Dog owners claim treats are making pups violently ill — and may have killed one pet

A dog food manufacturer with a history of recalling contaminated products has been accused of making hundreds of pets sick.

DreamBone Chews products, made by the $3 billion conglomerate Spectrum Brands Holdings, have been criticized on message boards by pet owners and food and safety watchdogs.

One of the grieving owners, Liz Brannen, blames the DreamBone Twist for the tragic death of Boogie the Pekingese on December 11th.

Boogie began vomiting and bloody diarrhea shortly after eating the treat. Within 24 hours she was gone, her tearful owner told The Post.

“She was screaming at the end, but it was perfectly normal the day before,” Brannen said. “It really bothers me that a company sells something that can kill dogs.”

The Belleville, Texas resident soon learned he wasn’t the only pet owner heartbroken against Dreambone chews sold by major retailers like Walmart, Target and Chewie.

Complaints about DreamBone have been going on for nearly a decade, but have started to spike in recent months on Safelyhq.com, a website that tracks consumer health and safety issues.

This year alone, the site has received 70 complaints about DreamBone. That’s almost double what it was in 2021, with most coming in since his October.

“The recent spike in reports mentioning DreamBone dog treats is particularly concerning,” Safetyhq founder Patrick Quade told The Post. “This is a big outlier in our data in terms of the number of reports and the severity of the damage.”

The Food and Drug Administration is also processing reports from concerned pet owners, officials told the Post.

“The FDA has received dozens of complaints related to DreamBone,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “While we continue to investigate these complaints, we are unable to respond to individual cases.”

The agency sent Midwestern Pet Foods a warning letter after the company’s products were linked to 130 dog deaths and hundreds of sick dogs last year. After at least 28 dogs died from a product containing the mold, the agency recalled another brand of pet food made by Midwestern Pet Foods called Sportmix. Is not …

DreamBone has been mentioned in hundreds of posts on websites, including social media platforms such as Amazon, blogs and Reddit, from distraught customers whose dogs allegedly fell ill or died after being given treats. increase.

The Middletown, Wisconsin-based company owns brands as diverse as Cutter insect repellent, Remington grooming products, and Black + Decker appliances, but the majority of product recalls have occurred in the pet care sector. I’m here.

Publicly traded Spectrum Brands did not respond to numerous emails and phone calls to senior executives.

According to the company’s website, Spectrum Brands said in 2017 that after discovering a Brazilian supplier was using “ammonium compounds,” a chemical “approved for cleaning food processing equipment,” in its rawhide products, the company’s website said it had been using rawhide products. recalled dog chew products.

Spectrum says dogs can experience “stomach irritation, including diarrhea and vomiting,” after eating raw hides, including brands like DigestEase and HealthyHide, “depending on the severity,” veterinarians said. I acknowledged that I may need treatment with

The company acquired the controversial DreamBone brand from New Jersey-based Petmatrix in 2017. Chews are manufactured overseas in Vietnam, Mexico, and China and marketed as “rawhide-free” and “highly digestible.”

A year before the acquisition, Petmatrix was hit with a class action lawsuit by owners of dogs who ate DreamBone and needed surgery. The complaint claimed that its ingredients were “indigestible” and contained “large amounts” of solibutol, which is “widely characterized and classified, including by the FDA, as indigestible sugar alcohols.” is used as a laxative.”

After being given DreamBone, plaintiff’s dog, Maxie, began vomiting and had “a bloody discharge from her rectum,” according to the complaint. “Large pieces of dog chews were removed,” the complaint says.

According to the lawsuit, which was eventually settled, the veterinarian said without surgery, “Maxie would have died.”

Other pet owners are also considering starting legal proceedings, including Stacey Carlyle of Atlanta, a Vision and Shih Tzu mix who died in September 2020.

“The vet found pieces of DreamBone in her digestive tract,” Carlyle told The Post.

Spectrum offered a settlement. [another dog owner who was part of the proposed litigation] It’s about $5,000 per piece,” says Carlyle. However, she declined the offer and instead took her own story to the local news her station to warn other pet owners.

Spectrum Brands issued the following statement to the news station at the time: We see no merit in these claims and stand by the quality and safety of DreamBone products. ”

Logan Rothstein, who believes 8-year-old Chihuahua Hercules died in 2019 because of DreamBone, has reached out to the FDA, retailers, and the media to launch a three-year campaign to sell DreamBone.

“I don’t think Spectrum makes consistently bad products,” says Rothstein. However, he believes the product likely has “little quality control” because it is manufactured overseas.