What was recalled
On April 13, 2017, a Texas retailer notified Party Animal of independent third-party lab testing that detected pentobarbital in two Cocolicious canned dog food lots. Party Animal initiated a voluntary recall on April 17, 2017 covering: Cocolicious Beef & Turkey 13-oz can (Lot #0136E15204 04, Best By date July 2019) and Cocolicious Chicken & Beef 13-oz can (Lot #0134E15 237 13, Best By Aug 2019). Both affected lots were manufactured in 2015 and remained in distribution at retail at the time of detection. Party Animal published the formal recall notice through the FDA Recalls archive at FDA Recalls archive.
The Party Animal event was the third in a wave of 2017 pentobarbital-in-beef pet food incidents: Evanger’s (February 2017, covered separately on our Evanger’s 2017 page), Against the Grain (March 2017), and Party Animal Cocolicious (April 2017). All three brands sourced beef through overlapping supply chains; Party Animal alleged in subsequent litigation that its co-packer was Evanger’s and that the contaminated beef arrived from the same supplier that had caused the February 2017 Evanger’s event. The Food Safety News retrospective at its June 2017 lawsuit coverage documents the inter-company dispute over supply-chain responsibility.
Why it was recalled
Pentobarbital is the most common large-animal euthanasia drug and has no FDA-tolerated level in pet food — any detection constitutes adulteration under FDA Compliance Policy Guide section 690.300 on pentobarbital in animal food. The 2017 pentobarbital-in-beef wave traced to rendering supply chains accepting euthanized animal carcasses into beef tallow and meat streams destined for pet food — the same failure mode that produced the larger 2018 J.M. Smucker / Big Heart Pet Brands portfolio recall a year later (covered in our Big Heart 2018 page).
The Party Animal case is unusual because independent third-party lab testing commissioned by a Texas retailer — not FDA surveillance and not manufacturer internal testing — was the detection trigger. This mode of detection — retail-channel-driven independent testing — bypasses the regulatory inspection cycle and can surface contamination years after the original production. The Party Animal lots in question were manufactured in 2015 and detected in 2017. The subsequent June 2017 lawsuit by Party Animal against Evanger’s illustrates how supply-chain accountability fragments when finished-food manufacturers source from third-party co-packers. Party Animal alleged Evanger’s, as its co-packer, was responsible for the contaminated beef supply.
Health risks for your pet
Pentobarbital toxicity in dogs presents as sedation, ataxia, slurred or wobbly gait, decreased respiration, hypothermia, and at high enough doses respiratory depression and death. No confirmed dog illnesses were tied specifically to the Party Animal Cocolicious lots covered by the April 2017 recall. The dose-detection threshold in pet food testing is parts-per-billion; clinical effect requires substantially higher exposure. Pentobarbital is a schedule II controlled substance in the U.S. and has a documented half-life of approximately 4-8 hours in dogs; clinical signs typically resolve with supportive care within 24-72 hours unless the dose was lethal. The 2017 Party Animal event and the parallel Evanger’s and Against the Grain events together established the public health pattern that drove FDA’s 2018 expansion of pentobarbital sampling across the canned pet food supply.
What to do if you bought affected product
The 2017 Party Animal Cocolicious recall is closed; the FDA terminated the recall after Party Animal submitted clean retests on subsequent lots. If you have any Cocolicious Beef & Turkey or Chicken & Beef cans from the 2015 production window in your pantry, check the lot codes (Lot #0136E15204 04 or Lot #0134E15 237 13) and dispose of affected product securely. Current Party Animal Cocolicious product is from post-recall production cycles using restructured supply-chain sourcing. If your dog ate the affected product and showed sedation, ataxia, or unexplained slow respiration in 2017, that history is no longer actionable today. For any current canned dog food where multiple pets in a single household become simultaneously sedated after the same meal, contact the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center (888-426-4435).
How this affects KibbleIQ’s grade
Party Animal Cocolicious is not in the KibbleIQ scored database — the brand operates at a small-volume scale below the threshold for inclusion in our methodology v15 catalog per our published methodology. The 2017 pentobarbital event reflects a supply-chain-source contamination that propagated through Party Animal’s co-packer relationship rather than a Party Animal manufacturing-systems failure per se. The case illustrates the broader pattern that pentobarbital-in-beef events recurring across three brands in two months in 2017 (Evanger’s, Against the Grain, Party Animal) all traced to overlapping rendering supply chains. Recall-history scoring under our planned methodology v2 will weight this event lightly relative to the larger 2018 Big Heart Pet Brands portfolio event, since the Party Animal recall was promptly addressed via co-packer litigation and clean-retest verification.