http://www.newsday.com/features/consumer/ny-lspets5062383jan22,0,2891784.story?page=1

I saw this on another forum & have brought it here because I think it is a tragic event & esily avoided.

This appears to be a lack of common sense and safety here. Why would someone in a private home leave a shredder on? Yes, everyday we get things in the mail that should be shredded to avoid identity theft, etc. But having a puppy around is like having a toddler , they are constantly into things. Very few of us have a need to keep a shredder on. You are so right, accidents like these can be avoided if people think.

Judith, common ,you've never left anything on that should have been turned off, are you that darn perfect?
I can say that I have left many thing on that should have been turned off, my big male loves shredders, he goes banana when he hears it shredding.It drives us up the wall.OUr shredder is in our garage for few reasons and the most important ones are my 2 year old and my 4 year olds' safety cause like the dogs they find it facinating, so we find it safer for everyone to have it in the garage on our tool table, way out of reach.
But I have to say that I was shocked that my dogs were soo interested in it.

Not being very shredder savvy, I have to say I would have NEVER have thought of this as a risk. Seriously, it wouldn't have even crossed my mind that a dog would think to lick that.

I can't even imagine how horrible those people must have felt.

It is quite common for people to leave them on, since they have "idle" mode. Angelique my pup loves the noise too. He cocks his little head & wants to "play" or "kill" it (not sure which).

I'm with you, I remember the first time I turned our shredder on in the office(in my home) and my male came running in like he had seen a bad guy, a scared the h... out of me.He cannot focus when it's on he wants to attack it. Who'd know!

I'm glad I keep my shedder up on the desk and the door to the office closed at all times(unless of course I'm in the office).
That is the first time I've heard of anything like this before, it now bring light to a whole new kind of danger to any pet inside the household.

Well I liked it better when it was in my office but it's been in the garage for a while now but safe from all the critters.

Long-time lurker delurking here:

It's tragic but I'd say that it's one less grounded in stupidity and more so in not understanding the nature of a product that hasn't been designed with the typical domestic usage in mind.

Part of this tragedy has to do with how we typically use things around the house: we leave electrical goods on standby. TVs, microwaves, mobile phone charges -- everything is plugged in and powered up constantly, ready for use at a moment's notice and so too will shredders at home. Actually turning things *off*, completely off is foreign to most people -- and manufacturers (grumbles at TV that has to be unplugged to go off).

It's not immediately obvious either to most people why a still, silent shredder will still be of interest to an animal (that it can be is gruesomely detailed in the article), so when it is not in use it becomes nearly invisible to the average person around the house. Which is a mistake.

I can understand too how it's easy to underestimate how dangerous a shredder can be: in an office environment where it's used by staff who appreciate the need to keep fingers, loose hair and clothing away from the blades shred documents by the ton with nary an accident, it can seem far safer an item than it really is which again leads to complacency.

Ultimately, shredders for use at home and in home office environments do need additional safety features that take into account how people *actually* use them (now there's a good marketing strategy for an astute manufacturer looking to grow sales!), but raising awareness as this article does is a very good first step.

Well said ,and soon we will see some shredders with safety features on them so that we can throw away the ones we have and spend more money getting the ones with safety features, isn't that their plans all along
The world of sales........always figuring out a way to make us pay twice for the same thing, but with one extra little feature added that should have been there in the first place