Celebrity Pet Products

QUALITY ASSURANCE

OUR TREATS ARE SAFE AND HEALTHY FOR YOUR PETS

Our CHEWMASTERS chicken strips are produced at a facility that has been inspected by a Swiss based company, SGS. They review the procedures of this factory on an annual basis and have always ranked this factory very highly. The factory is certified to HACCP and ISO standards and meets all USDA and FDA guidelines. The factory we use is also a food grade facility that is owned by a public company that is also vertically integrated and controls the chicken farms that supply the chickens.

Various retailers send this treat out for testing on a quarterly basis.

There is not now, nor has there ever been a recall of a CHEWMASTERS pet treat.

The owners of CHEWMASTERS visit the manufacturing factory on an annual basis and can attest that this facility in China has higher standards than most, if not all, the facilities they've visited in North America.

To date, after extensive chemical and microbial testing, the FDA has not been able to identify a contaminant or ingredient as the cause of any illness, or a direct link to chicken jerky. The recent Marketplace exposé gave the impression that these treats may have toxic substances, but the unidentified substances were all from opened bags that customers have used. Their lab did not find any unidentified substance from any UNOPENED bag that they tested. This is important to understand because that means that what the retailer sells has NO problems with it, but once a bag is opened, if someone puts their hand in with something on it, that substance will now be included in the bag.

The safety and health of our four legged customers is our top priority, and consumers can and should continue to feed CHEWMASTERS chicken strips with total confidence.

The recent complaints and media coverage have resulted in a lot more attention focusing on overfeeding of food and treats to dogs. Of the 83 million dogs in North America, it is estimated that one half are overweight and of this group, half are obese. The unexplained illnesses that we are experiencing are more likely related to diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, or cancers, etc. Please do not overfeed your dog either food or treats. Each chicken strip is approx. 70 calories, and this amount of calories is going into a pet that weighs a lot less than most people.

Please don't hesitate to contact the undersigned if you have any further concerns.

Mark & Ron
Celebrity Products Inc.
Tel: 416-645-0202
www.celebcorp.com

Re: CHEWMASTERS chicken jerky - a clarification of the lab test results in the Marketplace show

In the Marketplace show which recently aired, most people did not clearly hear that when the German doctor gave his results he said that there were NO unknown compounds in the samples that Marketplace bought - that would be any bag bought direct from a store. All the unknown compounds were found in opened bags from the dogs that got sick - these would be bags where moms have put their hands in 20 or 30 times and introduced contaminants. Those same contaminants are probably in every single bag in the pantries of the homes of the sick dogs. These same compounds/contaminants are the ones that Tom Harrington said may, or may not, be toxic. This is terribly misleading because consumers are not buying opened bags at the retailers!

This point is crucial in explaining that what the retailer is selling has NO UNKNOWN COMPOUNDS. Had Tom Harrington stopped his report, looked into the camera and clearly explained this point to his viewers, they would have walked away with a fairer understanding of the facts. Unfortunately, most people are very busy and don't pay attention to the details, and get caught up in the sensationalized headlines.

There are over 40 million overweight dogs in Canada and the USA. The unfortunate fact is that Marketplace is causing some consumers to switch from a pure and healthy treat to either unhealthy cookies, or some other chemically processed treat…….thereby exacerbating the health issue we already face with many of our dogs.

Below is an email send to Marketplace this morning that we were copied on from a customer:

"Fighting For Fido"
Broadcast 28 September 2012

As a lifelong pet owner and still now a dog owner, I watched Tom Harrington's report on dogs being made sick and in some cases dying because of a specific chicken jerky treat made from a product imported from China with great personal interest.

Sickness and the possible death of a pet is a very serious, very emotional and very sad event.

To point a finger and not back up your allegation with facts is just as serious.

To present a story so incomplete and filled with information culled from suspect "facts" does no one any justice.

The number of complaints/illnesses/deaths is presented as a complete case against all such chicken treats. While I would never question the complaints some sense of balance needs to be provided.

How many of these treats are sold in total? In what country? Your report seems to have a more U.S base in fact but you extend this same experience across borders without any regard for actual numbers.

Does this rate of sickness/death exceed what might be expected from the total number of treats ingested? Even too much water can lead to the death of high performance athletes. Does this mean that ingesting water, imported or not, is dangerous and to be avoided?

To judge all these products based on the experience of one brand, to even show other brands made by different manufacturers in the same screen shot as the single brand complained about seems most unfair or more fairly put, just irresponsible.

You employed a series of professionals to try and explain and even solve this mystery, to no avail. You talked about a specific ingredient that may be the culprit but this was not found in any significant amounts in the samples provided. Your expert did find something. He was such an expert, and you were so lacking in inquisitiveness about what he did find that the matter was left unsolved. Why? Probably because, as your website clearly states in the introduction to this piece, "...there is no definitive link between the treats and the illness."

I appreciate the nature of your program and your being a consumer watchdog (no pun intended) but could you please stick with the facts.

Our emotions surrounding our love of our pets speak for themselves.

You need not scare us any more than we already are in just trying to care for our best friends that can't speak or care for themselves.

Dr. Brent Rose
Toronto, Ontario