This aired last night on the local NBC affiliate (WKYC - Cleveland). It's a list of the dog food brands found to contain pentobarbital. That is the barbituate used to put down sick animals before they are rendered down into dog food.

Dog Food

The reason the FDA started looking into it was that vets were finding that is was taking more of the drug to put down dogs than it used to. Apparently, they are building a resistance to the drug from their food.

Another good reason to feed raw.

--corrected spelling of drug from pheno to pento

Just as a sidenote, Pheno isn't just used to put down animals. We have an epileptic female GSD and she has been on Pheno for about 9 years.

It is pentobarbital not pheno.

Link to the FDA word Document

I recommend reading the FDA document as the news article is a bit misleading.

I agree, no matter what the source of protein, that a raw diet would be safer.

Vancamp,
If thats the case do you think that having trace amounts in a dogs everyday diet could result in dogs with sesures being harder to treat due to resistance?

Well I will say that out of the dog food brands that are listed who can know if pento is even the worst ingredient in that crap. It's a shame that anyone would feed their dogs that crap in the first place. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Pentobarbital is not technically an "ingredient"...

What's the matter chuck, you don't feed ol'roy?

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> :rolleyes: <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I always called it cardboard kibble. Seems I wasn't far off the mark. The glue used in corrugated cardboard is probably safer.

At any rate, the sources of meat that were found to have the pentobarbital were farm (horse,cow) that had been previously euthanized. For those that can/will not feed raw any human grade kibble will be devoid of these ingredients. Wellness, innova, etc etc etc.

My apologies for earlier mis-spelling the drug and any resulting confusion. Pentobarbital is not the same as phenobarbital.

Most TV news is a bit overwrought especially during sweeps periods. However, one of the unspoken points of the piece was that the presence of the drug indicated euthanized diseased animals were being used as the source of the protein. Not something I want in my pup's dish.

The FDA study only lasted for 8 weeks. I question if that is representative of a lifetime of ingesting that chemical even at a low concentration. The thing that flags my attention is that the vets were having to administer more of the drug to pets to get the same anesthetic or lethal effect ...

During the 1990s, FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) received reports from veterinarians that pentobarbital, an anesthetizing agent used for dogs and other animals, seemed to be losing its effectiveness in dogs. Based on these reports, CVM officials decided to investigate a plausible theory that the dogs were exposed to pentobarbital through dog food, and that this exposure was making them less responsive to pentobarbital when it was used as a drug.

Rimadyl was tested on about 200 dogs and approved. It was thought to be pretty safe until dogs in the wider population started dying from it. Under the proper controls and conditions, it still is a useful drug and is reasonably safe. However, I see no point in feeding my pup any euthanasia drug.

The FDA article didn't provide a the size of the study group they fed and sacrificed. I don't think it was a large number of dogs. I would be surprised if it was over 20. Without seeing the raw numbers on the analysis, I can't comment on the validity their statistical claims. However, it's hard to draw a really valid conclusion from a small study population. That old chi-squared thingy.

Schnauzergirl,

Thanks for the clarification.

For you raw people, I know...all comercial food is garbage. But please, if there are any people reading this who feed...oh let's say Come n' Get it or alpo or whatever..... PLEASE stop. Spend a little dough and at least go for a Innova or a Solid Gold or something with good ingredients.

It truly is amazing what people feed their dogs.

Sorry, I'm venting my way off topic. Dumbass I am.LOL And now back to the original topic!LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

So this. . .

phe·no·bar·bi·tal -crystalline barbiturate: a crystalline barbiturate used as a sedative, hypnotic, and anticonvulsant.

isn't what we are talking about? Its this. . .

pen·to·bar·bi·tal so·di·um -strong barbiturate: a barbiturate used as a hypnotic and a sedative.

I don't really have an answer to your question Julie, but I doubt that the small levels of the stuff found in the food would make much of a difference. Dogs on the PHENObarbital need increasingly larger doses throughout their lives anyway. I don't think that the small amount that could be in food would be a big deal for a dog already on the drug.

The study didn't actually show an increased resistance to pentabarb when it was fed to the animals. The study was designed to see if a toxic effect could be seen with the consumption of pentabarb and looked at response criteria that are also found with phenobarb. The levels tested were several folds higher than what was found in the feeds tested. All of the feeds found to contain the pentabarb contained rendered products, it was previously thought that the conditions of rendering would destroy the pentabarb - but they do not. All in all, however, pentabarb in feed is really not a tremendous health concern. There are far greater human introduced risks out there that are even present in human grade products, due to producers misuse of antibiotics and steriods.