Pet Food Recall Came Too Late for Beloved Dog

Holbrook, NYTheresa blames finance-driven veterinary hospitals for letting her dog die without treatment because she was short on funds. But she carries heavy guilt over unwittingly feeding her pet the now-recalled Menu pet food that caused his illness.

"About six weeks before he died," Theresa says, "ChaChee was just a little bit sick-throwing up, lethargic, nothing major so I just took him for a check-up. I got his iron up, like the doctor prescribed, then he was eating again. He was up to two six-ounce IAMS beef with gravy pouches and Eukenuba pink bags for small dogs.

"Then all of a sudden, at the beginning of March, he stopped eating. He started throwing up again, he was always sleeping and he was drinking so much water. My dog is a Shiatsu and normally weighed about 12 1bs and at the groomers they pointed out that he was losing weight.

"On March 11th, it was getting so bad he was just bones and couldn't hold his own body up. I flew right up to Holbrook Hospital. They hooked him up to intravenous then turned and asked me for the $500 payment. Even though I only had $200 in my pocket and I swore I'd pay them off, they blatantly told me it was $500 or nothing. So they sent me to West Islip Animal Hospital, since they did credit plans there.

"By then I was hysterical. I watched them take my ChaChee off oxygen while he just lay there looking at me. But they wrapped him up warm and called ahead. When I got there it was like a regular emergency unit with gowns, masks, and the staff came running out and hooked him up for IV. The doctor said he was on the verge of renal failure and needed to be put on treatment immediately; did I agree? Of course I did!"

But Theresa came up against the same financial roadblocks. "When I said I was on disability so didn't have a credit card, they said sorry, they couldn't help me," she says. "And they handed me back my dog. They knew he'd die just because I didn't have the cash. Yet they didn't hesitate to send me bills for their disgraceful, inhumane service."

Theresa rushed her pet to every animal hospital in the area but found no leniency. Even the ASPCA walk-in clinic would only be available the following morning but by then it was too late. "He passed at 2:18 in the morning in my bed," she says. "It was so heartbreaking, so emotional. I'd had him from the second he was born. He was the first and closest pet I've ever had."

Before that month of March was out, an announcement of a stunning massive recall of pet foods included the brands Theresa had been feeding her dog since birth. "I know it was the food!" she says. "All his symptoms were the same as the food causes they listed. Doesn't it make sense that any kind of gravy would go bad eventually? I wonder if those inspectors only stamp the pouches when they're ready to ship out. And to think for his entire life of one year and 10 months I was feeding my dog poison.

"Up until about six weeks after his death I did see a couple pouches of the same food in a local store. When I told the owner what happened to my dog, he hadn't even known about the recall.

"I've joined a class action suit and I don't want anyone to suffer the way we suffered and are still suffering. I have a new pup and he doesn't eat anything but home cooked chicken, rice, peas and carrots. But nothing can ever replace my ChaChee."