Our own Dr. Barchas, The Vet Blog, just posted a message regarding the potential danger of chicken jerky treats on the market. I’m cross-posting this because it’s an important article for every dog owner to read.
Dr. Barchas was treating a five-year-old Poodle that hadn’t eaten for a week. He ran numerous tests and couldn’t find anything, so he sent the dog to a specialist for an ultrasound. The ultrasound came back fine, but what the specialist wrote in the letter to Dr. Barchas he found disturbing. The following is quoted from the letter written to him.
In a phone discussion with the owners . . . they reported that their other small breed dogs at home were showing similar clinical signs . . . [at the time the Poodle was discharged from the hospital, the] owners brought with them the chicken jerky treats that they had been feeding prior to onset of [the Poodle’s] illness.
The treats are manufactured in China and are supposed to be made up of 100% chicken breast. Last year, I saw a number of small breed dogs that ate similar treats (though a different brand), that presented with the same clinical signs of vomiting and prolonged [refusal to eat] after the vomiting resolved . . . A number of veterinarians at other hospitals had seen similar cases as well, presumed to have resulted from ingestion of a variety of brands of chicken jerky treats manufactured in China.
Investigation of the products was not successful in identifying the offending substance and, unfortunately, removal of theses products from the market was not made mandatory.
Dr. Barchas recommends throwing any jerky treats away, I’m with him. Please stop by The Vet Blog to read the article in its entirety.
