscuits were melting on a rare sunny day so I moved them into the shade, on the ground. My friend later saw the dog chewing something and called her over when I suddenly realised that she'd been scoffing the chocolate biscuits and remembered your post. Fortunately she survived.
I've just visited the blog. That's an awful thing to happen. I guess, if the manufacturer won't change their design, it's a good idea to raise awareness to dog owners to get them to buy alternative balls.
How awful. There ought to be some watchdog (pardon the pun)looking out for products that endanger animals.
I never thought a dog toy can be so dangerous. Thanks for raising awareness by this post. I also posted an article on our blog www.europuppyblog.com
It's a disgrace that they are still being sold.
CJ xx
Thanks for posting this Michele and spreading the word. I recently updated my post to include the info that Four Paws has stopped shipping this toy but they have not officially recalled it. So word of mouth (blog) is still the best way to raise awareness about it.
http://dreamdogsart.typepad.com/art/2008/09/danngerous-dog-toy-rough-rugged-by-four-paws.html
Thank you all for commenting.
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