Saw this on another forum, and felt it worth sharing with everyone. My dogs LOVE VitaLife Duck Tenders, and Duck and Sweet Potato -- just opened a fresh bag this morning. Small dogs are most at risk. Well, I certainly thought everything "dangerous" had been removed from the shelves. But the FDA reissued the warning on Dec 19th! See here:
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/ComplaintsChicJerky.htm
Now, I've not seen where any VitaLife treats have had any complaints about them, but everything I've read online suggests that regardless of brand, any chicken tender/jerkey treats from China are under suspicion and have been for well over a year.
So why haven't they been officially recalled, even though many brands have been voluntarily pulled off of WalMart, PetSmart, and other's shelves? It seems that despite much testing, no one can find anything wrong with these treats, but smaller dogs especially have been getting sick and even dying from them. The diagnosis is most often kidney failure. (one testing did find small amounts of melamine in it, which is what caused the previous recalls)
I did find a site that mentioned a safe alternative.
There is a brand new company (est. 2007) called Kona's Chips that buys American chickens, and processes, packs, and distributes only in America. They established this company after their beautiful black Pomeranian pup, Kona, nearly died from eating his favorite chicken treats. When Kona's human went back into the pet shop that sold them the treats, the owner claimed to not sell any products from China. He took her to her own shelves and showed her the small print at the bottom of each bag that read "made in China" and she was surprised.
Kona's Chips give free samples! If you are interested, you can find them here: http://www.konaschips.com/Home.htm Find the "samples" box on the left hand column after reading about Kona's story. Kona's story was interesting, it seems he got strangely addicted to the treats, to the point of refusing all other nourishment, and he was only getting one a day as his humans were off to work in the mornings...
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