Charlie

My boyfriend and I took in two little kittens on October 19th, 2012 that had been abandoned behind his workplace. Being only 3 weeks old, judging by their size, they were completely helpless, so, ever since then, they have been with us and we love them more than anything in the world. They had been getting a lot of fleas and, since they were finally old enough, we decided to go and purchase some flea collars. We got the Hartz Ultra Guard Reflecting Flea and Tick Collar for Cats and Kittens 12 weeks and older. These collars are advertised as ‘break-away’ collars, so we thought that they would be perfect, especially since they are a few weeks older than the age that Hartz said was safe. Charlie, our little 15 week old kitten was the first to try one of these collars this morning. About fifteen minutes after putting a flea collar on him, we heard the noise of the cat struggling to breathe. When we ran into the room, were horrified to see that his lower jaw was stuck on the flea collar and that he was bleeding from the mouth. After struggling to rip off the so-called ‘break away’ collar, I was finally forced to cut it off, freeing his air passageways. He is on my lap right now, covered in blood and if my boyfriend and I had not been here to save him, I have no doubt that we would have come home to find him dead, suffocated by this ‘break away’ flea collar. Thank God that he is okay now and we can work to move past this event. But, there are countless animals that have died at the hands of Hartz. For people who have animals, they are like our children; we love them and they love us unconditionally in return. They do not deserve to suffer at the hands of companies like this. Through our research this morning, we also learned about the Sergeant’s Gold Flea bath (which we have been using on them since they started getting fleas) and about how it has harmed countless animals. Thank God that our Charlie is safe. I am so sorry to the people who have lost their animals because of this company. The Hartz Company needs to be stopped. I have created a Facebook group, supporting the boycott of all Hartz products. I urge you to please join. There is power in numbers; we can take this company down.
Here is the link to the Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/hartzkills/

If this link doesn’t work, the name of the group is ‘Do Not Support the Hartz Company.’