05/30/2021
UPDATE June 7, 2021: We recently provided the update below about the tragic passing of Sugar, and promised an investigation and further updates. As we said then, as fellow dog parents, we are devastated by Sugar’s passing and Sarah's loss.
At the time of our first update we paused shipments of the "Lucky Chew Stick - Duck Flavor”, in order to allow us time to further investigate the item and the potential connection to Sugar’s passing. We are all dog parents, and we would never send out any product to our customers that we wouldn’t give our own dogs without hesitation. It’s important to us to know everything possible about this incident. Below are the results of our investigation.
After receiving Sarah's report, our customer care team immediately contacted her veterinarian to access Sugar’s medical records. Those records were then reviewed by our on-staff veterinarian. We are extremely grateful to Sarah for giving us permission to review Sugar’s records. Based on the available records, our veterinarian found no conclusive evidence linking the chew to Sugar’s death, but we still felt further testing was warranted.
All of our products are routinely tested by an independent laboratory prior to release. We also retain products from every lot in case re-testing is required. We’ve now received re-testing results from an independent third-party lab, performed on the same lot of chews that were sent to Sugar. All results from those tests came back clean, and showed no trace of contaminates, harmful microbiological organisms or toxicity.
Based on this extensive testing, as well as our veterinary review of the medical records, we have found no evidence that this chew played a role in Sugar’s passing. However we understand that many of you may still have concerns, and if that's the case, we are happy to replace the chew for any customer who received it. We notified customers who received the chew in our recent boxes of this update, and we’re posting it here as well in the spirit of continued transparency. As always, our Happy team is here to help if you have questions, or if your dog is experiencing issues. Thank you to all who have expressed your condolences and support to Sugar’s family. It means the world to them, to this community and to us.
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Bark Family,
We were recently made aware of a tragedy, in which a member of our pack named Sugar passed away unexpectedly. As fellow dog parents, we are absolutely heartbroken.
We’ve talked with Sarah (Sugar's mom) directly to share how devastated we are by Sugar’s passing, and how much our hearts hurt for her family. It’s also important we share what we know with everyone in order to address your concerns, which we share for our own dogs.
Our first priority was hearing from Sarah and her vet about what happened with Sugar. Our vets are working closely with Sarah’s vet to better understand what happened. At this point, we don’t know what role the chew may have played in this tragedy. However, when it comes to our dogs, we must act with great care and caution. So here are some immediate steps we are taking:
- Last night we emailed everyone who received this chew and have halted future shipments. We will replace this for any customer who would like that. We’re attaching the email to this post for transparency.
- We have established a dedicated helpline with our Happy team for anyone who has questions about this chew, or importantly, any dog who may be experiencing issues.
- We continue our urgent investigation with our testing labs, the vendor, our veterinary team, Sarah and her vet. We are committed to surfacing any issues that may be dangerous for dogs and sharing those results with you as soon as we have clarity.
Once again, the loss of one of our dogs in any way is tragic. We can’t possibly imagine how Sarah is feeling, and our deepest sympathies are with her and her family 💔
