Pet Health: Greenies?

Once again I am amazed at the audacity and single-mindness of ConsumerAffairs.com!

Several weeks ago, I reported at PetDocsOnCall.com how Nutro, the parent company who acquired the rights to make Greenies, has decided to only sell their product in pet specialty stores and through veterinarians. Seems pretty straight forward...

Well, enter ConsumerAffairs.com...they took the same story and on May 4th released an article titled Nutro Pulls Greenies Dental Chews from Supermarkets. In this article, the journalist describes all of the terrible obstructions that have happened with pets who have been given Greenies. In fact, I became aware of their story simply because it was being repeated in various forums across the Internet, without the additional information that they will still be sold through veterinarians and certain pet stores.

First the facts: Have Greenies caused impactions in the past? The answer is most certainly yes, but so have pig ears, cow hooves, rawhides and many other numerous dog chew products. The most cited caseof Greenies is the Dachshund in New York who became obstructed after eating a Greenie and died of complications several days later. The owners attempted to sue the maker of Greenies for $5 million dollars for "product fraud". Now...the really interesting part...in the papers I read at the time (this was 2005), the lawsuit clearly stated that the owners had cut the Greenie into smaller pieces. The packaging that I remember said that cutting the treat was not advised.

Next, all dog chew toys should really be labeld "PG" for parental guidance. Some dogs get very excited about the whole chewing activity and often swallow pieces of material that won't pass or digest in a timely manner. As mentioned above, this happens with rawhide and many other products too, not just Greenies. BUT...rawhide obstructions aren't generally traceable to a brand name. Not too mention that the Internet has grown to a point where people from across the country or the world can get together and really attack a product they find fault with.

Finally, note that the majority of complaints on the ConsumerAffairs website are complaints from prior to 2007 when Greenies were reformulated. The one complaint from 2009 did not conclusively show that the Greenies were the issue. The x-ray was non-conclusive and the owner did not pursue other diagnostics or treatments. So...how can she KNOW that Greenies were the issue....

I am just stunned that ConsumerAffairs continues such strong attacks on Nutro...it's almost vendetta like. Note the last paragraph of the story.."A division of...FDA has denied it is investigating NUTRO products Inc, whose pet foods are the subject of more than 700 complaints..." I fail to see any sense of objectivity in anything that ConsumerAffairs does...

Again, I will gladly admit to my ignorance when and if a problem can be shown with the Nutro foods. But for now, I think ConsumerAffairs should forget about the possibility of a class action lawsuit against Nutro and look towards other issues.