http://www.heraldargus.com/archives/ha/front_photo.cgi?prcss=display&id=383796

Looks like poison.  All you have to do is start researching about the plague of rats that China is dealing with now to know that buying meat from there is STUPID!!!  Consumers have good reason to be in the dark, but no business has any excuse not to know this.  I posted a link elsewhere...they EAT RATS there and the rats in the areas with the rat problems are being trucked to the communities that eat rat meat and does anyone doubt that some of those rats were downers upon arrival?  Good cheap dog food.  And I imagine that some other animals eat the poison by mistake.  Downers = dog food?

On top of that is the plague hitting the pork.  Downed, sick pigs = pet food?  They think that junk is good enough for pets here, so why should China be any different?  China might just be a little more lethal with all the problems there.

We just do not have a government for the people anymore here in the U.S.  We have a corporate service organization.  This says it all:

"Attempts by The Herald-Argus Friday to obtain information on Bestro’s Chicken Jerky Strips from the FDA were unsuccessful."

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FYI on China:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/environment/210792.htm
Rats Plague Xinjiang Pastureland

Global warming has resulted in rats reproducing faster and plaguing the pastureland in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
 

The aftermath of the warm winter was a "baby boom" of rats in April, a month in advance, said animal husbandry officials in Altay Prefecture in northern Xinjiang.

The rats were threatening two million hectares of the pastureland in Altay, about 20 percent of the total in northern Xinjiang, and could cause epidemics among the locals, they said.

The regional animal husbandry bureau based in Urumqi has been forced to send two helicopters to spray 20 tons of raticide in the worst-plagued areas over the past week to reduce the damage.

But officials said they had to be extra careful with raticide, which polluted the environment and could also poison foxes and eagles that preyed on rats.

The average temperature in Xinjiang during the past winter was two to four degrees Celsius higher than normal, and snow in the remote mountains in Altay shrank by at least 32 centimeters, according to the regional meteorological bureau.
(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2007)

http://www.china.org.cn/english/2005/Jun/132397.htm
Rats Haunt Central China Cropland   

The rising water level in China's second largest freshwater Dongting Lake, in the central Hunan Province, since late May has driven a massive field rats migration from their living islets to the southern cropland, bringing about the area's gravest rat crisis in the last ten years....

........Walking on the field ridges, one can always see a flock of rats leaping up from the weeds. The farmers had to leave their own work and kept driving the rats away with wooden sticks.

But their efforts seem next to futile. The rats teased the people by walloping from one hollow to another, which are thickly dotted on the rice land....

....Villager Wu Chuanxi ground his teeth when mentioning the rats, "we have nearly three mu of paddy but one third were destroyed by the rats within a few days. The rats are just like robbers."

The seven mu (0.47 hectare) of early rice grown by villager Nie Qiulin was ravaged by the rats and less than one third was left.

"Countless rats rushed to raid my rice land. They crazily nibbled the crop. Some even can not find the place to lay their feet and just stayed on the back of others," said Nie, who recalled the scene to be "terrifying." ....
(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2005)

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They have PROBLEMS in China!!!  There is poison and disease all over.  Just read the related stories on that web site.  Can't the smart people running corporations and the government here even read?  You have to be insanely greedy or just plain insane to be ignoring the facts in this.

(And do not forget that greed and corruption create pet food safety problems right here in the U.S. with products made from our own meat supply:  http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/view_release.php?id=17474)

tgooch

So sorry for your loss.

No the short term effects of irradiation are not cancer. Cancer takes years to grow. I would suspect something else killed your dog. Did you have a necropsy done?? I would suspect poisoning.

Expertox will test the jerky strips, look them up on the internet. Also Midwest Labs.

Again sorry for your loss. If she did have cancer they didn't detect it.

db

tgooch

It does look like the strips may have been a problem. Where are they made, and by who.

db

I am very sorry to hear about your loss of Maggie, tgooch.  It sounds like she had health problems that made her more vulnerable, but the strips were tainted somehow.

I posted some grief information here:
http://75.126.87.115/index.php/topic,1736.0.html

From my own experience, I would not hold the tears back when you have quiet time to grieve.  This is still very raw so no reason to hold back.

If you save the product for further testing, I would seal it up with tape and write "POISON" on it.  Heaven forbid there should be an emergency and someone would have to care for your other dog; you would want to be sure they do not use those tainted jerky strips.  There is plenty of time to think about testing later and you can probably find out more here on how to do that.

Once again, I am very sorry to hear about your loss and praying that your other dog will not have any health problems from eating those strips.  There is more information in the Recalls area.

Klondike:  I don't know about Bestro but I do know that Waggin Train chicken jerky are solid strips.  I haven't fed those in eons because Costco now carries a different brand (but also made in China.....as are their duck strips & lamb strips).

This sounds like a really nasty toxin......but I bet we'll continue to get the melamine story.  Something nasty is getting into food but they aren't being truthful with us.  Gee, what a shock........

With that nasty pig virus sweeping China, beware of pork rolls, pig ears, etc.  I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of those as dog treats in the next few months.  Looks like it's going to be a no-over-over-the-counter-doggie-treats year.

Now more dry food being recalled......WTF is going on here?  This is so obviously not over.

tgooch,

I am so sorry about your Maggie. 

Thanks for having the courage to come forward to warn other pet parents.   

tgooch- I am so sorry about your Maggie. Hopefully your other dog will be ok. We'll be praying for you. I used Expertox & they were very helpful. Maybe you can't prove anything,but just knowing helped me.

Thanks very much for keeping up posted, tgooch!  If it looks like you need further testing to see what is really going on with those duck strips, let us know.  Maybe we could work with Itchmo to see if we could pool some money if you need more exotic testing.