Cautionary Tales

Bad Reactions and Frantic Trips to the Vet

By Jillian Olsen | December 16, 2008

Bella & Chloe
Before Samantha Ribble left her home in Paris, Texas, for work on September 5, she applied Sergeant’s Gold Squeeze-On to both her dogs, taking care, she thought, to use the correct package for each dog, according to their weights. That evening, she noticed that Chloe, the normally energetic pug, was not herself. “You could just pick her up and roll her around,” Ribble said. Two days later, both dogs had open sores on their necks where the product had been applied, and had stopped eating and drinking. At the vet, Bella was sedated, had her neck shaved, and received a cortisone shot. A dark scar remained on Chloe’s neck for weeks afterward. “It can’t be a coincidence,” Ribble said. “They are two totally different breeds, two different weights, and they both had bad reactions.” In a letter offering Ribble reimbursement for her vet bill, Sergeant’s representative Danielle Farnsworth explained, “As warned on the product label, some animals may exhibit sensitivities to any pesticide product.”

Major McDuff (nickname “Duffy”)
Rich and Pam Parsons were going on vacation last May, so they made sure their Scottish terrier, Major McDuff (aka “Duffy”), was up-to-date on his medicine — Hartz Advanced Care Brand Flea and Tick Drops Plus+ for Dogs and Puppies — before taking him to the kennel at Valley Animal Medical Center in Indio, California. The following night, Duffy vomited, and kennel staff found him twitching and dehydrated in the morning. They rushed him to the attached pet hospital, where he was treated with anti-seizure medication and ice packs to bring his fever down. The following afternoon, Duffy stopped breathing, and after the veterinary staff spent 30 minutes trying to resuscitate him, Duffy was pronounced dead. Hartz ultimately concluded the product wasn’t responsible. In a letter to Rich Parsons, the company cited high sodium levels in Duffy’s blood, from an underlying medical problem, as the most likely cause of death. Hartz had the dog’s medical records reviewed by two independent experts who supported this conclusion, but Duffy’s veterinarian Perry Rhyneer said, “It was a situation where we still felt the insecticide was involved.”

Goliath, Coby, Bubby, Grizzly Bear, & Sissy Bear
On August 27, Forrest Desmond of Scottsburg, New York, noticed that one of his five terriers, Goliath, had fleas. He bought a Sergeant’s spot on product from the local Walmart and applied it to all his dogs. An hour and a half later, two dogs were vomiting and all of them were pacing and rolling around frantically. Coby, a wheaten terrier, had a burn on his neck and Bubba, a terrier mix, was having trouble breathing. Desmond called the emergency number on the back of the product’s box, and was instructed to wash the dogs with dish detergent. He took them into the shower one at a time. “I expect name-brand goods to be safe,” he said. “I guess I’m just too trusting.” Sergeant’s wrote in a letter to the Desmonds that it believes that “the symptoms your pets experienced were partially due to the possible ingestion of the product.” In Sergeant’s online “Look at the Label” campaign, the company emphasizes the importance of keeping pets separated after applying a spot on treatment to prevent them from licking it off one another, said spokeswoman Jennifer Windrum. The package does not include such a warning, but Sergeant’s has proposed a label change to the EPA and is awaiting approval. Desmond and his wife, Marilynn, couldn’t afford to take all five dogs to the vet, so only the two in the worst shape, Bubba and Coby, were treated at York Animal Hospital the next morning; the rest received Benadryl, according to the vet’s instructions. The dogs have recovered, but the emotional trauma is still fresh for the family. “I don’t know what I’d do without my dogs, and I don’t know what my wife would do if anything happened to our dogs,” Forrest Desmond said.

Ellie
On a Saturday night in August, Mike Worcester of La Vernia, Texas, applied Bio Spot to the neck and back of his mini dachshund Ellie. By Sunday morning, tiny bumps appeared where the product had been applied; by Monday, the sores were spreading down Ellie’s spine and oozing pus. At the pet hospital, Ellie was referred to as a burn victim, “because it’s a chemical burn,” said Worcester’s wife, Michele. Mike Worcester took three days off from work to care for Ellie, who, in addition to the burns, stopped eating and drinking. “We didn’t even pay attention to that at first because we were so focused on the injury,” Michele said. After several trips back to the vet to have her dead skin removed and her wounds cleaned, Ellie is recovering, but, “she has a permanent scar running down her entire body,” Michele said. Central Life Sciences, the parent company of Farnam, which distributes Bio Spot, declined to comment on Ellie’s case since it is still being investigated by the company, but according to Mark Newberg, director of corporate affairs for Central Life Sciences, “There are unpredictable instances where dogs or cats may exhibit sensitivity to the product.”