Wiggly Giggly ball danger!!!!

[boxer4]

I know I have read in the past that alot of you have the wiggly giggly ball I didn`t get one yet but was going to. Now I read in this months issue of The Whole Dog Journal that there is a safty warning. The report states that ther has been a dog death due to the ingestion of a zinc piece from a chewed up ball. The noise making whistle in the interior of the ball may provide a lethal dose of zinc. It also states that the manufacturer confirmed that the ball did in fact contain this zinc until very recently. I know most of you probably supervise your pets with toys but for the others I just wanted to make sure I warned you. After all its bad enough when your dog swallows something he shouldn`t but when it is in a dog toy and is poisonous thats really bad.I wish I could send you the article but I`m real new to the computer and I`m not sure how to do it.

 

[dpasto]

Thank you for the notice. My guys only play with theirs while I am there to supervise. I does not even giggle anymore it kind of moans.

 

[Angel]

Thank You

Thanks for the warning! I have one of these but my babies are afraid of it. LOL!

 

[RamsesMom]

Oh No!

:eek:I can't even believe that. My little boy has both the ball and the bone...they don't giggle any more because he has put holes in them. Tonight we are going to throw them away and take him to the pet store to replace them. Sad thing is that giggly bone was his favorite... Thanks for the info!

 

[boxer4]

Before you throw out or return the ball see if you can check with the manufacturer to see if it is one of the newly designed ball where they replaced the zinc weight with crushed stone. As I said in my original post they stated

the manufacturer confirmed that the ball did in fact contain this zinc until very recently

. It doesn`t say if these are on sale now or if there is a way to tell the difference. Lets hope that they make it clear on the new ones that it is the re-designed safer ball. Glad I could be of help, I read these journals religiosly and have found them to be very informative.

 

[Tykie'sMom]

Thanks for the warning.....We originally purchased the extra large giggle ball so that she would be able to play with it longer, therefore she hasn't been able to bite it until recently. With this information I think I will have to put the toy away. Has anyone tried writing to the manufactuer for a refund?

 

[JulieM]

This came up about a month ago and I posted the manufacturer's reply....a forum search for "wiggly giggly" should bring it up....

One thing to remember is that this dog *tore apart and ingested* the zinc pieces - which are inside metal whistles, which are inside plastic tubes, which are inside the green plastic ball. If you use common sense and don't let your dog have toys after they've started to tear them apart, the situation can be easily avoided, whether they have a new Wiggly Giggly or an old one.

Also, remember that this happened to ONE dog out of the thousands (and probably hundreds of thousands) of WGs sold. And, the company stopped using zinc in the whistles *before* this incident occurred. I'm all for informed consumers, but I do think the information should come from both sides

 

[boxer4]

Julie, I must have missed your post on it, I was just concerned. I only got the paper the day I posted it, and I didn`t mean to sound like I was only taking one side, the main reason I posted this was for the people that don`t supervise their pets with these. The Other thing is that I thought because the manufacturer did change the design it showed they were being very responsable and that showed a good side of them. Most of the things I said were in agreement with you. The quotes from Andrew Farrar, partner and Ceo Of HandsOn Toy showed that they cared.

We greatly appreciated the potential hazards of zinc being brought to our attention. We had alresdy initiated a change to the manufacturing process to make the toy safer,Wiggly Giggly toys have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of dogs. While any traumatic event is too many, we are committed to bringing safe and engaging toys to the pet market.

If I would have known how to post the entire article I don`t think it would have sounded one sided,because the info in it did come from both sides. Sorry if I wasn`t clear on that. Just didn`t want to see any fur babies get hurt.

 

[JulieM]

Peg, I didn't mean you specifically were being one-sided - I'm sorry if it sounded like that! I've seen the WG warning at least 15 times in my e-mail, and never once is the reply from the manufacturer included. I haven't seen the WDJ article yet (because for some reason I get my issue 4 days later than everyone else....) but I would have been surpised if it had been one-sided.

The main purpose of my post, other than to curb the hysteria that might result, is to remind people that dogs should not be left unsupervised with these kinds of toys

 

[boxer4]

I totally agree, I should have worded the post differently I guess, but knowing there are a lot of people that leave their dogs alone with rawhides (I sure wouldn`t)I figured they would do the same with the ball, but maybe not if they knew there was something that could poison them if they did chew it open and swallow. I take it you like the WDJ, I get another paper from Cornell called DogWatch have you seen it and what do you think of it?