15 February 2006

Dogs die by the numbers

A dog treat designed to help clean the dog's teeth has caused a number of them to choke or has gotten caught in their intestines and ended up killing at least 13 dogs. The part that caught my eye though was the poor grasp of numbers in the article.


"Our product is safe. It is used every day by thousands of dogs, millions a week and it is basically a very safe product," (said Greenies developer Joe Roetheli).

"At the end of the day ... literally millions of Greenies are enjoyed by dogs on a weekly basis with absolutely no incidents," company vet Brad Quest told CNN.

(CNN)


Which is it, thousands a day or millions a week? If we had thousands, say 9 thousand a day, times 7 days a week that makes 63,000 dogs a week, not millions. If it were 1 million a week, that'd be 142,000 a day, which is hundreds of thousands, not mere thousands. I don't think I'm nitpicking the English here, but the numbers.

1 comment:

JoanneMarie Faust said...

Are you taking into consideration if dogs eat multiple Greenies in a day? Of course the things cost more than a buck a piece when you buy a value pack, so there probably aren't too many dogs eating a lot of them in a day. Although they can be sure of the number of them that they sell in any given time period, they can't be that certain of the number of dogs ingesting the product. As far as the math goes, I think you can give them a little slack.

I'm not sure I'm going to be that forgiving. Dogs are not known for their delicate eating habits. It doesn't matter how many times I correct his table manners, Pickles will never chew each mouthful 32 times (or whatever number "they" say is best). How do you make a product that can only be digested if broken down well enough before swallowing and market it for dogs?