Beware of Spontaneously Exploding Dog Food
A loud, sudden bang, followed by a splatter, and then a terrible smell.
By Jessie Schiewe
Photo: Tom Woodward / Flickr
On that night in 2001, Julie Tyers hadn’t gone to the market to get dog food, but she sure left with some. That’s because a can of dog food spontaneously exploded while she was in the pet aisle — and got all over her.
Slimy meat coated the 29-year-old Londoner from head to toe. It was in her hair and on her boots, coat, leather skirt, and tights, too. Her jewelry was streaked with a dark sauce; the tips of her eyelashes were soaked with it.
"I heard a loud bang and thought it was a bomb going off,” Tyers told the Telegraph shortly after the event. “After I screamed, I opened my eyes to discover a big tin of Winalot dog meat had exploded and had quite literally coated me in the stuff. It was awful.”
Photo: Clean Wal-Mart / Flickr
Though it’s not exactly a common occurrence, instances of exploding dog food do happen. Cans of lamb and liver purees have burst all over shoppers while they’ve been waiting in line at markets. Charity bins containing donated savory stews for dogs have also been known to suddenly erupt.
Sometimes people are lucky and miss the actual event, being asleep or out of the house when it happens. But most of the time it occurs as they’re preparing to feed Fido, with the can exploding right in their faces.
“A disgusting, foaming, extremely smelly substance went all over me and my kitchen,” one dog food victim wrote in a forum on MoneySavingExpert.com. “The smell was so bad it made me physically sick.”
It’s common knowledge that wet dog food, the kind typically packaged in cans, has an awful stench. The aromas are strong thanks to the mixture of meat and salt, and they get even more intense the longer the package remains unopened.
“I've always thought wet food smells the same when it goes in as it does when it comes out,” one pet owner joked.
But dog food chemists also add in other molecular ingredients that make the smell even more foul and offensive to our noses. They do it, of course, for the dogs because apparently our beloved pups find the smell of death and rotting corpses hard to resist.
In addition to its stink, an exploded can of tender chicken and turkey stew can be messy and hard to clean up.
“I remember my mother tried for ages to get it off the kitchen ceiling,” wrote one pet owner who experienced this phenomenon.
Visually, it’s also quite displeasing, manifesting as earth-toned splashes, streaks, and specks that can make any interior look like the inside of a toilet bowl.
An explosion that happened in a British kitchen in 2015 was so bad that the home’s owner had to repaint the walls and replace at least one piece of furniture.
“I now have a ceiling covered in dog food that I can't get off without ruining the paint, and an expensive piece of furniture which will be forever marked with the circular evidence of the marrowbone breakout. Which is a shame, as I quite liked them both, but now they’re sort of...smelly, too. Real smelly,” Dave Crissell wrote in a Facebook post addressed to Tesco, the makers of the dog food that exploded on him.
“Anyway Tesco, I think you get the picture. Just in case you don't, I've attached a few more pictures so you can really get in to the moment. You'll just have to trust me on the smell though.”
If you encounter exploding dog food, you can usually receive compensation by contacting the company that makes or manufactures it. People most commonly report having received checks, coupons, and free vouchers to make up for the faulty cans.
If the spill is really messy, a company might reimburse you for the cost of the cleaning supplies you used or even pay for a professional cleaning.
Photo: Alan Levine / Flickr
After Tyers got splattered with the dog food in 2001, the Tesco store she was at went above and beyond to make things right with her.
She told the Telegraph: "The management sent me home on Tuesday with a free bottle of good Merlot and a big bottle of champagne. My clothes are going to a specialist dry cleaner today and Tesco are covering the bill. My boots are ruined and so they are replacing them for me."
The standardized ways in which companies respond to exploding dog food claims seem to suggest it’s something they might encounter regularly, or at the very least commonly enough to have a protocol in place.
People who’ve called dog food companies say they’ve also noticed a certain lack of surprise in the reactions they get when they share their stories.
“They didn't seem that shocked,” one person wrote about his experience calling a company.
So if exploding dog food is a known problem, shouldn’t we have a solution for it by now?
It’s trickier than that.
There are multitude of reasons why a can of dog food might spontaneously combust. In order to investigate them, it helps to have the can itself, which is why some companies, like Tesco, ask the pet owners to mail them in for further inspection.
They might notice that the can had been pierced, which can happen during transportation or if an animal gets to it. In fact, Crissell’s first thought when he woke up to find his kitchen dripping with dog food, was to blame his cat. Just one small hole can ruin an airtight container, enabling pressure to slowly build up inside of it until it finally explodes.
Cans that are contaminated with botulism will also explode. Botulism is a food borne illness that occurs when bacteria grows in improperly canned or preserved foods. It can affect both humans and pets, creating symptoms that include dizziness, blurred vision, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and in rare cases, even death.
Photo: Sam Craig / Flickr
Because botulism isn’t necessarily something you can see with the human eye, the contents of an exploded can should be approached with caution. There’s always the possibility you might ingest some of the bacteria during clean-up.
If you have more cans left of whatever just exploded, chuck them. They could be contaminated, too. Cans that are swollen or appear to be bursting might also be at risk for botulism.
And sometimes it’s the customer’s fault for causing the can to explode.
The key, as more than a few people have learned, is to not let your canned dog food freeze.
This usually occurs when people leave them in their trunks or basements.
What happens is that when the food freezes, it expands, causing a buildup of pressure that remains even after the can’s contents thaw or melt down. When the can is eventually opened, the sudden release of built-up air will cause the innards to splatter everywhere.
It’s usually for the best, though, when this happens because you wouldn’t have wanted to eat that food anyways. Thanks to the extra air in the container, it likely spoiled long ago and would have given you, your dog, or someone else food poisoning.
And when you think of it like that, maybe an exploding can of dog food isn’t so bad after all. Yeah, it smells rank and yeah, it looks like poop, but maybe getting drenched in a “chopped ground beef and liver dinner combo” is worth it if it helps you avoid accidentally making your dog sick — and the pricey veterinary bills that come with that.
JESSIE SCHIEWE IS THE EDITOR OF OK WHATEVER. SHE BELIEVES IN MERMAIDS AND THRIFT SHOPS FOR EXERCISE.
Related articles:
