Dog owners snarl at Greenies maker

[DoozyDog]

By JOYCE SMITH
The Kansas City Star

Greenies, popular dog treats created by an award-winning local company, are under fire.

The chlorophyll-colored products help decrease tartar and plaque, freshen canine breath, enhance nutrition, improve digestion and taste great, according to manufacturer S&M NuTec LLC of North Kansas City. Millions have been sold since the company was founded in 1998.

But some customers say their dogs became sick after chowing down on a Greenie, and one couple has filed a lawsuit claiming their dog died after eating the treat. The Food and Drug Administratio n’s Center for Veterinary Medicine is investigating a handful of complaints about Greenies.

Joe Roetheli, who with his wife, Judy, owns S&M NuTec, said he could not discuss the lawsuit because it was still pending. However, he did say the company has had “an occasional, very rare incident” with Greenies like the one in the lawsuit.

“There’s nothing wrong with the product, the ingredients or anything like that,” Roetheli said. “If a dog — if they bite a big chunk off and don’t chew it and try to swallow it whole, they get in trouble. Some incidents have occurred, and we don’t deny that there have been a few. Every time that they occur it tears me up and I am terribly saddened by it. And we investigate them.”

Roetheli said that when Greenies are used as directed, “the incident rate with that is virtually the same as the number of people killed by alligators in the United States per year.”

S&M NuTec has launched a Web site, www.thetruthaboutgreenies.com, to address pet owners’ concerns. The site states: “Stories have recently surfaced relating to dogs choking, getting intestinal obstructions or even dying from Greenies. The purpose of this website is to provide a fact-based forum including statistics and research findings.”

Greenies packages also caution, in fine print: “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.”

Those disclaimers haven’t mollified a couple who say their miniature dachshund, Burt, died last summer after eating a “petite” size Greenie.

Michael Eastwood and Jennifer Reiff of Manhattan, N.Y., filed a $5 million product liability lawsuit against S&M NuTec in state court in New York on Nov. 30.

According to the lawsuit, Reiff supervised as Burt “adequately and properly chewed the piece of Greenie to the best of his ability and then swallowed it.” Later that day Burt vomited slightly, and the next day he was uncomfortable and restless.

The couple took Burt to their vet, and while there, the dog “began to experience excruciating pain, was very lethargic and vomited blood,” the lawsuit says. A veterinary surgeon later removed a “green and rubbery eraser-like object that was lodged in Burt’s small intestine,” and “3 1/2 feet of Burt’s intestine had decayed and needed to be surgically removed.” He died 3 1/2 days after eating the Greenie.

The lawsuit alleges “Greenies are not reasonably safe because they are insoluble and indigestible.”

Eastwood and Reiff declined to be interviewed. But they did provide a written statement that said: “During the investigation process we shared our deep concerns with them about their product and asked them (S&M NuTec) to recall and reformulate it. They ignored our request and kept the product as-is. They should be held accountable. That’s why we’re suing them.”

The couple also created a Web site, www.burtscause.com , as a “very public forum for interested parties to share opinions about pet products as well as providing pertinent information for the safe care and protection of pets.”

The FDA said that as of Jan. 6, three complaints about Greenies had been reported to the Center for Veterinary Medicine and five others to the Kansas City district office of the FDA.

Rae Jones, spokeswoman for the FDA in Washington, said she has not received complaints about Milk-Bone or Beggin’ Strips, other popular products in the $1.6 billion dog treat industry, but the agency usually receives a few complaints about chew toys every year.

A few other Greenies complaints have popped up on the Internet. Columbia Animal Hospital, in Columbia, Md., has posted a “Greenie Warning Alert” on its Web site: “Our office removed a large 1.5” x 1.5” part of an undigested canine Greenie (Jan. 3, 2006) from a 60 lb. lab’s small intestine.”

A veterinarian at the hospital said the bill came to about $2,200, and he planned to stop selling Greenies.

Still, many veterinarians throughout the country recommend Greenies.

The Roethelis developed Greenies when their Samoyed, Ivan, had a horrible case of bad breath. Judy Roetheli challenged her husband, an agricultural economist with 20-plus years in the development of agricultural products, to come up with a cure. The solution was Greenies.

About 650 million Greenies have been sold since 1998, Joe Roetheli said, and they have extended dogs lives’ by three to five years through better dental health without the risk of putting dogs under anesthesia to clean their teeth.

His Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Max, a mascot at the company’s North Kansas City headquarters, eats at least a couple of Greenies a day, he said, adding that he samples the treats himself.

The company exports to more than 50 countries.

It was named the 2005 Small Business of the Year by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce; Small Business Exporter of the Year in 2004 by the National District Export Counc il; and Missouri Agricultural Exporter of the Year in 2003 by the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

S&M NuTec has 94 employees at its headquarters at 1 Design Drive, just west of Burlington Avenue in North Kansas City. It outsources manufacturing, packaging, warehouses and shipping duties, providing jobs to an additional 450 to 500 workers.

Negative publicity — including one erroneous Internet story that said Greenies had been recalled — has affected sales, although Roetheli declined to say how much.

“Anybody that has this kind of negative campaign anticipates that it will affect sales to some degree,” Roetheli said. “But we don’t want to talk about that too much.”

Consumer concerns
? Consumers who have complaints about dog treats can contact an FDA consumer complaint coordinator at www.fda.gov/opacom/back grounders/complain.html.