If you feed freeze-dried chicken-heart treats, this one is worth a two-minute pantry check. In October 2025, Foodynamics, a freeze-dried pet food company, voluntarily recalled five dog and cat treats across three of its brands after FDA sampling detected salmonella, a bacteria that can sicken both animals and the people who handle their food. No illnesses were reported, which is the good news. The reason to act anyway is that salmonella doesn’t announce itself, and the risk isn’t only to your pet.
The recalled products and lot numbers
Three Foodynamics-owned brands were affected: Raw Dog Barkery, BellePepper Cats, and Kanu Pets. The recalled treats had been shipped from Wisconsin to New York and Florida. Match your packaging against these exactly, the lot number is what matters:
Raw Dog Barkery: Whole Chicken Hearts, lot numbers 030527 and 040217; and Sliced Chicken Hearts, lot number 031627.
BellePepper Cats: Freeze Dried Chicken Heart Slices, lot number 031627; and Freeze Dried Sample Treats, lot numbers 121426 and 011526.
Kanu Pets: Freeze Dried Chicken Heart Raw Treats, lot number 031627.
If your package matches a brand and product but not a listed lot, it isn’t part of this recall, though when in doubt, treating it cautiously costs you nothing.
What to do if you have them
The FDA’s guidance is simple. Return the product to the place of purchase for a full refund, or dispose of it where children, pets, and wildlife can’t reach it. Then clean up thoroughly. Salmonella can linger on anything the treats touched, so sanitize bowls, cups, containers, utensils, storage bins, counters, and your own hands.
That last step is not a formality. As the FDA notes, contaminated pet products pose a real risk to the humans handling them, especially anyone who doesn’t wash up carefully after contact. And here’s the part people miss: a dog or cat can be infected, shed salmonella in saliva and waste, and show no symptoms at all, quietly spreading it around the house.
“The instinct is to watch the pet for signs of illness, and that’s right, but only half of it,” says Dr. Mara Chen. “With a salmonella recall, the person scooping the treats is often more at risk than the animal eating them. Toss the product, scrub every surface it touched, and wash your hands like you mean it. Treat it as a household exposure, not just a pet problem.”
Symptoms to watch for, in pets and people
The signs look similar across species. The most common are fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, decreased appetite, and abdominal pain. Certain symptoms warrant urgent care: blood in the diarrhea, extreme lethargy, persistent vomiting, or difficulty breathing all mean it’s time to move quickly, not wait it out.
A pet showing any of those should see a veterinarian as soon as possible. People with signs of salmonella should contact their own healthcare provider. Treatment often includes rest, a bland diet, anti-nausea and anti-diarrhea medication, probiotics, and, in more serious cases, IV fluids. Most healthy animals and people recover, but the very young, very old, and immunocompromised are more vulnerable, which is another reason to take the cleanup seriously.
What’s new since this was written
Foodynamics reported tracing 100 percent of the product’s distribution and contacting all direct customers, and it halted production and distribution while working with the FDA to find the source. The FDA later issued a corrected notice that widened the affected products to include an additional Foodynamics brand, so if you buy freeze-dried treats from this company, it’s worth checking the FDA’s recall page directly for the current, complete list rather than relying on the first announcement. This recall also landed during a broader stretch of scrutiny on freeze-dried and raw pet treats, where a second company recalled products over salmonella around the same time. The throughline for owners is practical: freeze-drying is not the same as sterilizing, raw and freeze-dried protein treats carry a real pathogen risk, and handling them with the same care you’d give raw chicken in your own kitchen is the safest default.
