Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Pet owners warn: Be careful what you feed your dog! Is pet food killing them?

Episode Date: December 15, 2017

Some big name pet food makers are under fire -- and legal assault -- from pet owners who believe tainted animal food is making their special friends sick and even killing them. Nancy Grace explores the dangers of not reading the labels and not being informed. Her guests include Laura Beveridge, a Georgia dog lover who believes her dog died after she gave it a store-bought treat, veterinarian Dr. Karen Becker, Rodney Habib of pet safety group Planet Paws, and consumer advocate Susan Thixton, creator of the Truth About Pet Food website.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. If you have a dog at home, this might be important for you to know. Party Animal Dog Food is recalling two different kinds of foods that may be contaminated with pentobarbital. That's the same drug used for the euthanasia of dogs, cats, and horses. One dog that ate the food died. Four other dogs got sick. The company sounded its alarm after a customer in Texas turned over cans of two foods that had tested positive for the drug. The class action suit seeks $5 million in damages.

Who do you love the most beside your family? Think about it. Who do you love? Who always greets you with a big smile? Who gives you a hug whenever you want? Never asks any questions. And always happy with whatever little treat you give them. Well, that gave it away.

I'm talking about your pet. Right now in my house, we are rocking six pets. I've got my cat, Cinnamon Girl, my dog, Fat Boy, aka Nitro, my nephew who just moved in with us, his cat and dog, that would be Benji and Precious, arguable. And then my daughter who got obsessed with guinea pigs. Every time I try to sneak up on her while she was on iPad, I'd expect to see the worst. Oh no, it was her watching endless guinea pig videos. Don't worry, the same thing happened with cats two years ago, hence cinnamon. I love them and I think they love me. So when I heard about

the story we are about to bring to you, I naturally was very upset. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. I'm talking about the deaths of pets all across our country from pet food. Okay, I just want that to sink in for a moment with me. Longtime friend and colleague, Laura Beveridge, Karen Becker, veterinarian in the US and Canada, Rodney Habib, Planet Paws, huge, huge following of people regarding pet safety and pet health. Susan Thixton, Truth About Pet Food website consumer advocate for animals. And Jessica Slater, a lawyer that specializes in consumer class actions and is an expert in the pet industry. You know, I want to start with you, Laura Beveridge. What can you tell me about pets allegedly dying from pet food?

Yes, Nancy. I lost my beautiful girl, Dumpling, in July, and her loss was from a pet treat. Wait, wait, wait. How do you know dumpling how do you know dumpling just didn't die of old age Laura or some other ailment? I mean she couldn't tell you what was wrong. Yes Nancy I had given her this treat and it was one that I bought because the label said safe raw hot alternative. It just looked like the – and I'm very careful with my treats. It looked like the perfect treat.

I gave it to her. She chewed it for quite a while. She was right there with me. And then I noticed that the treat was gone, and I began to hear her breath sounds change after she tried to get sick a couple of times. So I took her. She got in the car.

You mean like she was acting like she was trying to throw up? Yes. And we are right down the street from an emergency clinic. She walked into the clinic. They pulled the treat from her airway and handed it to me. They saved it for me. We thought she was going to do okay, and she died about 12 hours later. She was our girl, Nancy.

So she choked on a pet treat. Let me understand something. Jessica Slater, you're a lawyer who is right now preparing a class action against another company called Avengers. And I guess just to give you an idea of the types of claims that we bring, they're usually under the state consumer protection statutes, and they involve false advertising. And in Laura's situation, the treat that she purchased explicitly said that it was not rawhide. And she can tell you more about why. First of all, what's wrong with rawhide? It's not easily digestible.

And also another problem that pets have is depending on the size of what the treat is, it can cause this choking because they might just swallow it whole instead of just chewing on it as what happened with dumplings. And I guess kind of, you know, going into some of the other cases that we are currently litigating, a lot of the pet food that's out there advertises itself as a premium product. You know, the Avengers pet food said it was human grade. And what the issue was with that pet food is that it was actually from a dead animal hauler.

And the pet food that some of my clients fed to their dogs contained the actual euthanasia drug that's used to put animals to sleep and in human execution. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you saying that animal carcasses are in pet food? Yes. Anything that is not human-grade, USDA-inspected, is used in pet food.

And it's falsely advertising. I've got to write this down. I'm not understanding this. Laura Beveridge, you know, I'm just a trial lawyer. You're the pet expert and I'm about to bring in our vet, Karen Becker. What is she saying, Laura? Break it down for me and all of our listeners here on SiriusXM 132.

What are the claims specifically? Because, Laura, there can be a million arguments whether you're right or wrong about dumpling choking on a chew toy, okay, or a pet tree. But what is she saying? What are we talking about here? Well, Nancy, it's swelled. So she's saying that when you read a label, as dumplings label read, it read as an edible food it had a calorie content on it it had products chicken rice it had things that made you think edible and not rawhide people steer away from rawhide dumplings that um products swelled in her airway by 50 percent whoa wait wait wait

wait wait yes laura you're gonna to, excuse me. This is the only way I ever won a case. I would take each phrase and say an autopsy report or whatever, and I would break it down so I could totally understand it. Now I'm hearing something new. You're saying that the treat you gave Dumplin swelled up by 50% in her airway. Yes. Okay. Okay, let me... And the other thing you're saying is that if it's not human-grade FDA inspected, then what is it? We know, Nancy, that we had one test that tested it as rawhide.

The FDA is still investigating and doing their own testing. It clearly was not an edible food product, as the label read when you look at the edible ingredients. It clearly was not safe. It had safe on the label three different times. It was not even legal to sell in the state of Georgia where I am. I found out through my complaint that I filed with the Department of Agriculture. So she died on an illegally sold product that we will find out more about what it really was. That's it in a nutshell, and it broke our heart.

Let me go to Jessica Slater again before I head back to Rodney, Susan, and Karen. Jessica, the claims that you are leveling against the pet food industry in plain terms. You claim are causing the deaths of pets across the country and owners are none the wiser. They don't even know what happened. For instance, if Laura hadn't gone to the emergency clinic, she would never have known that that pet chew swelled up 50% in Dumpin's Airway. And it was non-edible food. Well, that's not food. It was a non-edible substance that she gave, lovingly gave to her pet. Look, pets can't speak for themselves. That's why we're here today. So Jessica, in simple terms, explain to me what your allegations are. So it's exactly what you just said, Nancy. As you know, as a fellow trial attorney, the evidence that Laura and other consumers have

been able to obtain has actually been able to allow us to bring these claims. Attorneys have been bringing these false advertising deceptive practices act claims against pet food companies for years, but they've never had the proof that we now have in these situations based on people like Laura who are actually investigating what's going on. Joining me is Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, and Susan Thixon. To you, Rodney, with Planet Paws, weigh in on the claims against the pet food industry. I'm trying to understand exactly what is being alleged. Well, Nancy, first and foremost, Laura, it would not be probably the only person in the world that would have this same situation. In fact, I wrote an article several years ago, which has been viewed right now, I'd probably say,

by over a billion people worldwide. There's over 200,000 comments on there, and of those comments, there are probably thousands and thousands of people that have experienced the same issue that Laura has had through her rawhide experience. Are there any concerns about dog food, Jessica Slater? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of concerns. One of the biggest issues is what we've been talking about, that it's not subject to USDA inspection.

Any of the, you know, ingredients that are going into the pet food are not reviewed by the government. They're throwing dead animals in there and euthanized animals and any kind of byproduct. Why would you put dead animals in pet food? Why would there have to be dead animals in pet food? It's inexpensive. It's profit for the pet food industry. Okay, let me understand this. Rodney, Rodney Habib, Planet Paws, are there dead animals in pet food? Well, there's a lot of things that go into pet food, and this is a massive problem that we're having. Is that a yes or a no? I would 100% give you a yes on that. Wow. Okay, Susan Thixon joining joining me with truth about pet food website,

consumer advocate for the pet. Susan, I need to understand this because I've never until Laura began telling me what had happened to dumpling. I had never heard of any of this. I don't want to feed fat boy or cinnamon or even the guinea pigs, Abby and Chloe. I don't want to feed anybody animal carcasses. Help me understand what's happening.

And are pets allegedly dying because of unwitting consumers like me feeding them this kind of pet food, Susan? Absolutely, Nancy, they are. And you use the key word, the word is feed. Pet food is not regulated as food. It is termed food, but pet food is not held to any of the requirements that food is. It is held to feed, as in kettle feed, chicken feed, stored in a barn, stored in 50-pound bags, and fed on the ground. It is held to feed standards, though it is termed food. On the FDA website, right now, they don't hide it.

There are compliance policies. And the FDA openly says it is acceptable for diseased animals and animals that have died otherwise than by slaughter. It is suitable, quoting, it is suitable for use in animal food. That is a direct violation of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. The act defines food as anything consumed by humans and animals, but FDA says, we're just not going to enforce it with pet food slash animal food. 14 states across the U.S. also have state law that are very similar to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, but these 14 states have laws that are specific to animal food slash pet food. Florida, which is the state I'm from, is one of these states.

The state law says specifically that it would be considered adulterated if it contains any part of a diseased animal or an animal which has died otherwise than by slaughter. But the state of Florida does absolutely nothing to prevent this. They turn the other way. As we were talking, I just plugged into Google about treats or rawhide treats bad for your dog. And I looked up the latest recalls on pet treats. I just happened to hit that one. Listen to this chicken dog treats now linked to 900 complaints of chicken jerky pet treats that cause death or illness 900 reports of death or illness uh since november that's what i'm reading from from two that those complaints started in 2007 and to date nancy

the fda has not given consumers an answer as to why so many dogs have died and gotten sick rodney is one of those pet owners from that tree. Okay, we don't know what is causing the illnesses and deaths. I want to say that right now in defense of the dog food companies. I want to pause and thank our partner making our program possible today. And it is Link AKC Collar. Don't leave your dog out of all the fun over the holidays. This is the so-called must-have gift for dogs and really for their owners, the Link AKC Smart Collar. It's backed by the American Kennel Club. The Link AKC Collar, listen to this, is a GPS locator, a fitness activity tracker for your dog. And it's controlled

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Save 30% plus free shipping. Linkakc.com, code NANCY. LinkAKC.com. Code Nancy. LinkAKC.com. Thank you for being our partner today. With me, Laura Beveridge, Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, Susan Thixton, and Jessica Slater are saying our pets are in danger. I mean, I'll be honest. It's all I can do to keep the car in the middle of the road and what I mean by that is to take care of the twins to work full-time and to do all the the work really and a full-time

job as a mom I have to plead guilty to Karen Becker you're the vet in the U.S. and Canada I don't really read the ingredients on the dog food uh no, I plead guilty to that. I would never even dream of it. Right. And Nancy, you are among millions of other pet parents that not only trust the companies producing these products, but of course, when you take your blessed fuzzies to the veterinarian, in veterinary school, we are not taught about quality control. We're not taught about the transparency issues going on within the pet food industry. And most, I think, importantly, we're not really taught objective veterinary nutrition. So we are, as veterinarians in my profession, we also have actually been involved. We're part of those victims in that we're blindly trusting an industry that has significant transparency issues, significant.

And this feed versus food issue is just the tip of the iceberg. So the frustration for veterinarians, of course, is that we are responsible for partnering with pet parents in terms of making sure that we are taking care of our patients to the best of our ability. But part of that means extending trust to companies that are not being transparent with not only the raw materials going into the pet foods. But you asked a great question. How did euthanasia solution get into food and treat? That begs the question of what dead animals that were euthanized. So what animals do we euthanize? We euthanize, we humanely overdose with sodium pentobarbital, beloved pets, so that they don't have to die an egg and all death. So animals that are euthanized, of course,

are filled with drugs that should never get into the food chain. And yet we know that there are drug residues of animals that have died of euthanasia, which then the question is, well, what animals? Hold on, I've got an update. The chicken jerky, that chicken jerky was made in China. Okay. So I don't know what regulations they have in China. The FDA website will have a list of recalls. You can go to FDA.gov. There's a tab for animals slash veterinary, I believe. And on the right-hand side of the page will be a link for recalls. However, consumers are not going to find out if there are any deaths

related to a pet food, how many illnesses have been related to a pet food. They would literally have to file a Freedom of Information Act request for each and every product and keep filing those requests. And that's whether FDA will actually give you accurate information. Rodney Habib, Planet Paws, the allegations that Jessica Slater is about to bring in a class action lawsuit include illness and death. Illness and death of our pets because of what, Rodney? Well, this is a long series of events there. And I have a pet myself whose 25% of her kidneys are

gone from those exact chicken jerky strips that you're talking about, highlighting that they're made in China. And we don't know that as pet parents. In fact, on the package, it says assembled or put together or distributed in the United States, a play on words for the average consumer. But to go back and to talk about what Jessica is bringing to the limelight, we have so many issues right now circulating within pet food. We have research and studies around the world popping up, things like high levels of BPA that are being found in, let's say, cans of pet food because of the seal and the glue. We're finding ink from the pet food, which is making its way into pet food, where researchers right now in Europe have showed that it's decreased the sterility of animals by 2% globally because of these issues that are surmounting in the pet foods. You have

aflatoxins that are coming in from the grain and the grain industry right now in the united states and these aflatoxin levels that susan herself has funded studies and found that these levels are way beyond the legal limits and so when you're bringing these things in these dyes that are in the food today we're looking at any bag of food that you go out there and get. It's full of colors. Well, what are those colors? You're looking at red number 40. You're looking at blue and yellow dyes. And these dyes are known carcinogens today. The problem is they'll tell you that a small dose isn't an issue. But what happens when an animal is consuming that over an extended period of time? And these are things that I believe Jessica and the rest of the pet parents in the world, they really want to know why this is happening. Well, rumors about the remains of

dead cats and dogs being put into pet food have been floating around out there for, I would say 20 years. But proof of this is still sketchy to some would argue non-existent. To Jessica Slater, what proof do you have that makes you think there are rendered carcasses in pet food? So in our Avengers class action, two of my clients fed their pets this Avengers product that was supposed to be human grade. And within less than 15 minutes, they started acting disoriented, almost intoxicated. And they were rushed to an emergency vet. And one of the dogs ended up dying. Because it was so close in connection to them eating the food, there was a necropsy done of the animal that died.

And in that necropsy, which also the FDA was involved with and sent off for testing the stomach contents, they actually, the scientists, the toxicologists found this euthanasia drug in the dog's stomach contents. And then it led to testing the cans and testing the food. And both of those came back positive for this pentobarbital, which is the euthanasia drug. So, I mean, I don't know about you, Nancy, but that seems like it's pretty clear evidence that that's what's going on. There is currently no federal enforcement of standards for the content of pet food. Now, the FDA, as we were told earlier, technically has authority, but the agency has really passed this off to non-governmental organizations and partnerships that really encourage voluntary compliance.

You know, back to you, Laura Beveridge, what makes you believe that animal carcasses, dyes, and so forth are in our pet food and it's actually making dogs sick, pets sick, and pass away across the country. Nancy, what I learned, unfortunately, and what I continue to learn, and it's so upsetting every day, is that labels are not what you think. I am in the human health side. When I read a label on something, I believe that label. When I read the label for the product that took our precious dumpling from us, I realized through a lot of hard work that that label did not represent

the product that I bought. I would never have bought the product. And everyday consumers are buying these products that have they list chicken or they list beef byproducts but when you read the real definitions of those you realize people don't know what they're buying and it's happening another dog has died from from the product that killed my girl and nothing's been done and this is happening with so many products, Nancy. You just can't believe, and I hate myself for not understanding that, but I'm learning, and I'm going to continue to learn more. I hope we're all going to. The pet food industry has denied these allegations for years,

but reports just keep happening. Even claims pet food companies continue to use euthanized pets to make dog food. Is it possible? Can it happen? We have to understand the allegations are very, very serious. And if they are true, could bring down giants within the pet food industry. So anonymous sources, people not willing to go on the record, that's not helping. So Jessica Slater, you're bringing a lawsuit alleging what? That animal carcasses are used? What exactly are you alleging in your lawsuit well we're alleging that the pet food companies and as i said this is not necessarily specific

to laura's situation but it's also the avengers situation and many others are falsely labeling their products in order to defraud consumers like Laura, who it wasn't her fault. She did the investigation. She tried to buy the better food, but instead ended up with a bad product that was the same as any other product that's not advertised as something that it's not. And because of that, Laura and my clients in the Avengers class action lost their pets or their pets were sick, became sick from eating these products. Not to mention, you know, the economic harm of buying a product that's advertised is something that it's not. Well, let me ask you this.

Karen Becker, veterinarian, both in the US and in Canada, if you look on the back of the ingredients, you see things like vague terms, like meat meal, or you don't really know what the components of the dog food are. Now, are there actual claims, Karen Becker, that pets have died because of this? Yes, Nancy. And so you bring up a good point. When you see something on the back of your food label that says meat meal, what type of meat is it? Is it cow? Is it pig? Is it chicken? Is it turkey? Did it die of natural causes in a field? Did it die by slaughter? Was it healthy when it was slaughtered? What pieces and parts go into pet food? So in essence, Nancy, what's happening is the pet food industry is a beautiful dumping ground for everything not approved for human consumption.

So things that are approved by human consumption, things approved by USDA food inspectors go into the human food industry where it's effectively healthfully inspected. Everything that fails inspection or all of the pieces and parts that humans cannot eat, that goes into pet food. And that's the problem. You're not buying, the images on the label don't portray that it is garbage. And basically that's what they are. If it is garbage, okay, then label it as such. Consumers are led to believe that they are buying the steak. It's a picture of it on the label. Why would it not be steak? So if it is garbage, then it should be labeled as garbage. It should not mislead the consumer in that it's something else. They'd be better off digging out of their neighbor's garbage can to feed their dog than going out and spending money for a product that is basically no different than what's in their neighbor's garbage can.

Part of what we look at from a legal perspective is if a consumer is able to make an informed decision about the products that they're purchasing, which as Susan said, in the realm of pet food, sometimes you're looking at products that a consumer, even one that's educated and that's looking to buy a better product isn't able to discern from the labels. And they can't make this informed decision, especially as to the health risks that their pets might be facing from eating that food. Let me pause and thank our partner today, 1-800-DENTIST. If you're like me and my family at all, we have really blown it out over the holidays. We eat every sweet that gets in

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for you, plus free shipping. You're not going to get all that at the vitamin store. Call 800-516-0683 or go to nancysbeets.com today. Super Beets, thank you for being our partner today. With me, Laura Beveridge, Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, Susan Thixton, and Jessica Slater, how many animals do you believe, Jessica Slater, are in the complaints that have had, you know, situations where their dogs became sick. And obviously, we know with Laura and someone else that they lost their pets to the no-hide treat. I mean, there's probably countless numbers of people, which you mentioned earlier, didn't know why their pet died and their pet could have died from the same thing. Like Rodney said, too, we don't know what the long term effects of some of these things that are in the pet food is either. Well, I mean, let's get real about it. Let me break it down into regular people talk.

At the front of your dog food said this is fort fortified with 100 dead dog meat i i wouldn't buy it i wouldn't put it in fat boy's bowl pet food is made from a lot of unusual things and if you look at the ingredients you don't know they want you to think that they are fat healthy free-range chickens walking around in somebody's backyard out in the country beautiful veggies um but when you're paying 15 bucks for a 15 pound bag think it through think it through you're not getting sirloin all right that's not what is in there what is in there well that's a great question so what most people don't recognize about pet food is that the majority of pet food is inappropriate fillers. So corn, wheat, rice, soy, all of these carbohydrates, these starches that are biologically not appropriate for carnivores, which is what dogs and cats are. People think that there's great quality steak or, you know, really wonderful

quality meats going into those pet foods. But that's just unfortunately not what the bulk of the pet food is made up of. It's these rendered inappropriate high sugar content grains that, or potatoes that go into pet foods. And that's part of the issue. But then of course, the quality control of not only the grains going in, but also the meat is a huge issue pertaining to not only impacting the health of the animals, but also the quality and the toxins that can be included with the raw materials going into pet foods ultimately means that there can be acute deaths like we've seen, but also the slow, quiet, insidious degeneration of organs,

as well as overall animals not feeling well. You know, they have difficult for veterinarians to diagnose in terms of why animals aren't thriving, but it doesn't automatically mean that animals will die instantly once they eat these foods, as some of these pet parents have experienced. As veterinarians, we have a very difficult task of trying to discern why animals just aren't doing as well as they should be or not living as long as their lifespan should be dictated. Well, right now, the cancer rate, according to the people in the trenches, the veterinarians, is one in two dogs. This is a massive issue.

When the pet owner goes to remove a bag of pet food off the shelf and flips around the side, you have your guaranteed analysis, which make up the majority of a bag of pet food. Always on the very top comes protein, fats, moisture, ash. But the actual number one source of energy, which trumps all of those that should be on the very top, is hidden. And nor has it been ever put on a bag of pet food. So when you have a dog with cancer, and you're told and instructed that, of course, sugar will fuel cancer. As a consumer, when you remove that bag off the shelf, that number one source, those high starches, those carbohydrates are not listed on a bag. Aside from the cumulative effect, you get a dog with a tumor on the side of it and you feed that bag that's over 50% starch, you're going to watch that thing blow up overnight on your

animal. And that is a huge problem for today's pet owner under fda regs only about 50 of a cow can be sold for human consumption okay the high bones digestive system brain feces udders other quote undesirable parts are left over where does that go that can't even go to hot dogs uh well nancy so here the, to touch on what you just said about approximately 50% of the animal that's being used. Now, if you talk to the National Renders Association, this is our problem. In fact, they're trying to come in as the answer to what we're causing. And the statistics that they're churning out right now on their website would say that

we slaughter 10.2 billion animals a year in America. And so if you can only use 50% of those, and you topple that with 2 billion pounds of leftover scraps from the grocery stores that are being purchased, they collect 56 billion pounds of raw material every year in the US and in Canada. So you'd fill up every single major landfill in the world in four years if you didn't do anything with that meat. And that right now is a massive issue that's happening, not just in America, but globally. So what do the slaughterhouses do with that? A rendering plant has a huge grinder that is filled with whatever comes in. Some plants are choosier than others. Will some plants take whole carcasses of diseased animals,

cats and dogs from shelters, zoo animals, roadkill, expired meat? What is in there? And is it making your pet sick? Is it killing your pet? That's an excellent question. It would cost you $100 a year. Oh, $110. $110 a year to find out the answer.

All pet food ingredients are defined, and their definitions are very different from the counter food in humans. Pet food chicken is different than human food chicken. Pet food beef is different than human food beef. They each have their own definition and those definitions are not public information. Everything in human food is public. It might not be easy for consumers to find and muddle through all the laws, but it's out there if you want to read it. It is not public in pet food. They are corporately owned by the American Association of Feed Control Officials, and copyright protected. So consumers don't even have access to this information when they want to do the homework. Okay, wait a minute.

Nancy, I will tell you that I was heartbroken. I didn't know what direction to go in, but I knew I had to get to someone. I did finally find out that the FDA has a reporting site. I reported to the FDA. I called my Department of Agriculture. It took hours to do these reports, and it took hours for them to come in and do the paperwork. It's not easy for someone to do, and a lot of people don't know that those reports are available to fill out. The Department of Agriculture then realized from my report that this product was not even legally registered to sell in the state of Georgia,

and that's different in every state. So there are so many reasons that you need to report, both at a state level and at the FDA level. But again, it's hard to do. It's time consuming. The average person does not know where to go to find out how to do these reports. And we have to increase the education on this. As a matter of fact, Alan Duke, haven't there been some lawsuits filed? Nancy, yes, there are other lawsuits, including one filed by a Texas pet owner, Wendy Black, who's suing Party Animal, Inc., an Avengers dog and cat food company in a Los Angeles court. Black is trying to have her complaint turned into a class action lawsuit.

If approved, that means anybody who bought Party Animal organic brand dog food in the past four years could join it. Party Animal, by the way, is the brand Avengers is the maker of the product. Black's lawsuit claimed she fed two varieties of Party Animal's cocolicious canned dog food to Bianca, a miniature schnauzer. Bianca allegedly became very ill after eating it, so Black took her to a vet, and the vet had to treat her, including giving the dog IV fluids. Because Black believed it was the party animal food that made Bianca sick, she wrote to the store where she bought it. Soon after that, the manufacturer called her, asked her to send the remaining cans of food to them. She did, but she kept some of the cans, which she had tested by scientists at Texas

A&M. The lawsuit alleges those tests were positive for pentobarbital. That is a drug used to euthanize animals. That's right. That was in the food, allegedly. Contrary to the label, the dog food did not contain coconut oil, as had been advertised. And just weeks after Black sued, Party Animal recalled two lots of its cocolicious canned dog food for possible contamination with pentobarbital, which, as I said, is an animal euthanasia drug. Also now, interestingly, Party Animal is now suing Avenger's, the maker of the dog food, because of the alleged contamination. Laura Beveridge, tell me about Dumpling, who I'm very familiar with. Nancy, as a heartbroken pet owner, Dumpling was the center of our household. She protected my children.

We have epilepsy in my household. She was intuitive in terms of protecting one or two of my boys. They took that away from me. I need to know as a consumer who is minding the store, who is overseeing the labels. I pay my taxes. My state gets tax money from people who buy pet products. Why are they not protecting our pets? Why are they not overseeing the labels? Why are they not ensuring that when I go in and buy something,

and I read this, I never fed rawhide. I read this as the most incredible alternative. It says the safe rawhide alternative. It says safe, safe, safe, all over, human grade. I made an educated decision, and I failed her, so I need somebody to mind the store. Laura Beveridge, Karen Becker, Rodney Habib, Susan Thixton, Jessica Slater. To all of you, thank you. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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