Recall issued after euthanasia drug found in cans of dog food

[dlevere]

Dog owner alert: Some varieties of Cocolicious dog food are being recalled due to the presence of phenobarbital, a drug used in euthanizing animals.

According to an FDA release, on April 13, a retailer in Texas notified us that their customer had presented samples of our 13-ounce-can Cocolicious Beef & Turkey dog food (Lot #0136E15204 04, best by July 2019) and 13 ounce can Cocolicious Chicken & Beef dog food (Lot #0134E15 237 13, best by August 2019) to a testing lab, and that the results had tested positive for phenobarbital. We have requested those results.

In cans of dog food

[bungholio]

Anything I read on phenobarbital doesn't explain why it would ever be in dog food. Sounds like it's a very cheaply made thing used for seizures for children, insomnia, surgery, and euthanizing animals. What would they say is their reason to put it in dog food?

[Pyriel]

Phenobarbital is just a sedative, and has veterinary uses aside from euthanasia. No idea how it would end up in a pet-food factory, but it's presence in the food is probably just due to contamination during production or somewhere in the supply chain. It could be any number of things really. If they use real meat in this food, it could just be accidental ingestion by a farm animal, or they were sold meat from a cow that was euthanized or something.

Looking at the website, this seems to be made by a sort of mom-and-pop operation that started in 2006. It seems like they have things together a bit, but it's harder to tell if somebody's fucking up pet food. They could be the Soylent of household pets for all I know. Every twentieth can comes with %50 bonus mold, and there's a good chance it'll give your dog diarrhea even if it's not noticeably contaminated.