A dog food maker with a history of recalling tainted products is accused of sickening hundreds of pets — and the recent death of a beloved Pekingese, The Post has learned.
DreamBone’s line of chews, made by $3 billion conglomerate Spectrum Brands Holdings, has been criticized by pet owners on message boards and by food and health watchdogs. security.
A grieving owner, Liz Brannen, accuses DreamBone Twists of causing her Pekingese, Boogie, an agonizing death on December 1. 11.
Boogie began vomiting and having bloody diarrhea shortly after eating the treat. Within 24 hours, she was gone, the tearful owner told the Post.
“She was screaming at the end and in so much pain, but she was perfectly normal the night before,” Brannen said. “It really bothers me that a company sells something that can kill dogs.”
The Bellville, Texas resident quickly learned that she wasn’t the only heartbroken pet owner with a beef against DreamBone chews, which are sold by major retailers including Walmart, Target and Chewy.
Complaints about DreamBone span almost a decade, but have started to increase over the past few months on Safelyhq.coma website that tracks consumer health and safety issues.
This year alone, there have been 70 DreamBone complaints on the site, almost twice as many as in 2021, with most coming in since October.
“The recent increase in reports mentioning DreamBone dog treats is of particular concern to us,” Safetyhq founder Patrick Quade told The Post. “This is a huge outlier in our data, in terms of the number of reports and the severity of harm done.”
The Food and Drug Administration is also sending reports from affected pet owners, the agency told the Post.
“The FDA has received several dozen complaints associated with DreamBone,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We continue to review these complaints, but cannot respond to each individual case.”
Last year, the agency sent a warning letter at Midwestern Pet Foods after the company’s product was linked to 130 dog deaths and hundreds of sick dogs. And in 2020, the recalled agency another brand of pet food made by Midwestern Pet Foods, called Sportmix, after at least 28 dogs died from products containing high levels of toxic mold. Spectrum Brands is not affiliated with Midwestern Pet Foods.
DreamBone is mentioned in hundreds of posts on websites including Amazon, blogs and social media platforms like Reddit by distracted customers whose dogs reportedly got sick or died after receiving the treat.
The Middletown, Wis.-based company has disparate brands such as Cutter insect repellant, Remington grooming products and Black + Decker appliances, but the majority of its Product recalls are part of its pet care division.
Spectrum Brands, a public company, did not respond to numerous emails and calls to senior executives.
Spectrum Brands recalled rawhide dog chews in 2017 after discovering that a Brazilian supplier used an “ammonium compound” chemical that is “approved for cleaning food processing equipment” in its products. rawhide, according to the company’s website.
Spectrum acknowledges that dogs may experience “stomach irritation, including diarrhea and vomiting” after eating raw hides – including brands such as Digest-eeze and Healthy Hide – and may need treatment with a veterinarian “depending on the severity”.
The company acquired struggling brand DreamBone in 2017 from New Jersey-based Petmatrix. The chews are made overseas in Vietnam, Mexico, and China and are marketed as “rawhide-free” and “highly digestible.”
A year before the acquisition, Petmatrix was slapped by a class action lawsuit brought by a dog owner whose dog needed surgery after eating a DreamBone. The complaint alleged that its ingredients were “indigestible” and included a “large amount” of Soribtol, which is “widely characterized and classified, including by the FDA, as an indigestible sugar alcohol, and is used as a laxative.”
After the plaintiff’s dog, Maxie, received a DreamBone, he began to vomit and had “a bloody discharge from his rectum,” according to the complaint. Maxie underwent surgery to remove “a large piece of dog chew, which matched the description of the DreamBone,” the complaint states.
The vet said “Maxie would have died,” but for the operation, according to the lawsuit, which was eventually settled, according to court filings.
Other pet owners have also considered taking legal action, including Stacy Carlyle of Atlanta, whose Bijon-Shih Tzu mix, Bella, died in September 2020.
“The vet found pieces of DreamBone in her digestive tract,” Carlyle told the Post. “It wouldn’t dissolve.”
Spectrum offered to settle, “giving me and [another dog owner who was part of the proposed litigation] about $5,000 apiece,” Carlyle said. But she rebuffed the offer and instead told her story to a local news station to warn other pet owners.
Spectrum Brands issued a statement to the News Station at the time: “The health and safety of all dogs who enjoy our DreamBone products is our top priority. We believe these claims are unfounded and stand behind the quality and safety of our DreamBone products.
Logan Rothstein, who believes his 8-year-old Chihuahua, Hercules, died in 2019 from DreamBone, led a three-year campaign – contacting the FDA, retailers and the media – to raise awareness of the number of complaints against Dream Good.
“I don’t think Spectrum makes a consistently bad product,” Rothstein said. But he thinks that because the product is made overseas, he probably has “very little quality control”.
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