Smucker’s dog food found to contain euthanasia drug

Following the death of a dog named Talula, after eating Smuckers' brand dog food contaminated with a euthanasia drug, pentobarbital, a lengthy investigation revealed at least 31 varieties of dog food contained traces of the poison.

The pet food company, issued a voluntary withdrawal of the dog foods Gravy Train, Kibbles 'N Bits, Skippy, and Ol' Roy lines of canned food, which saw Walmart and several other large retailers remove the affected products from their shelves.

''Nobody should have to go through what we went through,'' Nikki Mael, Talula's heartbroken owner, told WJLA. ''Nobody. Not fair. I mean, I would give anything to see Talula again.''

The can of poisoned food was shared by all of Mael's five dogs.

''They were falling over. They were running into the walls. They were convulsing,'' recalled Mael.

Talula's death prompted Mael to take action. She shipped the remainder of the canned food to a special lab and drove Talula's body to a veterinary pathologist.

Once Talula's cause of death was identified, horrified citizens launched an independent investigation, partnering with Ellipse Analytics, a lab that specialises in testing food for contaminants, and tested 62 samples of wet dog food for the euthanasia drug.

Starting October 2017, Clean Label Project obtained 99 retail samples of various brands of canned/wet dog food for pentobarbital analysis by Ellipse Analytics.

The samples were analysed to determine both the presence and the amount of pentobarbital in the dog foods, using test methods conforming to FDA protocols.

Sixty per cent of the samples from the company were found to contain the chemical.

All of the products on Smucker's retailer recall list had been manufactured at the same manufacturing facility. The company has focused its investigation to ''…a single supplier and a single, minor ingredient…'' used at that facility.

According to Jaclyn Bowen, executive director of Clean Label Project the pentobarbital findings are not surprising.

''At Clean Label Project, we believe that sometimes what's not on the label is what's most important,'' she said.

''Clean Label Project's 2017 Pet Food Study revealed high levels of heavy metals, BPA, and acrylamide in some of the nation's best selling pet food. The presence of pentobarbital in Gravy Train does not come as a surprise and the Evanger's recall was not a one-off, rather the tip of the iceberg of an industry that needs to significantly improve its food safety and quality through testing.''

Pentobartbital was earlier found in Evanger's pet food.