Party Animal Pet Food Recalls Certain Products from Store Shelves after Alleged Pentobarbital Contamination

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Update: The FDA has listed these two lines of Party Animal under the “Recall” section of its website. 

The below was posted on Party Animal’s homepage on April 17 after a customer in Texas sent samples of Party Animal’s Cocolicious to the Texas A&M Veterinary Diagnostic Lab for testing after a pet became sick. According to the test results, that sample tested positive for pentobarbital, causing Party Animal, “out of an abundance of caution,” to retrieve the remainder of the two lots in question. Here is the company’s statement on the situation:

The safety of pets is and always will be our first priority. We sincerely regret the reports of the discomfort experienced by the pet who consumed this food. As pet parents ourselves, we take this matter seriously. 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 pentobarbital. We have requested those results.

 When we were notified, we immediately tracked the lot numbers of the food in question and determined that the food had been manufactured and distributed in 2015. We then contacted the two probable retailers that had sold the customer the food and asked them to isolate all remaining cans from these lots. If pet parents have cans with either of those lot numbers in their possession, they should return them to the place of purchase and will of course receive a full refund.

 We also requested that the retailers send all of the cans from those lots to us so that we can forward them on to an accredited independent laboratory for independent testing. We expect to receive the results in seven to 10 days. We first saw the formal report from the lab at Texas A&M regarding the customer’s samples, today, April 17.

 Out of an abundance of caution, we are retrieving the remainder of these two lots nationwide. We are working with our distributors and retailers to determine if any additional beef-flavored products manufactured during this 2015 production period remain on shelves and, if so, to retrieve them from shelves, immediately, as well.

 Party Animal wishes to emphasize that we have submitted many recent lots of our beef flavors for testing and all have tested negative for any pentobarbital. We have also had extensive discussions with our manufacturer regarding the potential cause of the reported contamination of the 2015 lots, and we will continue with such discussions even as we await testing results for the 2015 lots. In order to ensure adherence to our commitment to the safety of pets, we are also actively re-examining our manufacturing processes.

Pet Age reached out to Party Animal and was told that the statement on the Party Animal website is the most up-to-date information the company has on the situation. The company representative said that Party Animal will reach out to Pet Age with further comment, and we will update this article if/when we have any additional statements.

Pet Age also reached out to the FDA and in an email response, the administration said that it “has received test results of this food, is aware of the public statement from Party Animal and is following up.”