Dog Dies After Eating Popular Dog Food. FDA Finds Euthanasia Drug In These Well-Known Dog Food Brands

Jun 22, 2018

Dog owner Nikki Mael fed her five dogs a can of Evanger’s pet food one day just like always. What she wasn’t expecting was a violently adverse reaction from all of them just fifteen minutes later and then the tragic death of her beloved pug Talula. In an interview with CBS 12, she lamented that “nobody should have to go through what we went through.”

After the death of her beloved dog, she sent the remainder of the food off to a lab for testing and had a postmortem done on the dog.

The lab found traces of pentobarbital in the food, a drug commonly used to euthanize horses, dogs, and cats. Pentobarbital is a potent and deadly poison even in trace amounts, according to the FDA. Consuming any of it can lead to dizziness, nausea, loss of balance, overexcitement, and even coma or death. While the rest of Mael’s fur babies were large enough that the trace amount of pentobarbital in the food wasn’t enough to kill them, Talula was small and unfortunately didn’t make it.

Further testing required by the FDA in response to the discovery of the euthanasia drug revealed that it was present in two dog food brands, Evanger’s and Gravy Train, both owned by J.M. Smuckers. The company owns much of the dog food market, also producing such recognizable brands as Meow Mix, Milk-Bone, Kibbles’nBits, and Pup-Peroni, along with many other food and treat brands.

While the FDA claims that in most of its testing the amount of pentobarbital were too trace to cause any real problems, it is still illegal to have any amount of the drug in any pet food.

J.M. Smuckers said in a statement that it “...has identified the root cause to be a single supplier and a single, minor ingredient, used at one manufacturing facility.”

Regardless, they issued a precautionary recall for Gravy Train, Kibbles ‘N Bits, Ol’ Roy, and Skippy canned dog food going back as far as 2016.

Watch the video below to learn more about this recall:

Show this to friends and family to make sure nobody you know has any of the contaminated food!