Care urged with all dog treats, not just Greenies

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Despite Web chatter, toothbrush-shaped goodies no more harmful than others, experts say.

Anya Sostek / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


In less than 10 years, Joe and Judy Roetheli went from owners of a dog with bad breath to creators of the top-selling dog treat in America.

But dog lovers giveth and, on the Internet at least, sometimes they taketh away.

In the past few months, chatter about Greenies dog treats -- and their potentially deadly consequences -- has spread furiously on the Web.

But, according to many dog experts, the toothbrush-shaped treats pose no more of a danger than any other edibles that don't dissolve in water, including rawhide and pig's ears.

Greenies are compressed chew treats that promise to help clean a dog's teeth and freshen its breath. The treats were developed by the Roethelis to help combat the bad breath of their Samoyed, Ivan.

The treats were the first ones certified by the Veterinary Oral Health Council, and last year overtook Milk-Bone to become the top-selling U.S. dog treat, according to a study by Euromonitor International.

But these days, many users of message boards on Web sites like Dogster describe the treats as "dangerous" and "unhealthy."

Anecdotal information from veterinarians and dog owners is clear: There are dogs who have died after ingesting Greenies.

Whether Greenies are any more or less dangerous than anything else dogs ingest is less clear.

With the hundreds of millions of the treats in circulation, are some dogs just bound to have freak accidents while eating them? Or are the treats inherently prone to cause digestion problems?

Michael Schaer, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, said he operated on a lhasa apso with a Greenie stuck in its esophagus just last week. After thousands of dollars in medical bills, the dog died of aspiration pneumonia.

Even though he's seen similar problems with Greenies "several" times, Schaer said he regularly feeds the treats to his own golden retriever.

Schaer said the danger with Greenies is that dogs will not chew the treats sufficiently, leaving open the possibility that they might get stuck in the esophagus.

"If they don't chew them very, very thoroughly, that's when they get into trouble," he said.

"It forms a bolus of foreign body material that just sits there like a boulder."

But Schaer stressed that Greenies are no more dangerous than rawhide or pig's ears.

"I don't want to implicate Greenies as being public enemy No. 1," he said. "It's a brilliant product."

Each bag of Greenies includes a warning: "As with any edible product, monitor your dog to ensure the treat is adequately chewed. Gulping any item can be harmful or even fatal to a dog."

In response to inquiries about deaths from Greenies, the company released a statement reiterating that its treats should not be fed to "dogs less than 6 months old, dogs less than 5 pounds and dogs who gulp food and treats."

The statement further said that "though injurious incidents with our product are rare, more often than not, the pet is not fed according to our feeding directions."