I gave my miniature schnauzer a "greenie"-like dog bone that claimed to be good for her dental health. The next morning, she did not seem herself. Late that same evening, she was vomitting. Her emesis had some small green pieces in it. I called the vet after hours and we both agreed that I would bring her in in first thing in the morning. I stayed with her all night because I was so worried about her. She threw up several times. I stayed beside her all night and at about 3:00 am, she seemed to settle. I finally fell aslepp, when I woke, she was gone...she passed away. I was devestated, she was my baby. She was healthy, and just over a year old. There was nothing toxic in my home that she could have eaten (I have a four year old so my house is child proof). Being winter, we were having a cold spell, so she could not have eaten anything outside because she was never out long enough. I did not feed her table scraps. She had all her shots. The only thing I can think of was the greenie-like dog bone she had had the day before. I cannot prove this as I decided not to have an autopsy done on her after she died. My instincts tell me that that is why we lost her.

I started feeding greenies to my pugs almost two years ago. My first pug didn't have problems and he took over a half an hour to finish one. Then we aquired another pug and she is a gulper! She could completely devour a petite greenie in less than ten minutes! The second time she had a greenie she vomited immediately after she was done swallowing it. She continued to vomit throughout the day and we are sure that it was due to swallowing the greenie in such large pieces, as most of them came back up when she vomited. My pugs are fed the appropriate size treats, one of them does fine but the other does not. I have chosen not to feed greenies as they are too great a risk. I would prefer to give them treats such as yummy chummies (made from Salmon) that I know they cannot choke on (the treats are soft and crumble easily). All owners need to be aware of the benefits and possible negative side affects of the foods and treats they are feeding there animals. Just because something is manufactured does not mean that it is safe to consume. ALSO, it has been debated if greenies are really intended to be eaten or if they are only to be chewed on as a toy!

I was lucky, my mini poodle was throwing up and had diarrhea for several days, she was in pain when she walked,sat or when she went to lay down. Luckily I realized it was caused by a greenie. I threw away the other greenies I had for her and I will never buy another one.
I tell everyone I know that is "owned by a dog" not to give the dog greenies.

Annika,

Thank you for posting to Whole Dog News about your dog and greenies. PLEASE, report this to the S&M NeuTec company as they say they get very few people contacting them with any problems. Even if you can not prove that she died from ingesting the greenies you can tell them the whole story and if they poo poo it so be it, at least you are telling them you are not happy with Greenies!

If everyone who has had a dog vomit up Greenies or had green diarrhea from greenies as well as those that choked or had a bowel obstruction from them, told the company what was happening with the "treat", they might just have to admit there are lot more problems going on with their beloved income maker then they ever thought.

So, three things everyone can do is:

1. Report any digestive problems to the company (as well as any bowel obstructions or choking)
2. If your dog goes to the vet due to the problems send them a copy of the report
3. STOP buying Greenies!

Thanks so much!

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experiences with the "Greenies". I had always thought they were a healthy treat for our dogs! We most recently started to feed our dogs a raw diet. I am so glad I stumbled onto your site.

I had a 4 year old bichon, who was just a food junkie and terribly over weight. She would get into your purse and if you had goodies she would get them. Somehow she got into a whole bag of petite greenies, and ate the whole bag. She started vomiting and well this was before we knew of greenies, but I am wondering if these things killed her. She died within a week of ingesting the greenies. Any comments are welcome.

Annika Mito

My old mutt used to drink beer with me, eat rawhide bones like they were going out of style and chew up REAL tennis balls and swallow them. He died at 17 years old. Know your dog and what they are capable of. You could give your dog the healthiest food in the world, but if you clump in one big lump, and your dog doesn't chew it, they will still choke.

Hi Paula,

I am so sorry to hear that one of your clients dogs was almost lost to a Greenie . There are more and more stories and incidents being reported about Greenies now and several TV news stations have covered stories as well. If you do a word search here on the right hand side for "greenies" you will see many more articles and stories posted here alone.

I am not sure if we can ever get these removed from the shelves but if we all spread the word and educate others to the dangers of these treats and no one buys them anymore then maybe the company will finally wise up and take them off the market. ????

Let's all educate as many others as we can.

The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action"
Herbert Spencer~
English Philosopher

Have A Pawsitively Grrrreat Day!

NO MORE GREENIES... WE HAVE A PET SITTING BUSINESS WHERE WE STAY OVERNIGHT WITH THE FAMILY PET. MANY OF THEM INCLUDING ONE VET ARE VERY FOND OF GREENIES. LAST WEEK WE GOT THE NEWS THAT ONE OF OUR CLIENTS WITH A STANDARD POODLE ALMOST LOST HIM AFTER FEEDING HIM THE "GREENIE". I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO HAVE THESE REMOVED FROM THE SHELVES OF STORES.

Otto-mania,

Yes, you are right, this is rediculous! You and many other people have been feeding their dogs greenies for a long time and many are now sharing their stories that these are NOT a "SMART" treat as the company proclaims.
NO dog's digestive system can "handle" a greenie. Dogs are carnivores and they lack the digestive enzymes to be able to properly digest these so called treats in the first place. We are just gambling when we feed them. Yes, dogs die from ingesting or choking on rocks and rawhide for the same reason they do die or choke from eating greenies, they can not digest them!!!!

If you want to give your dogs a treat that cleans their teeth and keeps them that way, feed them a RAW beef marrow or knuckle bone.

I threw my dog's greenie treats away when I first heard these reports. I don't know why any dog lover would want to even chance losing their 'babies' by giving them an unsafe chew treat. Dogs can't read the 'warning' on the package about chewing them well! It's easy to bake your own dog treats that are healthier anyway -- recipies are easy to find. It's better to be safe than sorry!

I feel all of you. We lost our beloved Rosie (Frenchie) to a greenie fragment caught in her esophagus. Our vet stopped giving them to his dogs

This is ridiculous. All things that dog encounter are of some risk. I have been faithfully feeding my dogs the correct size of Greenies since the product was first introduced. I have also started feeding my cat the new cat Greenies. My critters love them and their teeth shine. I guess if your dog's digestive system can't handle a Greenie, don't feed it to 'em, but don't try to "warn" other people of the absolute danger that you seem to believe exists. I'm sure for every instance you can come up with about a dog dying because of a Greenie, you can come up with several more for them dying after choking or becoming impacted on a raw hide or rocks.

LOL come-on Wendy,

I am not trying to sell any holistic products here, just warning people of the dangers of this so called "smart" treat.

Did you read my article on the ingredients of greenies? They are hardly nutritious and many dogs are getting sick from them even if they do not choke or get an impaction and die.

Raw diets are actually less expensive then processed garbage my dear friend calls " Kibble Poop " ( listen to the internet radio show/pod cast about Kibble Poop here: http://aspenbloom.libsyn.co... ) and a raw diet saves a whole lot in vet bills!

Dogs are Carnivores, not omnivores and they do NOT get high cholesterol from RAW meat, they get it from processesd fats, just as we do. There are more dogs being poisioned by microtoxins and mold in kibble then there have ever been from raw food. Carnivores are designed by God to be immune to the bacterias that make us sick in raw meat, Only if they have a poor or compromised immune system would they ever have any problems with bacteria and food poisoning.

As for the pictures you think are not of a dog's intestines. lol Do you think it is a human that ate the greenie and it got impacted? Come-on Wendy! :-)

Yes, ANYTHING can be unsafe but, most people listen to their veterinarians that are giving them and recommending greenies to their pets with no warnings that these things can happen. I am posting these articles to help educate people since most of the vets do not!

jeanne, i just realised, your putting this whole page on and you want to sdupport your holistics, greenies are made from plant matter, have you looked at how much stuff like that is in dog foods, its nice you can afford the holistic diet for your dogs, and give them top quality beef, i bet the eat better then i do, but its not all that healthy for them, i mean all you need is for them to get high chlorestorol, (i dont care how its spelt)and lets pray they dont get food poisioning or mad cow disease, and yes the pictures are interesting one here, but there is nothing to show it is a dog, and as you can also see by the pictures, the dog never actually chewed the greenie, its in chunks. remember anything can be unsafe if not used properly,

My father works at a plant that manufactures "Greenies", which also manufactures plastics. The weird thing is, Greenies are manufactured in the same machine that plastic products were once manufactured in. I don't believe that "Greenies" are even proper for dogs to eat. I have personally seen the manufacturing conditions, and I won't feed them to my dog.

Wendy, thank you for your comment and you are correct that this is a very dangerous world we live in these days so it is up to us who have knowledge of things being "bad" to warn others. Greenies are NOT good, whether dogs choke on them or not, whether they have them block thier bowels or not, cause them to vomit or not, they are still NOT a smart or nutritious treat no matter how you look at.

I am very happy to hear your dogs have never had a incident with Greenies, you are blessed. I have to look at the weight of evidence here that there are more and more people with dogs that DO have problems with Greenies every day. You mentioned that you ate a greenie yourself and it digested, of course it did! You are NOT a carnivore, you have a very long digestive tract with the proper enzymes to break down and the time needed to break down foods like greenies. Dogs are carnivores, they have very short intestines and they were designed to pass food through very quickly. They lack some of the enzymes that Omnivores have so they are unable to break down or digest many things we have no problem with and in fact we NEED in our diets. Maybe this is a problem with Greenies... they were made for human digestive systems, NOT carnivores. Many people do not realize that dogs are carnivores and have not evolved into carnivores. They may look like a Boston Terrier or Pug on the outside but in the inside they are still carnivores and have the same DNA as a wolf does!

anything is bad and dangerous for your dogs these days i mean for them on a rw diet they might get mad cows disease, i mean some dogs choke on kibble, if you actually were in tune with your dogs you might be able to tell if it was the treat or the dog , i have had pugs all my life, and we have been giving them greenies for years, not once have the gulped anything down, and have never had problems with greenies in which they take at least a half hour to chew, you ever think maybe you gave your dog the wrong size greenie, and its your fault, everyone always looks for other things to blame instead of yourselves, i mean if a smoker dies from lung cancer is it the cigerettes fault or the person that was smoking it? i stand by my greenies, and i have even tried one myself, they fully disolve, i have never seen any in their stools or them puking them up, again like someone else brought up on here all you guys are posting is the bad stuff, never the good, and you guys are just looking for someone else to blame, maybe you should look in the mirror

I used to feed greenies to my corgi who was crazy for them. I would usually feed them to her in the evening and she started waking up in the middle of the night vomitting up a small piece of greenie. I don't know why......maybe she couldn't digest it. Risking her health for a tasty treat just isn't worth it.

I think when Kiro news has something important about peoples pets they should let us know instead of making us tune in at 5:00pm and waiting till 6:30pm or even 11:00pm to find out. Maybe alot more people could be notified or even a dog saved. My schedule does'nt work around kiro news and if they really cared they would get the information out. I know it's a numbers game. I hope they don't do this during a Amber alert. God bless

I have given my pom a few greenies and each time he has vomited them up, I did not know about the health risk since I purchased them from our vet. Needless to say, I will throw them out.

We have fed our dogs
Greenies every since they came out and we have never had any problems. One lady said she cut them into pieces. That is the worst thing to do as they can get a small piece lodged pretty easy. Rawhide is much more dangerous because when wet it swells. As with everything there are going to be cases where things went wrong. For instance I know a dog that died from chewing on a rug and got the string from it twisted in its intestines. Rare things happen but I don't think it is right to give Greenies a bad name. Also they are not made of plastic, they are made with several kinds of grains.

Many dogs have gotten pieces lodged in the esophagus or intestines requiring surgery and at times causing death.

My friend's Pom so far has survived after a stay in LSU.
My friend spent approx. $1500. on an endoscopy where a piece of a Greenie was stuck in the esophagus.

One of the top breeders in Poms lost a dog to death over a *Greenie becoming lodged, and she's not alone! Just Google *Greenies Warning and you'll find many similar situations. The cases I know of first hand were *supervising the chewing of these *treats when their dog ran into trouble:'(

Please do share this information with others. Thanks~

Jessie Klein ~ Keepsake Pomeranians
http://www.mykeepsakes.net updated 10/18/05

We have two small dogs. We have never given them a whole 'greenie.' We cut them into smaller pieces, no problems thus far with either one of them choking or swallowing them in large pieces.

I feel each person needs to know the 'eating habits' of their dog. Then, base decisions upon that on which 'treats' may not be safe.

Lakeland, Florida

anything that your dog has to chew, you're taking a risk of blockage. In my personal opinion, greenies are safer than most of the bones out there. My dogs get them a couple times a week, and never have any problems chewing them up. My dogs aren't 'gulpers', so maybe that's why there hasn't been any trouble. I am so sorry for the people who lost their beloved ones over this.

I had heard that Greenies were bad for dogs. Then someone told me because they were giving the wrong size Greenie to their dog. I most reciently read that they are a lot like plastic and you can put them in a glass of water and it can take weeks to disolve. I thru a whold bag out. I have the petite size for my Mini Dachshunds but not anymore.

I think it is important to know your dog's behavior with items like greenies, and rawhide, some dogs just eat things in big chunks. Personally I feed greenies to my dogs frequently and have never had a problem. i do not feed rawhide though, I am not comfortable with it. I also feed raw bones and meat to my dogs.

I've had a number of clients (I'm a pet sitter) who have dogs that also had bad diareaha from greenies.

I haven't had any have blockage problems, but I HAVE seen practically complete greenies in dog poo many times - dogs do like to swallow whole pieces. Nothing that goes through like that is safe!

Hello,
My name in Brian Doerflinger. I work in the special projects unit at KIRO-TV in Seattle. We're in the process of creating a data base about the safety of greenies. If you or someone you know has had a pet die, or become very ill because of greenies, we would like to hear from you.

Jeanette,

I am glad you dog has not had any problems with Greenies and raw hide. I am just trying to warn people that these so called chew toys are NOT safe and there are alternatives that are.

Thank you for your comments and for being a supportive reader here.

Hi

My dog has never had any problems with either greenies or rawhide chews...

Not even a runny tummy...

You only hear about the bad reactions here...

I'm sorry people have lost their dogs, and for those, who's dogs suffered from diarrhea...

But it isnt all dogs, who have problems.

I think Luna has had about 5 in her lifetime (she's 2½ years old)

Jeanette, Denmark

Tara,

No, raw bones are totally digestible, It when you feed cooked bones that impacations and other problems occur.

Dogs can and sometimes do choke on raw bones but they choke on kibble just often.

The Carnivores digestive system is designed by our creator to break down and digest raw bones. If you look at the "poop" of a raw fed dog you will see it is very firm and the color is very light and depending on much bone was fed, the feces will be pretty much WHITE in color and will actually just break down and disolve!

Is it possible for bones (from BARF feeding) to cause similar to the problem that the greenies did?

MY FRIEND E-MAILED ME THIS INFO AFTER I TOLD HER ABOUT WHEN I GAVE MY HAVANESE A GREENIE AND SHE HAD HORRIBLE DIARRHEA, WHICH WAS GREEN AND SLIMY. I IMMEDIATELY WENT TO THE STORE TO RETURN THE BAG AND REPORTED TO THEM WHAT HAPPENED. ALTHOUGH THEY STORE SHOWED NO REACTION OR MADE ANY COMMENT TO ME THEY PROMPTLY REFUNDED MY MONEY. I WILL NOW NEVER BUY THEM AGAIN AND STICK TO HER REGULAR ALL NATURAL RAW FOOD DIET.

Oh my god I give these to my dog all the time and sometimes she gasps for air but I thought it was because she was swollowing too fast. Never did I think she could be choking.Thank you so much for this article, I will never give my dog a greenie again!

wow-this article is enlightening! I just got a pup and heard how dogs just loved Greenies and they are so good for dogs, too. My pup loved the one I gave him, but about 30-60 minutes later vomited it up. I just assumed that he ate too much, but now that I read this, maybe he was trying to dislodge something that was [thankfully] less shallow than his intestines! I also will not feed these to him, again. How sad that the manufacturer actually paid medical costs for a dog who was hurt by this product, but still chooses to sell and make profit from it!!

One of my Havanese swallows the Greenie whole. He had consumed at least 3 before we realized where they were going so fast. We put one in a glass of water and watched it not break down over a 24 hour period. I'm going to find out how to send my back. Think we were just lucky nothing happened.

My dog became very ill from a Greenie that lodged in the pyloric valve of his stomach. Although it dislodged with medication, he did not recover from the severe vomiting that it caused. He went into congestive heart failure and we had to have him put to sleep. Please tell all dog owners about these dangerous "treats". Email the company about their inadequate Warning Label.

While Greenies are bad, another product is equally as problematic. NylaBone has a chew toy supposedly for teeth cleaning, it has nubbies on it. One of my Bostons had it and was not eating for a day, I took her to he vets and after much testing and x-rays found a piece of it in her intestines. It was removed and I contacted the producer, Nylabone paid for medical charges. While has a happy ending, many people are still using this product Why do they make such products when they quite blantantly cause problems???

ecelent reporting.
We do not promote greenies in our store even though we have them for sale.
When anyone asks for greenies we always ask if they have had them before and if not then try one and watch your dog to see if their is any after effect.
We also do not recomend them leaving their dog alone with the greenies as most people would do to keep their dog occupied while they are busy.
We also do not recommend giving greenies every day or more than one at a time as a lot of people would do.
We suggest two or three at the most a week

Our original concern with the greenies was with the ingredients which are not the beneficial attributes that the manufacturer is suggesting.
We also caution our client to watch that their dog does not chew off a big piece which can cause problems such as chocking or blockage.
WE GO THROUGH A LOT OF EXPLANATION FOR A THREE DOLLAR SALE.

After reading your report which now confirms our concerns and fears WE WILL BE REMOVING GREENIES FROM OUR SHELVES .

I had a stud dog here last winter for breeding and his owners had given him a Greenie before he left. THe dog started vomiting large pools of blood AFTER he vomited up the Greenie! I called the owners, rushed him to emergency, and six-hundred dollars later (although without having surgery), he was able to recover on meds.

I totally agree, Greenies are not the safe chew toy the manufacturer would have us believe, and I'll never buy another for my dogs!!!

Thank you so much for confirming what
I had surmised. I had heard rumors about these things, now I have proof so
I can warn others who might be lured by the promotions and hype.
Your reward will come, and for now please accept our sincere thanks.

my dog died 3 weeks ago from a Greenie that had to removed from his intestines. he never recovered. we are devastated.