'How dangerous': Warning after dog is ‘impaled’ on Kmart item
A woman has warned pet owners about a popular Kmart product that left her small cavoodle “impaled” on a stray piece of metal.
Lara Robertson, from the NSW city of Newcastle, shared the incident on Facebook urging others to stay away from the Kmart pet folding crate, a device designed to keep pets safe that instead left her dog injured.
The family recently added a puppy named Murphy to their family and decided to crate train the new puppy and their current dog, a small cavoodle named Marley.
After a week of use, Ms Robertson said the dogs were getting used to sleeping in the crate when one night she woke to “the most horrible screaming sound from my dog”.
When the dog owner went to investigate she found little Marley “impaled through his mouth with one of the bars from the crate”.
This distraught mother spent the night attempting to calm down her two children who witnessed the incident and rescue Marley from the crate.
“I spent about 10 minutes of him screaming and crying to remove his face from the bars cutting through his face,” she wrote on Facebook.
Ms Robertson believes Marley, who weighs five kilograms, had tried to open the crate by pushing with his head when “his face went right through”.
“He put his nose through and it snapped off ... I had to bend the bars with tools to get him out,” she said.
After an emergency trip to the vet, Ms Robertson said little Marley is “doing OK” but told others on Facebook he is “traumatised” and she has reported the incident to Kmart but has yet to receive a response.
“I don’t even want a refund, I just want to warn others with the crate. Same thing happened to my sister-in-law,” she wrote.
“I cannot believe how dangerous this crate was – do not buy.”
‘Sharp bits of metal everywhere’
Kmart sells the crate online and in store in two sizes and promotes the item as “a den or safe haven for your pet”.
Reviews of the medium crate on the Kmart website have reported similar problems of the wire being easily bent and ‘flimsy’.
“It was made so poorly, there were sharp bits of metal everywhere, no way I could put my pet in there,” one said.
“Very weak construction, my staffy pup bent the bottom of the door open in five minutes,” another claimed.
“The crate is not as firm as we thought especially the bottom part of the crate, my puppy un-clicked from the bottom and squeezed herself through,” a third added.
A Kmart spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia they were aware of the incident and investigating further.
“We want to provide our customers with great quality products and we want to ensure they are as safe as possible for all members of the family (including our furry friends),” the spokesperson said.
“That’s why we’re concerned to hear about a customer’s recent experience and currently liaising directly to investigate this further.”
Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.
You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
