Lead in dog toys

Note: This is a guest post by Stephanie Feldstein. Stephanie is the author of “Downward Dog,” a novel inspired by her experience as a pitbull advocate. She recently launched Patient Pup Training, a dog behavior consulting and in-home dog training business.

We’ve had a lot of scares in recent years with pet food recalls, but at least the Food and Drug Administration makes a small effort with some basic standards for pet food such as requiring the food is produced under sanitary conditions, contains no harmful substances and is truthfully labeled.

But what about all the other things your dog puts in his mouth?

Dog toys are meant to be chewed on, and many other pet products (as well as shoes, kids’ toys, and other human stuff) end up in their mouths whether they’re going through puppy stages or ingesting household dust through regular sniffing and licking.

There are currently no standards that regulate pet products – how they’re made or what goes in them. When the Ecology Center recently tested hundreds of pet products, almost half the products had detectable levels of one or more hazardous chemicals.

According to the standards set for children’s products, some of these items would have been pulled from the shelves due to high levels of lead.

These test results – along with the chemical content of cars, children’s products and clothing accessories – can be found at HealthyStuff.org, where you can search for your dog’s favorite toys or his bed and recommend products for future testing if they aren’t listed.

Which dog toys are safe?

Unfortunately, you can’t tell just by looking at a ball or collar, or even by sticking with Made in USA labels, whether it has chemicals or not. If you play fetch with a tennis ball bought from a pet store instead of a sports store, it’s possible that your tennis racquet is exposed to less lead than your dog.

It’s upsetting that chemicals were found in nearly half the products. But that means the other half tested clean, so you have choices when you shop.

The pet industry is expected to exceed $45 billion next year and there’s no way everything on the shelves can be tested. The good news as a dog owner is you can use your purchasing power to pressure manufacturers and lawmakers to protect our pets. You can find other easy tools to help you speak up for your furry family members at HealthyStuff.org’s Take Action pages.

It’s true that we don’t know exactly what these results mean for the health of our pets. There hasn’t been much research done in this area. But when there are safe options available, why would we choose to expose our pets and ourselves to toxic chemicals?