It has come to our attention that certain unidentified people are using the Internet to make undocumented, libelous statements about Brisky Pet Products.<P>First, let me say that whenever one loses a pet, for whatever reason, it is very sad; and we as a company feel bad for those people and their loss.<P>Before we address the problem, we need to say that the vast majority of
vets are well-trained, competent and responsible doctors. We have a great admiration for
vets as it takes more smarts to be an animal doctor than it does to be a doctor for humans.<P>A personal true story --- a good year and a half ago we took our little female dog (named Abby) to the
vet to be spayed. This is a
vet we’ve used and trusted for years, both for our personal pets and our breeding facility.<P>We dropped Abby off at about 8 am and at 10 am the
vet calls us to say Abby died during the operation. My wife and I loved Abby very much, plus she was a gift from our daughter in law and she was adorable. How could this have happened? It was like losing a member of the family; in fact, Abby was a member of the family. We were sad, hurt, upset, and angry with the
vet. Why, Why, Why! He, the
vet, made no excuses, just said that animals die sometimes for no apparent reason.<P>Just recently a call came for Bud Meyer, our associate, who handles the livestock. The lady was irate. She took her Prairie Dog to the
vet (she lives in New Jersey) to have it neutered. The
vet cut the prairie dog open and said it’s been neutered already as he couldn’t find the testicles. He charged her $ 80.00 and sewed the prairie dog back together. She wanted Bud to re-imburse her for the $ 80. However, the prairie dog was never neutered. The
vet simply didn’t know what he was doing. The testicles in a prairie dog at that time of year are about the size of a pimple on a teenager’s face and they are up in the abdominal area. They don’t descend and enlarge until the fall of the year. The
vet made no excuse just took her money.<P>In yet another case, a
vet told a sugar glider owner that their glider had a calcium deficiency and to give a calcium supplement. The lady that owned the glider followed the
vet’s recommendation to a T. Before long, the glider died. The autopsy revealed it was loaded with calcium deposits. The
vet had basically over dosed it with calcium that it couldn’t absorb which killed the lady’s glider. Needless to say, she was heartbroken, but again, the
vet made no excuse, just said he did his best. (This glider by the way was not on the Brisky Glider
diet).<P>I can go on and on with horror stores like this where
vets have made errors or mistakes in judgement. But I’m not here to mean mouth
vets. Just want to illustrate that just because a
vet makes a statement, doesn‘t make it a fact.<P>Now, back to the mysterious author who started this. Her pen name is TAMMYLYNN759. I’ll bet dollars to donuts her
vet won’t put it in writing that her sugar glider died because of the Brisky
diet. This is a personal request to “TAMMYLYNN759 ---- have your
vet send us a letter on his or her stationery documenting it was the Brisky Sugar Glider
diet that killed your glider.<P>The #759 story has some fallacies in it. (I’ve abbreviated TAMMYLYNN759 to just # 759 TO SAVE TIME.)<P>1. A
vet who hasn’t been trained in exotics (sugar gliders) would not necessarily know more about gliders than an experienced
breeder would. In fact, many
breeders educate
vets.<P>2. If the
vet doesn’t feed Brisky’s that’s okay. Everyone has the right to feed their pets the brand they want to. Not everyone feeds IAMS to their cats, it doesn’t mean IAMS is no good.<P>3. We do have a pretty good idea of what they eat in the wild (sugar gliders)<P>4. How does the
vet know what the right research is? We hired a team of PhD’s in animal nutrition that took a year and a half to research and develop our formula. Show us anyone else who has done any scientific research at all.<P>5. There are a number of zoos that feed the Brisky
diet. How many zoos around the country has 759 contacted?<P>6. 759 states that the only way to have a calcium deficiency was not enough calcium. That is a mis-statement. If one takes a balanced
diet and dilutes it with too many treats, the whole
diet goes out of whack. 759 readily admits to feeding 10% treats which probably means at least 2 or 3 times the 10%.<P>Again, we really feed for 759’s loss, but without written documentation from a
vet, we cannot accept responsibility for it.<P>We put a guaranteed analysis in writing on our label. One can send a sample of the Brisky
diet to a lab to have it tested, and we’ll assure you that it meets or exceeds the guarantee. A team of PhD’s in animal nutrition formulated the Brisky Sugar Glider
diet as well as with all of our
diets. That’s where the ingredients and guaranteed analysis comes from. The formula is a 3-page document. We have put a lot of time and money into our proprietary formulas. If someone wants to see all of our Sugar Glider research, etc., we will be glad to do so for a fee of $ 5000. And a signed statement witnessed by a notary public that our research and formula will not be copied, shared or duplicated in any way, shape or form. We’ve been imitated, but never duplicated!<P>In the feed industry, it doesn’t seem to matter if one is feeding cows, chickens, dogs, cats, fish, birds, horses, zoo animals, small mammals, etc., it is very easy to blame the feed for most every problem out there. However, in reality, the problem usually isn’t the feed at all, if it was being fed as recommended. It’s more likely husbandry or just mother natures doing her thing. Why does a perfectly healthy human being today, get cancer and be gone tomorrow? With animals being kept in captivity, husbandry plays an important part in the pets well being. Here’s a partial list ~ filthy cages, rusted wire, dirty feed dishes, overcrowding, improper temperature (too cold or too hot), dirty water or no water, cages too small, bacteria laden nest boxes, wrong feed, not enough feed, too much noise, improper food storage, and last, but not least, mis-diagnosis by
vets.<P>Here are the Facts about the Brisky Sugar Glider
diet.<P>1 Formulated by PhD’s in animal nutrition. The only commercial
diet for gliders that we know of that can say that.<BR>2 Over a year and a half in research, development and testing on our colony of 42 pair.<BR>3 Millions of meals eaten over the last four years by thousands of gliders, perhaps even tens of thousands without a single documented case of any ill effects. This is a track record we’re proud of.<BR>4 A complete USDA approved food label showing ingredients and guaranteed analysis.<BR>5
veterinarian and professional nutritionists all agree that animal specific commercial
diets are far superior to homemade concoctions.<BR>6 Countless testimonials praising the quality and convenience of our feed and how well their pets are doing on it.<P>Back to the unreliability of the Internet. What is to stop an unscrupulous competitor from fabricating a story that is intended to make people in the forum feel sorry for them and their loss? All they have to do is post a tale of woe. Unsuspecting readers take the falsehood at face value and spread the lie to even more people, causing a lot of damage to the person or company they’re trying to hurt. <P>We know of at least one company that has copied almost everything we do, including literature, ads, price lists, and labeling, but the one thing that they can’t copy is our prized and valuable formula. (It’s kind of like the Kentucky Fried Chicken’s secret recipe.)<P>We’ve been online with our website for well over 4 years. It’s been and is a wonderful resource. At first, we participated in chat rooms, forums and bulletin boards, etc., but we soon learned that there are a lot of people out there who have nothing to do but gossip on the internet. There was literally “tons” of misinformation, countless self-proclaimed experts on most any subject one could think of. Everyone trying to out do everyone else. Anyone can say anything they want, true or false, without any fear of being reprimanded or identified.<P>It was virtually a futile attempt to try to present facts to a lot of people on those talks lists; we were spending hours and finally gave it up. Someone alerted us to the post of TAMMYLYN759 just this month. We see it was posted in May. If we knew about it sooner, we would have responded sooner.<P>But common sense would tell anyone that if the Brisky Sugar Glider
diet were killing gliders, there would be tens of thousands of glider owners complaining about it. There would be documentation, proof positive that the feed was the culprit. There would be authorities such as bio-scientists; PhD’s in animal nutrition,
veterinarians who specialize in small animal nutrition that would provide proof and evidence that Brisky
diets were dangerous. There would be autopsies by the thousands pointing to Brisky
diets as cause of death.<P>We feel that an apology is in order. We prefer not to take legal action against any group or any person for making libelous statements, but those kind of remarks can be damaging to our fine reputation and perhaps cause our company to lose money.<P>This is all we have to say on the subject. We’re not going to continue with ongoing dialog or an endless debate. We are not interested in kitchen table theories or homemade remedies. We will, however, review any documentation that comes with name, address, and phone; and is signed.<BR><P>------------------<BR>Richard Brisky<BR>BRISKY PET PRODUCTS