Should Your Pet Be Vegetarian Too?

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.

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By Kelly Rossiter, Treehugger

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
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Viky X.

1:42PM PST on Nov 18, 2011

My dog, Emmie, is almost vegetarian, and she is rather healthy. As for my cat, Thomas--a predator that needs taurine to survive--it can’t be that easy.
It doesn’t mean, though, that I’d feed him with meat only. He likes vegan foods, and anytime he sees a pumpkin (or its seeds), or maize, or even buckwheat, he insists on having it for dinner ^^ Animals (esp. those living outdoors) know very well, what they need. Sometimes predators have to eat meat; at other times, they prefer vegetables or green grass, if they feel it would do them good.
Of course, Thomas is sort of ‘killing machine’, too--and I have to live with it. But he isn’t constantly leaded by his instincts. There were a few times when he brought me LIVE mice and exchanged them for his favorite snacks. And when I was a small child, we had a cat who would never hurt a living creature, although he was very big, vigorous and strong. In addition, I’ve often heard about natural enemies--such as cats and mice--living together as pet animals and getting on with each other. So, overcoming natural instincts IS possible. It’s sort of strange to see a carnivore leaning to vegetarianism, but such things happen in life. Every animal has its unique temper-- as well as we, human. We just have more choices and possibilities.

send a green star

1:38PM PST on Nov 18, 2011

I’d be happy if my pets can go vegan, but I’m not sure if a) they want it b) it doesn’t do any harm to their lives. I’m able to be a vegetarian because, as any human being, I can do without meat. Some predators cannot. And some of them happened to be our companion animals that we are responsible for and have to take care of.

The problem could be solved by producing ‘laboratory-grown meat’ or something, but neither scientists nor government seems to be interested in it, so…
I’d say it’s a question of facility. I cannot imagine if a synthetic taurine can be bought in my vegan-unfriendly country. Those people who can afford it are lucky. Unlucky ones (me included) have to live in the cruel reality.
Whether humans decide to kill an animal or to live a vegan life, they still have huge advantage over other creatures. Animals, on the other hand, have little advantages. I believe we can and ought to help them, if possible.

Past Member .

4:19PM PST on Nov 16, 2011

No, that is nonsense, trying to make a dog and of all creatures, a cat vegan is crazy! Since I am not vegetarian and certainly not vegan, I don't have to worry what I feed my pets, which includes snakes, cats,and aquatic turtles.The cats get leftovers from what I eat,such as fish and chicken.

KS G.

6:22AM PDT on Oct 11, 2011

Thanks for the article.

Dorothy Ellen W.

7:10PM PDT on Aug 21, 2011

People can't eat raw meat, it has to be cooked or at least marinated, while carnivorous and omnivorous wild animals can and do. Dogs are scavengers so they can and do eat all sorts of gross things that we humans discard, which greatly helped humans who killed animals to eat to keep their homes and villages clean and not attracting wild animals to the garbage. Domestic cats are somewhere between the wild and the domestic omnivore and were tamed by being fed near human food storage areas to keep mice at bay, and, like bears, got habituated to the foods people offered to them, which were often fish, dairy and bread. From ancient times sailors kept cats on board ship as they so effectively prevented the ship being overrun with mice. Dairies and bakeries were places that cats were most welcome for the same purr-pose, and then inevitably they found their way into at least some human hearts and mutual love and pleasure "tamed" them without their losing their independent spirits. As a longtime vegetarian and now vegan, my idea of purr-a-dise would be to just go on enjoying their wonderful, charming companionship minus only their carnivorous and dairy craving habits. Such a thing is prophesied by the book of Isaiah. Until then I look forward to the development of a high quality fake meat cat food that they enjoy as much as or more than the real dead body parts. There are already such things for people and they taste too much like the real stuff for a vegan to feel completely c

6:00PM PDT on Aug 21, 2011

I think what we can all agree on is that, like people, animals need and deserve a much better diet than one loaded with the junk and poison they are getting! Domestic cats, while still obviously craving some flesh and hunting mice etc., are really not the true carnivores that wild cats are. They are evolving towards omnivore status like dogs and giant pandas already have. For many years I've noticed how many cats like and even crave vegetables such as corn on the cob and fruits like melon. Last year for several months I tried my cats on Evolution vegetarian, both their dry and canned foods, and they ate it but liked it better mixed with some high-quality meat and fish canned food and they did well on it. Evolution and other such foods are now available online. I wish it could be on grocery shelves too. Meanwhile, to add raw shredded and cooked veggies and grains to your own and your kitty's and doggie's diets is a lot better than just passively wishing the big commercial food companies would make good food instead of their normal inferior kibbles and slops loaded with diseased and disgusting dead animals and other horrible things, because they won't, not without a lot of public outcry and ironclad legislation and oversight of that industry. It's just way too profitable for them to maintain the status quo.

Camilla V.

10:51PM PDT on Apr 21, 2011

no of course not

Christa D.

4:40PM PDT on Apr 19, 2011

Us humans have a say in what we eat, the animals don't. As long as they're being fed a healthy, sustainable, preferably organic diet, then there's no need to fret. Dogs just want food, they don't care what it is. I think it's much more important that humans become vegetarian, before we worry about our pets becoming it as well.

Colleen P.

7:45AM PST on Jan 12, 2011

if people can't bring themself to touching meats to feed to their "barbaric" pets, they should get herbivores.

get a rabbit, hamster, parakeet.
plant eating fish.

no snakes. get a tortoise