[aimee]

I found this interesting… Earth Animal has posted a new piece called No-Hiding the Truth on No Hide….. it appears that they are trying to address and refute the information I’ve posted in this thread! Actually I think they just dug themselves into a deeper hole.

Apparently they sent a No Hide to a veterinary pathologist and posted pics of it and rawhide to show how different they are. I agree the material they sent in is very different in appearance from rawhide. It is also very different from the Hide that I sent in. The rawhide stained eosinophilic ( red) and what they sent in stained Basophilic (blue) The off the shelf product I sent in was described as streams of eosinophilic material and theirs is described as lacey basophilic material. The pictures that came with my report look exactly like their rawhide pictures.

What this shows in my opinion is that Earth Animal/Pony Express can make a product that looks like an off the shelf No Hide chew…but that it doesn’t appear that what is being sold at the stores by me is that same product.

Earth Animal also addressed the finding of “collagen-like material” I found this section rather comical for multiple reasons. 1)Earth Animal claims that you should see “collagen-like material” when examining their product under the microscope but then in their microscopic analysis was any found? If it was they sure didn’t post it. Their product was described as “Lacey basophilic matrix with numerous large, multi-lobulated structures that resemble adipose tissue or a polyfilament type of material. Hmm if their product is supposed to look like collagen then how come it didn’t look that way? 2) The reason they gave for looking collagen like is that gelatin is derived from collagen. Animal based gelatin is derived from collagen but is very different structurally which is why it will not look like collagen. It is a mute point though because I sent in a Salmon chew which is purportedly made with vegetable gelatin. Vegetable gelatin is not derived from collagen, it comes from seaweed.. nothing collagen like about it. 3) They go on to say gelatin is high in protein (95%).. true for animal based gelatin but vegetable based is only about 6-7% protein content. 4) Next they report different gelatins have different melting points. I think they included this to try and explain why my No Hide didn’t melt after prolonged boiling. It is true melting points can vary but I haven’t found any above boiling water. Wikipedia says generally they are below 95 degrees F. Agar, which is the gelatin type in the chew I tested, also melts at a temp below boiling water.

I also found this part especially fascinating. They report the FDA investigated their facilities in January. It is now May and the FDA investigation is still an open investigation. If everything was in order I would think it would have been closed by now. On the other hand finding an abnormality could lead to the FDA needing to do further investigation. I have no idea how the FDA works but it is just my thought on the subject.

Will have to see how the FDA investigation plays out. In the meantime I’ve been doing some leathercrafting with my tanned “No Hide” I branched out to adding beads, rivets and mystery braids.