Is No-Hide Dog Treat Actually Hide?

Did Mr. Moore seem shocked and sincere about not knowing? Did he ever actually see the plant where his stuff is made? Is rawhide allowed to be processed in a human grade facility? Did he look at any certifications? Check out the supplier?

RIP sweet Dumplin, this is so sad. I actually just bought another package of these today; I’ve been giving them to my girl for several months! She loves them, and I’ve been thinking that they were a healthy chew. I absolutely do watch her when I give her one, and when the bone gets down to a size that looks like it could be choked on, I take it away. Susan, thank you for providing this information, and for all the work you do to help keep our pets safe!

Nothing new. When brought into a store I worked at, I was extremely skeptical and contacted the company multiple times. The material was said to be compressed rice flour but considering the strength of the material I knee it was not.

The store in question sold thousands of pieces over months to pet parents desparate to believe it was a long lasting hide free treat, and despite the questions I had and made known, made no effort to find out the truth.

Seeing that dog’s face was a punch in the gut! This is heartbreaking. But, I’m glad that it made it onto the news. I would keep after the station with all follow-up information. Sometimes stations share content, affiliates get pre-recorded bits all the time, so it is possible this might make it to other stations, and then, maybe picked up by national news, if more people are aware, hopefully this company will be forced to face the truth.

I know, that’s a big dream, but, Susan, if every pet parent who loses a pet to some terrible product gets news coverage, the word might spread more.

A good portion of the problem here is that the chew in question, whether rawhide or not, was too small for that dog. But if this chew is truly rawhide, it will be quite shocking that they were able to get away with that.

They are fully denying these claims at this point, but the only evidence they put out to support it is the digestion rate percentage of rawhide vs. this chew. That clearly does not mean this product does not contain rawhide, only that the product has been manipulated into a better digestion rate.

Should be quite interesting…..this is the same company that pulled a bait and switch on its chicken jerky products about a year back. They used to have a kiosk system advocating and advertising their use of Bell and Evans chicken in their jerky….on the packaging etc, until one day it wasn’t there. No notice from the company etc, and they sure didn’t bother checking if the kiosks were still in store touting the benefits of Bell & Evans chicken. Not to mention the constant mold issues with the products.

I pointed out questionable language used on Earth Animal’s website, offered legal definitions for terminology they use in their marketing pieces and shared first hand experience with a company. This is part my evaluation before I sell products. I have learned this through experience and by talking to marketing execs about how their industry operates. The bending of words to achieve a favorable outcome is vividly exemplified by this: how many times have you read “sourced in the USA”? Guess what…that can mean the rice protein concentrate was purchased from a jobber in San Francisco who imported it from China. Companies do this in full knowledge that it is misleading.

Manufacture in a human certified plant does exclude many ingredients routinely used in the production of pet food and treats, that is true. It should be an indication of a higher quality product. I’m sure rawhide wouldn’t be allowed in a human grade facility, but that’s different than beef SKIN. After all, pork rinds are puffed pig skin and manufactured in human snack food facilities for human consumption. Human grade gelatin is separated from beef skin for use in human food, such as yoghurt. I would surmise therefore that these chews, which have beef and beef gelatin as the first two ingredients, could very easily be made in a human facility using cow SKIN. The company rightly claims they don’t use rawhide, which has been subjected to chemical processes. Are you beginning to see why I pay attention for word games?

There are things that are at odds in this story and that is why I remain suspicious and will suspect the company until proven otherwise. After reading the lab tests, I have a bunch of questions. Amoung them:

1) “There is no evidence of ground or composite material.” I don’t think someone skilled at microscopic analysis would miss a ground or composite signature. Yet the ingredient list on Earth Animal’s website includes beef, beef gelatin, brown rice flour, eggs, oil. If the product isn’t ground, how have these ingredients been incorporated? Perhaps its as simple as a coating or they use a high pressure process to infiltrate the tissue. I don’t know but it doesn’t make sense to me. Flour and eggs are binding ingredients. Asking the company will get you the “proprietary information” response.

2) Earth Animal claims superior digestibility because they don’t include hide and they cite lab results without giving a reference to back it up (56% digestible compared to 5% digestible for rawhide). I did a quick search and came up with a “Confidential Report” dated July 21, 2017 that shows the lab results from a private lab associated with Oklahoma State University (https://www.earthanimal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/No-Hide-Digestibility-Report-Earth-Animal.pdf). The cover page looks more like Earth Animal’s letterhead than a lab report but of course they paid for the tests. It’s curious that this report is dated only 10 days ago as these products have been on the market for a while now with the associated claims. Perhaps its a follow up to prior testing or those stats were recently added to the website. The numbers don’t match though. The very positive report shows much higher digestibility.

I have a logical mind. When I see inconsistencies, unsubstantiated claims or language used in odd ways I get suspicious. As a biologist, I look for patterns. The pet food industry has some REALLY disturbing ones. That’s not conspiracy mongering, that’s “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

As others have commented, there are two issues here.

The primary issue is whether yet another treat manufacturer is selling a product that is as advertised. The chew’s ingredients may not have contributed to the death, other than the owner has stated that she would not have purchased the product had it been rawhide, but the tragedy drew attention to the company and their product claims.

I too have had customers who either bought smaller sized treats or cut large ones into smaller pieces to economize because their dogs went through the chews rapidly. I always counseled them about the dangers, often to no avail. As a former retailer I completely understand how incredibly frustrating it is to see customers do something ill advised and then fault the product.

There is only so much that can be done to keep consumers from making poor decisions, but we must make the attempt. Manufacturers must also make that attempt even knowing that many consumers don’t read the warnings or ignore them. Instructions/warnings are a good idea if for no other reason than their own liability! Things can happen in an instant, anyone experienced with animals knows this. The dog could have upended that chew in mere seconds, right in front of someone who was on the phone watching. Once lodged in the throat, it would require professional expertise to remove.

Providing a larger chew would have perhaps prevented this tragedy, but it does not change the questions that have been asked since then concerning the ingredients.

These guys need to be shut down….again they don’t get to the heart of the issue which is that the #1 ingredient in all of their chews is beef, which is fraud. I also believe that they are using enzymatically treated rawhide to call it something other than rawhide but at the end of the day its the same thing. Going after the customer shows how poorly managed this company is… The FDA and USDA should shut them down….imagine if your pet was allergic to beef and the #1 ingredient in the fish chews is beef….unreal and sad

And I am still enduring the grief and loss of my beautiful Dumplin’ that has scarred our family forever. We miss her more that ever……please don’t forget about her and the other precious baby that lost his life as well. It is such a nightmare and it takes so long but I know that the truth will be revealed……. I trusted that label and those claims and it swelled by 50% and produced a thick bleached colored foam that literally grew in size over time. That has been another common comment from others whose babies had close calls. Please protect your sweet pets. My life will never be the same.

The other day I put brand new batteries in my kitchen scale. I verified it was working properly by weighing standard weights. I went into several stores that sell “No Hide” and weighed the products. Every chew I weighed, except for a few of the small chews, was underweight. The bagged twists labeled as 85 grams weighed, with package, 64-66 grams making the actual contents less than 64 grams. The small size, labeled 51 grams, weighed between 38 -71 grams. The medium chew, labeled 85 grams, weighed between 61-74 grams and the largest labeled at 255 grams weighed between 107-155 grams.

Earth Animal has some very serious quality control issues!

What is really strange is their labeling of the largest size chew, 9 ounces (255 grams), though oddly some were labeled 4.9 ounces (255 grams) when 4.9 ounces is about 139 grams. You would think that their 11 inch chew would be equivalent to a 4 inch+ a 7 inch, 51 grms + 85 grams= 136 grams. This is a lot closer to what the chews actual weights are and close to 4.9 ounce. From the caloric information posted on the E.A. site, the chew weights of the large chew would need to be ~ 136 grams.

What is truly baffling to me is that store owners I’ve talked to don’t care that they are selling product thatdoesn’t meet labeled weight. As one owner of an award winning store put it she is “comfortable” selling the product. It is a real head scratcher!

We have a 10 lb. mini dachshund who loves to chew….she will not chew on teething type bones, etc. tried all of them. Didn’t want to give her Hides…so been using these. As far as size we can use the 4″ and she is allowed to have it..in view…for 10 minutes at a time. When it gets chewed we remove loose or dangling pieces (cut with scissors) and kept in freezer. When it is down to a certain size…regardless.. it is thrown out. BUT now the worry for me is ..is it hide or not. If we can’t give her these …as some people understand with dogs that need to chew…then what are we to do. No toy replaces this for chewing… If it means her life we will not let her have them. SO i guess our little girl just has to go without. Problem is then she wants to go get mulch or sticks …which scare me even worse.

My dogs love these. I found them at a local feed store. My dogs have never been allowed to chew rawhide. They are small dogs, under 15 pounds. I was thrilled to find these treats that would digest. I called the company and spoke at length with staff as to the ingredients before I ever let them chew one. I brought them to my Veterinarian before I let them chew one for her review. The company sent me PDF flyers explaining how they are made and what they are made of. I told the company I was so thrilled I would recommend them to my friends online. At that point they told me about the dog who choked to death. They were very transparent. For Christmas ’18 I sent some No Hides to friends as gifts for their dogs. One of the recipients put me onto Susan Thixton’s report above about the “real” analysis of No Hides. I told my friends to throw them out, but I would continue to try to research the ingredients. What I did find is that no one wanted to get involved. I tried to explain it was just for me, I wasn’t wanting to take legal action against anyone, I just wanted the truth about the ingredients. I would not disclose their names, I just wanted to know if it was safe to give this chew to my dog. Mind you, I never questioned the manufacturer until my friend sent me this website and your report. So, after talking by phone to the director of an agriculture school at a local university, a PhD. who stated if the products in the PDF are correct, he doesn’t endorse but sees nothing wrong with the product. I soaked a piece of NO HIDE it in water (not stomach acid) and went to another division of this very large well respected school of agriculture. I spoke with the head of the lab, a different PhD and one of the scientists that works there. There is a slaughter house located on the campus as well. What they did tell me as they looked through all my documents that I had taken off the website was that the analysis reports were not worded correctly. They questioned the authenticity of the reports. They tried to look up Dr. Kallenberger to see if he was a legitimate PhD. They examined the soaked No Hide sample I brought and said it was definitely NOT rawhide. They were willing to show me a piece of hide, but I chose not to view it. They said there were no blood vessels in my sample.
The PhD in charge of a slaughter house/meat lab at our highly respected school of agriculture was very definite about his findings. I showed them photos of my pups and I feel they would want no harm to come to my animals. My conclusion is, I believe the experts who examined my sample. I am choosing to continue giving my pups No Hides with great supervision. I spend over $100.00 a month on this product as I don’t let them chew them down. I do not give them to anyone else. I have had no problems to date, and I have given all the stores in my city that sell NO HIDE your reports.