http://www.care2.com/greenliving/should-your-pet-be-vegetarian-too.html
Should Your Pet Be Vegetarian Too?
By Kelly Rossiter, Treehugger
If you are a vegetarian, does that mean your pet must be as well? Should our own moral choices about not eating other animals be visited upon our dogs and cats? Do our pets have the right to eat other animals? Do we deprive our pets by making them vegetarian? Are we denying the fact that they are carnivores? How do you keep them from hunting, if that is their nature? I don’t really know the answers to those questions, but I feel they are worthy of discussion.
Dogs are, in fact, omnivores as anyone who has ever owned one can attest. I once read a poem that someone wrote about their dog, which I have never been able to find again, so unfortunately I don’t know the writer’s name. It goes like this:
Are you going to eat that?
Are you going to eat that?
Are you going to eat that?
Are you going to eat that?
Are you going to eat that?
I’ll eat that.
Which pretty much sums up a dog’s mind. While your dog can certainly exist on a vegetarian diet with few or no problems and without dietary additions, your cat generally cannot. Cats are obligate carnivores which means they require meat to survive. They must have an amino acid called taurine which they get from animal sources. To deprive a cat of this will result in blindness and degenerative heart problems. However, there is now a synthetic taurine which makes it possible for a cat to subsist on a vegetarian diet.
A case can certainly be made against feeding your dog or cat commercial pet foods. The tainted food scandal of 2007 opened a lot of pet owner’s eyes to the garbage being sold under the guise of healthy, premium food. I suspect that a lot of people radically changed their views of pet food at that time and altered their animal’s diet accordingly.
But what about their natural instincts? Our cat was only 10 weeks old when we first took him to our cottage which is in a fairly untamed landscape. He was young, with extremely fast reflexes and was a relentless killing machine. We kept him inside because he was so little, but he killed every mouse in the place. Now he is seven and slower but is still a relentless killing machine. And yes, he eats the mice.
I’ve read a few things on the internet suggesting that some vegetarians avoid this conundrum by not having dogs or cats at all. Personally, I can’t imagine a life without animals. I’m really interested in what readers think about this, and I want to open up the discussion.
Challenge of the Week: Bake your dog some vegetarian dog biscuits.
Planet Green is the multi-platform media destination devoted to the environment and dedicated to helping people understand how humans impact the planet and how to live a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. Its two robust websites, planetgreen.com and TreeHugger.com, offer original, inspiring, and entertaining content related to how we can evolve to live a better, brighter future. Planet Green is a division of Discovery Communications.
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107 comments
add your comment »Heck No, They need protein and vitamins, and there is No Way you can convince me otherwise :)
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why is this inappropriate?
I'm a vegetarian and love animals. I keep guinea pigs that are naturally vegetarian mostly because i love them but also as I dont want to handle meat. I had a collie who I fed whatever I am eating- eg pasta, vegetables, potatoes.He was super healthy and lived to 17 on that diet! :0)
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Gabi,
We don't have that brand in Uruguay, so I can't tell if it's better. I'll take your word for it. Raw food would be the ideal, but many people don't have the time or money to prepare balanced meals for themselves AND their pets. So, some brands of pet food are safe choices, and cheaper. And they help to reduce the amount of waste of the human food industry.
Rebecca,
I know that some vegans are totally disgusted by the mere sight of red meat, or at the thought of food that might come from factory farms. I understand that (and I partly agree with them, though I'm not a vegan neither a vegetarian). And they usually understand that what's good for them isn't necessarily good for their dog or cat. A vegetarian asked me once, though, if she could make her dog a vegetarian too. She had no problem with my explanation, though. But not everybody asks.
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I couldnt agree more with what Jonathan B put about choice. Im not going to pretend i understand being a vegetarian or vegan, it just doesnt make sense to me, but im not going to tell those who are they shouldnt be though it often happens the other way around...
Being a vegetarian i would assume means these people are big on animal rights, and therefore wouldnt deny their pet who is made to eat meat a proper meal.
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If we are going to talk diet for cats, Dick Van Patton's is far superior to Hill's, the same is true for the dogs. Although for many dogs a raw or close to raw is much healthier.
There are now a couple of diets that compare to Dick Van Patton's, although I have forgotten the names. None of them are from the traditional labels. They are free of all the nasty fillers, additives and other undesirable particulars.
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Sue,
I work at a veterinary clinic, and Hill's is one of the brands my boss sells. It's a good brand. If you read the whole list of ingredients, it has the right percentage of high-quality animal protein. And sure, it has a lot of vegetable ingredients too, but remember that cats in nature eat their whole pray. That includes bones, hair, feathers, guts. If you give only meat to a cat, it will get sick.
Most of the pet food is made with sub-products of the human food industry. But there's not a problem with that, no matter if we'd never eat that. When cats and dogs are given good brands of pet food like Hills or Eukanuba, they live far longer than in nature, and stay healthy for a longer period of time too.
And no, I don't get paid for promoting these brands. I've just seen the results :-)
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Vee,
Of course your rats are "vegetarian". They're rodents. Rodents are herbivores, not carnivores. They must be starving to eat animal protein. You'd rather give them rabbit food.
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Disappointed to see Hill's ads plastered all over Care2. See what they they think is worth a premium price for your carnivore cat:
Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Whole Grain Corn, Powdered Cellulose (10.5% source of fiber), Chicken Liver Flavor, Soybean Oil, Animal Fat
tsk, tsk...
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my rats are vegetarian. Not because I want them to be, but anything that contained meat they would not touch it and leave it in their food bowl until it started to rot. I fed one on my girls cat food mixed with her regular stuff and she hated it. Giving rats food with too much protien can also cause skin rashes which she ended up getting.
I'm glad my rats are picky eaters, every now and them I'll have no problem sharing a snack with them.
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I have 6 cats. I didn't pick and of them out, they all found me in some fashion. All of my cats have been fixed. I live on 7 acres that I haven't been able to mow for 4 years. There are mice, snakes, lizards, birds, squirls and chipmonks. I find dead mice, birds, chipmonks.........
I have one cats that hunts indoors. I am glad because none of the mouse traps worked. I have had people tell me to use poison for mice. Not with cats.
Some cats will eat some vegetables but not for their entire diet. Cats need meat plain and simple. That is their natural diet.
None of my cats are overweight because they can run outside.
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