Aldi-sold Foobler pet toy under fire after dog injured

A dog’s jaw became stuck in a £13.99 Aldi toy, leading to a £350 vet bill for its owner in order to have it surgically removed.

Dog owner Samantha Trofimowicz gave her dog Moet, the Foobler treat dispenser on Wednesday night but just 30 minutes after she heard screams from the dog as it got its jaw trapped in the toy.

Trofimowicz had to take her dog to an emergency vets as all other vets had closed and said: “I fear that if I wasn’t home when this happened she would’ve died.”

Aldi has apologised for the incident however Pet Gazette has found that the item is still for sale on Aldi’s website, with no mention that the design is unsuitable for heavy chewers, Trofimowicz demands the toy is recalled.

An Aldi spokesperson said: “We have apologised to Ms Trofimowicz and have asked her to return the product to store so we can look into this with our supplier. The designers of the Foobler toy said they had been contacted by Samantha and several other dog owners and had invited them to help them improve the toy.”

Toy designers Foobler said in a statement: “Our [design] for this toy is not intended for chewing. Throughout the design process, we consider the playing experience and education value to dogs. We do continue to improve and consider how it works for different dogs, and put our experiences and messages in the instructions.

“We did include information in the packaging that the toy is not suitable for heavy chewers, as well as the mouth size information. It was a rare case as we have sold the item for 4.5 years. But we really want to improve it and try to understand how this happened. So we are insisting to have improvements made to avoid this happening again, even if it is a really rare issue.”