Status: Investigation closed without conclusive root cause; Import Alert 72-07 remains active. Between August 2007 and December 31, 2015, the FDA accumulated 6,200+ dog illness reports, 26 cat illness reports, 3 human illness reports, and 1,140+ dog deaths tied to chicken, duck, and sweet-potato jerky pet treats manufactured in China and sold by Waggin’ Train, Milo’s Kitchen, Canyon Creek Ranch, Cadet, and other importer brands. Despite running 1,200+ tests on 250+ products over eight years and conducting a joint CDC case-control study, the FDA never conclusively identified a single contaminant or pathogen as the root cause. The dominant clinical signature was Fanconi-like syndrome — acquired renal tubular dysfunction with glucosuria, polyuria, and weight loss. Import Alert 72-07 remains active, authorizing FDA detention without physical examination of China-origin chicken jerky pet treats.

What was recalled

The 2007-2015 FDA investigation covered all chicken, duck, and sweet-potato jerky pet treats manufactured in China and sold in the United States, with the largest brands implicated being Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch (both Nestlé Purina), Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers (Del Monte / Big Heart Pet Brands), Cadet Brand Chicken Jerky Treats (IMS Trading Corp), and dozens of smaller importer-marketer SKUs. This was an industry-wide adverse-event aggregation rather than a single recall.

The investigation produced two waves of high-profile voluntary recalls. The first in January 2013 followed New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets sampling that detected unapproved antibiotic residues (sulfaclozine, tilmicosin, trimethoprim, enrofloxacin, sulfaquinoxaline) — legal in Chinese poultry production but not authorized by the FDA for U.S. food-animal use. Nestlé Purina, Del Monte, and IMS Trading initiated voluntary withdrawals. The second wave in May 2014 saw Petco and PetSmart announce they would pull all Chinese-made chicken jerky from their 2,600+ combined U.S. stores — a retail-led categorical exit covered separately on our PetSmart-Petco 2014 page. FDA’s 2015 cumulative tally closed the active surveillance phase at December 31, 2015.

Why it was recalled

The 2007-2015 investigation never conclusively identified a single root cause despite extraordinary effort: 1,200+ laboratory tests on 250+ products, a joint CDC case-control study in 2014 (95 cases, 261 controls), and multi-year on-site inspections of Chinese supplier facilities. Tests screened for Salmonella, heavy metals, antibiotics, antiviral residues, pesticides, mycotoxins, melamine, irradiation byproducts, and dozens of other potential contaminants. Several positive signals were detected — unapproved antibiotics in 2013, occasional Salmonella hits, low-level melamine in some product — but none correlated tightly enough with the illness cluster to establish causation.

The case-control study suggested an association with jerky treat consumption at high statistical significance but could not isolate the causal agent. FDA hypothesized contributing factors: drying-process residues, supplier-specific contamination, irradiation effects on muscle proteins, or unidentified compounds. The clinical signature of Fanconi-like syndrome — renal tubular dysfunction producing glucosuria with normal blood glucose — is unusual and pointed to a specific nephrotoxic mechanism, but the responsible agent was never confirmed. The Food Safety News 2018 retrospective documents the investigation’s methodology and its operational legacy: the modern FDA Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network (Vet-LIRN) was operationally validated by this multi-year effort, and the FDA Safety Reporting Portal for veterinary products was built in part to capture this kind of long-tail signal.

Health risks for your pet

The clinical pattern in affected dogs followed a consistent presentation: increased thirst and urination (polyuria/polydipsia), decreased appetite, lethargy, vomiting, and diarrhea, sometimes with weight loss and Fanconi-like renal tubular dysfunction. Diagnostic workup typically showed glucosuria with normal blood glucose (the hallmark of acquired Fanconi syndrome), elevated BUN/creatinine in severe cases, and proteinuria. The 1,140+ canine deaths were predominantly attributed to acute or progressive renal failure; some cases included disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Cats and humans were affected at much lower rates (26 cats, 3 humans) consistent with species-specific differences in jerky consumption patterns and metabolism.

What to do if you bought affected product

The investigation is closed and Petco and PetSmart no longer stock Chinese-origin chicken jerky following their 2014-2015 retail pulls. Replacement sourcing shifted to the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Thailand. If you currently feed chicken jerky pet treats, check the country-of-origin label — "Distributed by" addresses do not indicate where the treats were made. Import Alert 72-07 remains active, so any China-origin chicken jerky on the U.S. market is technically subject to FDA detention without physical examination, but small importers continue to bring product in. If your dog develops increased thirst and urination plus lethargy on any jerky-type treat, request urinalysis from your veterinarian; glucosuria with normal blood glucose is the diagnostic signature of Fanconi-like syndrome and warrants discontinuing the treat and supportive care. The FDA Safety Reporting Portal remains the official channel for new adverse-event reports.

How this affects KibbleIQ’s grade

None of the historically implicated jerky-treat brands (Waggin’ Train, Canyon Creek Ranch, Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky, Cadet) are in the KibbleIQ scored database — our methodology v15 covers commercial dry kibble, fresh cooked food, and selected raw-coated kibble plus a Treats Rubric v1.0 covering 18 treat products spanning 8 function classes. The 2007-2015 investigation reinforces a broader principle for the Treats Rubric: country-of-origin and processing-method transparency belong in any treat evaluation alongside ingredient quality. Single-ingredient freeze-dried (FD) treats made in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, or Australia have substantially lower contamination-risk surface than imported low-moisture jerky from production environments with less regulatory oversight. Recall-history scoring under our planned methodology v2 will weight the cumulative 8-year FDA signal heavily against any brand whose historical jerky line tied to this event — including Waggin’ Train and Milo’s Kitchen, both of which are also separately documented in our recall encyclopedia for the 2013 antibiotic-residue event.