[DawnMTL]

Chicken jerky is Artie's most favorite treat. He gets 3-4 per day. Artie has a princess stomach, not a stomach of steel. EVERYTHING makes his stomach go wonky. But he never had a problem with chicken jerky.

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by gizmo980

I am still frustrated, though, since it seems like a new brand is deemed "dangerous" every week! Pretty soon there will be nothing left to feed our pets, ya know? Just don't tell me that rodents are bad for snakes, or I'll REALLY have a problem on my hands.

This happens because many folks do not understand the pet food insurty. They assume the industry is similar to human food so they use human food issues just like pet food.

Imagine if a national big brnd company that makes cola softdrink had a recall. Everyone knows that big major brand A has nothing to do with big major brand B, so they don;t look at cola as bad just the brand that had the recall. But pet food isn;t like that. There are few major self contained brands. Most comes in bulk processed or packaged form that is blended at the brand name manufacture. It would be as if every cola flavored softdrink got their cola flavor from the same or same group of factories that sold it to a consolidator who batched them together and sold the flavoring to all the manufactures.

These chicken jerkies aren;t all from the same factories and some of the factories have never had any problems with their product. But since packagers may buy from whom ever has availability, 32 weeks a year you get great product, 2 weeks its from a suspect spurce, and 17 weeks back to no problem. But those 2 weeks means that going forward everyone is going to syuspect that packager of selling all bad ingredients.

So a treat that never had any probelms may have a problem in a small batch (maybe to small to have leftover samples for testing) and never have any problem again. Someone who happened to get the bad treat says the whole lot is bad (and its repeated over and over until it becomes everyone's truth) when it was a rare isolated issue. What makes it worst is because so much comingling occurs, a person switched from the one time bad food and starts using another brand that has the bad product in it. What they don't knwo is what they switched from is now the safest of them. But once the negative starts, its hard to stop.

[leanansidhex]

Originally Posted by leanansidhex

Dated July 2011, from an actual veterinarian, Jerky treats for dogs still suspected in illness - VIN
be sure to click on the chart to the right, or here is the link, http://news.vin.com/apputil/image/ha...?imgid=1593501
the dates of reported incidents are current.

Thing is: there have been problems concerning these type treats since, at least, 2007, when some big retailers quietly pulled them off the shelves, only to begin selling them again.

The problems, and posts from grieving dog owners continue unabated as recently as this month, October 2011.

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by leanansidhex

Thing is: there have been problems concerning these type treats since, at least, 2007, when some big retailers quietly pulled them off the shelves, only to begin selling them again.

The problems, and posts from grieving dog owners continue unabated as recently as this month, October 2011.

and until the manufactures become the packagers, this will continue forever. This is a hard one to control because unlike most end user pet products, the manufacture of the jerky isn;t the ones selling it. The packagers are the ones selling the products and they buy from many manufactures and comingle tall the jerky. So its not like Brand A came from manufacture 1 and Brand B came from manufacture 2, what happens is that manufacture 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 sells to whatever packager needs materail. So one week Brand A may have 80% from manufcature 1 and 18% from 2 and 2% from 3. But the next week most if from 3 and only a little from 1 & 2. So if a single manufacture is providing tainted jerky, testing is inconsistant because they have no idea which packages have what in it.

What makes it even worst is that some of the jerky has been CoO washed. So you are buying from a reputable company in the US who sourced their jerky only from NZ but that jerky was washed through Vietnam and originally came from china. People will see the US lable and never realize they may have bad jerky. The consumer focus is on the name brand not the ingredients. (or throw in the words "organic", "natural" or have a paid product kickback endorsment of some organization and you lost consumers in the wiz and wow!)

[leanansidhex]

You can access my original "linked" forum article by Googling my username + chicken jerky = leanansidhex chicken jerky

It is about the third result, right after the CD results, "Questions and answers about the pet food recall"

[TracySam]

Wow, how did I not hear about this? I checked the links posted in this thread, and did some more research, and see that these dried chicken treats from China are a real problem for some dogs, in some cases causing severe kidney damage and failure. We have sometimes bought the ones that are whole dried chicken tenders, and a lot of other kinds like dried apples or sweet potatoes with dried chicken wrapped around them.

I checked our treat stash after reading all this last nights, and only a few are made in the USA; the rest are from China! Fortunately our two dogs have not had problems (yet), but this is pretty scary. I'm thinking of throwing them all away (I hate that I spent so much on them and now they're getting tossed).

I'm wondering if this is just chicken treats from China, or all dried treats from China? We buy a lot of these "duck tenders" and they are from China too. My dogs LOVE them, but now I'm concerned.

On amazon, I did find one post from a customer that says her dog nearly died from kidney failure after eating the dried duck tenders.

I guess since this wasn't a full recall, it didn't make the bigger news outlets. But seeing that this began in 2007, I'm shocked that I have not read anything about it in all this time. I've now bookmarked the AVMA's alerts and recalls section on pet food safety:
Pet Food Recalls and Alerts (http://www.avma.org/petfoodsafety/recalls/default.asp - broken link)

They have a specific posting about the Chinese chicken treats:
Alert: Jerky treats possibly associated with kidney disease in dogs in Canada (http://www.avma.org/petfoodsafety/jerkytreats/default.asp - broken link)


We have our animals on a nearly all-natural organic diet, including treats (except for the ones on a prescription diet). We had thought these dried chicken, pork, and duck treats, along with the dried fruits & vegetables, with their very shorts lists of ingredients were the way to go. Didn't even consider the problem with China not putting all the truth on their packaging. For now, we'll be sticking with US-made treats only.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

[rural lady]

Originally Posted by leanansidhex

Oops, forgot the link:
Dog owners cautioned about chicken jerky treats

i don't know if walmart carries that brand with the cowboy dog on the package, I saw years ago made in China. I didn't want to mention the name I'm sure those out there know the name already.

I had seen years ago on the Itchmo forums, that the owners had changed the name of the company alot of times, I will try to find the links.

I went as far as making my own chicken jerky with a food dehydrator, I did buy some Kona chips, expensive, tho I wonder why an american co. cannot produce this product.

If we make potatoe chips why not jerky for our dogs?

I have seen some treats made in Ireland & Spain lately.

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by rural lady

I went as far as making my own chicken jerky with a food dehydrator, I did buy some Kona chips, expensive, tho I wonder why an american co. cannot produce this product.

If we make potatoe chips why not jerky for our dogs?

Cost and marketability.

Two bags, one made in china cost $3.99 the other in the US for $4.99 which do you think will sell more? There is nothing to show that people have reduced puchases of china made jerky in favor of domestic made jerky, as matter of fact, jerky sales have increased. China is filling the demand with lower cost products and US companies can't compete if people are buying on price. If people were to stop buying jerky made in china and increase purchases for domestic made products, the retailers will stock up more on the one that is selling. As domestic sales increase and import sales drop, manufactures will study why. If they know its because of where its made, they will switch to the domestic variety. But so long as china can sell millions of lbs at lower cost and people are willing to buy it, good old capitilisim remains in place.

[rural lady]

Originally Posted by PacificFlights

Cost and marketability.

Two bags, one made in china cost $3.99 the other in the US for $4.99 which do you think will sell more? There is nothing to show that people have reduced puchases of china made jerky in favor of domestic made jerky, as matter of fact, jerky sales have increased. China is filling the demand with lower cost products and US companies can't compete if people are buying on price. If people were to stop buying jerky made in china and increase purchases for domestic made products, the retailers will stock up more on the one that is selling. As domestic sales increase and import sales drop, manufactures will study why. If they know its because of where its made, they will switch to the domestic variety. But so long as china can sell millions of lbs at lower cost and people are willing to buy it, good old capitilisim remains in place.

Yes, its just the way it is, I wish pet owners would pay attention to labels, this outfit really hides the made in china word. Some pet owners do not pay attention to labels then their pet gets sick after a time.

After you have cared for a diabetic or cushings disease dog or other illnesses you begin to pay attention & learn, its pays to educate yourself with pet foods and products.

[RedJacket]

Vitals - Chicken jerky treats linked to mystery illnesses, deaths in dogs