Four Paws manufacturing company of Hauppauge, New York has halted shipment on its line of Rough & Rugged® Pimple Balls with Bells after a number of dogs suffered severe injuries and even death from using the toy.

Attention was called to the situation by a blog that chronciled the near death injuries suffered by a Lab mix named Chai, that led to the amputation of the dog’s tongue.

According to his owner Daniel R. of New York City, “While chewing on the toy, a vacuum was created and it effectively sucked his tongue into the hole in the ball. From speaking with my vet, this likely occurred because there is not a second hole in the ball preventing the vacuum effect from happening.”

After three days of emergency veterinary care, Chai’s swollen tongue was unable to be saved from the injuries and needed to be amputated. Post operation, Chai was on a feeding tube for a number of days and was in horrible pain. Chai needed to relearn how to eat, drink and learn to live life without his tongue.

Chai needs to be hand fed, though he has relearned to drink again on his own. You can follow Chai’s story in depth here. Chai’s owner attempted to contact Four Paws regarding the incident to save other dogs from suffering like Chai.

Initially, there was no response from the company. While posting on his blog and fighting Four Paws, Chai’s owner became aware of a similar incident regarding the same toy that resulted in the death of another dog. He continued to fight for the products to be recalled and is now aware of 13 dogs that suffered injury and worse as a result of this poorly designed toy.

Chai’s owner wants to be clear, “I want them to change the design. This is a design flaw…it’s not a manufacturing defect. What I really want is to make this doesn’t happen to another dog again.”

Note that Four Paws is not formally recalling this product, merely stopping shipment on currently manufactured toys, altering the design for future production. Four Paws is changing the packaging of its Pimple Balls with Bells to make it easier to inspect them for potential defects and they plan to individually inspect each one of the toys in inventory in order to identify any defects.

If you have purchased any products from the Four Paws line, please click here to ensure that the toy was not on the list defective toys.

Remember to always supervise your dog while he is playing with his toys! No toys are completely safe and dogs must be under careful observation to ensure their safety.

   Email This Post

Related Categories:

News Barks!

 

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.