We all have those Facebook friends that fall for every hoax story that they find on their feed. And of course each week, tons of new hoaxes appear to fuel the naive flames. This week cat lovers got their panties in a bundle over a warning that a popular cat treat could possible kill your pet.
We all know that cats are royalty on the Internet, so a warning about a potential dangerous cat treat on the market is like social media wildfire. A Facebook post from Punkin’ Pawz Palace Cat Sanctuary was shared by thousands and apparently tells the story of a number of cats suffering renal failure because of these popular cat treats.
The post reads:
“Mama Jo here,
We’ve got a serious issue going on here and we want to get the word out. 12 of our babies have been basically poisoned by Temptations cat treats. They are vomiting, and 2 of them have bloody stools. They vet said they are all in various stages of renal failure, but said thankfully because we’re so diligent in watching them, that we caught it early and they should recover, although 2 of them may develop chronic renal failure as a result. We arent out of the woods yet, but things seems to be looking up for all of them.
I’m going to post a picture of the package these treats were in.
Our vet said we arent the first to have issues with this treats, and because the FDA refuses to do anything, we wont be the last. We consider ourselves very lucky. Several cats have died as a result of the renal failure caused by these treats.
Please keep a very close eye on your furbabies if you feed them Temptations cat treats.
Please keep our babies in your thoughts and prayers. We still have a hard road a head of us in their recovery.”
Despite the post being shared many times, the post was deleted. Probably because it wasn’t true. But, that didn’t stop many Facebook users from sharing their concerns with the Temptations page. After plenty of posts, the company finally addressed the cat lover’s fears and said while they were aware of the claims, they were entirely untrue.
“Thank you for sharing this link Sarah. This post was shared with us this morning by other consumers like you who are concerned. We’ve reached out to the sanctuary hoping to get a phone number so our pet health team can reach out directly. Rest assured our treats undergo hundreds of quality checks in our own facility before being shipped out for your cat to eat. We take all concerns seriously and encourage consumers to reach out to us at 800-525-5273 with any concerns or questions.”
@SethKateOutlaws @11kdk This site is not affiliated w/us. We encourage anyone w/concerns to contact us @ 800-525-5273 so we can learn more.
— Temptations Cat Treats (@TemptationsCats) March 2, 2016
The original complaint was deleted and Punkin’ Pawz Palace Cat Sanctuary replaced it with this message.
“UPDATE: Due to the overwhelming response to my post about what happened to MY cats, and just simply trying to share information from MY vet, I’ve decided to take down the original post. I cannot keep up with the thread and my babies care comes first.
I will update here when the analysis comes back for those who are interested.
The original posts intention was to share information about what I had learned from my vet about my cats and what had happened to them. I was hoping that people would see that sharing information is supposed to be just that:informative. All I asked was to watch your babies closely and for well wishes for my babies. I NEVER said to stop feeding them Temptations treats. I left that decision to other pet parents to decide for themselves.
Thank you to those who have voiced concern for my cats. They are all showing improvement.”
How can you protect yourself from falling for one of these Facebook hoaxes? You can always check out pretty much any topics validity on snopes.com. Believe me, a quick search on this website can help save you from looking like “that guy.”
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