Pet Food and Veg Ethics
Posted by mamaanna on Aug 30, 2009 · Member since Oct 2006 · 158 posts
I'm curious about those of you with dogs (and cats). How many people feed their pets vegan food? What has your experience been with it? And, if you choose to eat animal-free, but feed your own pets products containing meat, how do you deal with that from an ethical standpoint?
Curious to see what you guys have to say,
MA, proud mama to three dogs
Oh, that's Laverne. She is such a cry baby. Whenever I am in the house too long she makes a lot of racket as if she is in pain or trouble. When I go outside she just softly clucks as if to say 'Hi, I missed you!'. You can also hear her in the crate - they sleep indoors - after she lays an egg - refuses to lay outside in their modified doghouse. She starts up with her deep. load bauk, bauk, bauk and then beeeaauukk. When I let her out she just does her soft little cluck.
Last year, I had a wonderful vegetable garden overflowing with tomatoes and peppers. Did I get to try very many? No, my hens always got to them first. I am making baracades over my beds this year. Even a four foot tall fence couldn't keep them out.
Chickens are the best pets. (Don't tell my dog.) They aren't that weird. There are several bantam and showy breeds that were obviously bred as companions not food.
Oh, that's Laverne. She is such a cry baby. Whenever I am in the house too long she makes a lot of racket as if she is in pain or trouble. When I go outside she just softly clucks as if to say 'Hi, I missed you!'. You can also hear her in the crate - they sleep indoors - after she lays an egg - refuses to lay outside in their modified doghouse. She starts up with her deep. load bauk, bauk, bauk and then beeeaauukk. When I let her out she just does her soft little cluck.
Last year, I had a wonderful vegetable garden overflowing with tomatoes and peppers. Did I get to try very many? No, my hens always got to them first. I am making baracades over my beds this year. Even a four foot tall fence couldn't keep them out.
Chickens are the best pets. (Don't tell my dog.) They aren't that weird. There are several bantam and showy breeds that were obviously bred as companions not food.
Are they house-trained? Because I've heard of people that have chickens that will peck at the door when they need to go out. I'd love it if you said yes! I love how they want attention. I miss their cooing and they way they feel when you stick your nose into their neck feather. Laverne is beautiful!
My parents always laugh about the chickens getting to the garden before them, too. However, at the end of the season they do a wonderful job cleaning everything up and getting rid of the bugs.
I never had any bantams, but I had quite a few different breeds, nothing much more spectacular than blue cochins. I called them my "fluffy dust mops"
No, they aren't house trained. They are only allowed in at night, bad weather or when they make a lot of racket - don't want to distrub the neighbors. This is fine, since they prefer to run around outside.
ethically how i deal with it is that I know cats do poorly on a veg diet, and it would bother me more to neglect their nutritional needs when they have been placed in my care than to purchase the items they need to survive. I am also the sole source of food for quite a many strays in the neighborhood, and i do try to get them the higher quality more humane items when possible. I hate that i still have to buy, essentially, meat, but they are carnivores by nature. If i had a dog it would be veg though =-)
;)b
Pretty much my standpoint. I would like to feed my dogs a veg. diet, but I really need to do some more research on the topic before I can truly decide. I just don't feel I know enough about it from a pet's standpoint to give my dogs a healthy diet.
Unlike dogs, cats and ferrets cannot make their own taurine. Are there nonmeat sources for taurine?
I have heard dogs can do okay on a vegan diet, but I don't know if they THRIVE. I have fed my dogs raw meat/bone/organ diet, so they are definitely not vegan. I really don't like buying meat though since I am sure it comes from awful slaughterhouses.
How is their health? I've done a lot of research on the raw diet, and it sounds great (except for the meat). I've looked into vegan or vegetarian diets, too, but no one can tell me much except "my dogs like it."
I learned the hard way that cats do NOT thrive on vegan diets. I had one many years ago & bought some very expensive vegan cat food that was supposed to have taurine, etc. (all the missing nutrients for carnivores)...without going into details I'll say I'd NEVER do that again!!
Now my daughter wants a cat but I have no idea what I'd feed one.
They were okay. My dog has one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilizarov_apparatus on his leg, meaning I cannot afford a meat freezer, and I don't think raw meat near open holes in his bones are a good mix. So he is back on Blue Buffalo.
I think it is excellent for their health if you do it right. I did prey model: 80% raw meaty bone (ie chicken leg quarter), 10% muscle meat, 5% liver, 5% other organ. It helps keep their teeth clean, and I think the coats were more lush on the raw diet. People have claimed it helped with chronic yeast infections and seizures in their dogs amongst other things. They also really enjoy the taste, and they enjoy the physical act of eating when they are gnawing on a bone, you know? It might also help lower the chances of bloat, but who knows?
ps Bloat is evil in case you've never heard of it: http://www.marvistavet.com/html/bloat.html
quintess, I have just decided that nature is pretty cruel. When I would watch a nature show on PBS I would rejoice when the hare got away from the fox, or the gazelle got away from the lion. But then I felt bad because that meant the fox and lion were going hungry. I don't want prey animals to die, so does that mean I want predatory animals to die by starving? It's a grey situation, not a black and white one. I don't think there is a solution other than mass extinction of all carnivores or omnivores--not a GOOD solution.
ehurt, what did your dog have on his leg? And boy do I know bloat well. Fortunately, watching a vet sew the stomach to the chest cavity in someone else's dog was enough to teach me.
Sorry, I forgot to post the link, so I edited my post above. Here it is though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilizarov_apparatus
I feed my cats tuna and have no problems with it. It's what they are designed for. They do get some healthy dry food which has chicken, but I never give them beef.
I have a vegan cat and doggie.
I have had the cat since birth and have been feeding him Ami Cat vegan kibble- he loves it! No problem so far and he is 9 months old.
My doggie is very high energy weimaraner that I adopted from the shelter. I have her on the Natural Balance Veg Formula wet and dry food. She is doing great and my vet says of the meat free diet options I showed him that was the best one (it's wheat free).
I know that most say a vegan diet is not best for cats or dogs for that matter but I figured how natural is kibble in the first place, whether it has meat in it or not, if it has the same vitamins as the meat variety and my pets are healthy, I'M ALL IN for VEG!!
You sound like you're about where I am. but there have been longterm studies proving raw meat diets are beneficial for cats, dogs, and even ferrets. The problem with this is that it goes against most of our ethics as vegans and vegetarians. I think after doing your research, all you can really do is what your feel is best for the animals in your care.
You sound like you're about where I am. but there have been longterm studies proving raw meat diets are beneficial for cats, dogs, and even ferrets. The problem with this is that it goes against most of our ethics as vegans and vegetarians. I think after doing your research, all you can really do is what your feel is best for the animals in your care.
do you have links to these studies? It was my understanding that, for various reasons, a 100% raw diet for either dogs or cats was deleterious.
It's not harmful. But for dogs, I wouldn't go 100% raw, they actually are omnivores. What people should say is that they are metabolically carnivores. I would include fruit and pulped veggies, though, like I said, I'm not sold on raw diets either. What I hear most from the vet perspective is that raw diets are bad because animals could succumb to salmonella or choke on bone fragments. Salmonella poisoning in healthy cats and dogs is extremely unlikely. Choking on bones is obviously possible, but if your animal has been on kibble all its life it needs to learn how to deal with bones slowly. I don;t have a lot of first hand experience with raw feeding, but years ago my first dog was raw fed for a week or so. We ran out of kibble, so she was fed chicken breast, chopped veggies, and pasta. She seemed much happier and energetic, and not as much coming out at the end of the day. I was just too inexperienced to attribute this to a change in diet.
As for studies, there are a lot I've read in my research. I only have a few links, but none to studies. I would search "BARF diet", "Bones and Raw Foods", "Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods," "Volhard Diet."
http://www.rawmeatybones.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Holistic-Guide-Healthy-Howell-reference/dp/1582451532/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252378561&sr=1-2
http://midsummercanaandogs.com/Info/BARF%20FAQ.html
http://sufatsheleg.jimdo.com/raw-diet/
http://sufatsheleg.jimdo.com/health-philosophy/
http://www.volhard.com/#nut
I feed my cats tuna and have no problems with it. It's what they are designed for. They do get some healthy dry food which has chicken, but I never give them beef.
I asked my vet about the mercury in tuna and she said that cats don't live long enough for bioaccumulation to be a problem. However, if your cat gets crf (chronic renal failure / kidney disease), tuna isn't good because it has higher levels of phosphorus. I fed tuna juice to Cat when he was dying because it's one of the only things he'd eat, but it wasn't good for him.
as a note, raw fish often contains (varying amounts of) thiaminase, so it can be a dangerous for a cat to eat this because it can cause a thiamin deficiency.
the other reasons I have heard that a raw meat diet is not so great is because it does not provide consistent levels of taurine for cats (even though it provides more taurine than a 100% cooked diet, but commercial pet foods all have taurine added). Also, it's not just salmonella, but E coli, campylobacter, listeria, clostridium, and much more commonly for cats, giardia. There is also a risk of intestinal parasites. I know that some people generally think that dogs/cats are just "heartier" than humans and therefore can put up with more, but they're domesticated like us, and wild animals come down with these diseases and parasites too.
eta: what about freeze-dried? are raw feeders against that for some reason? it seems like it would be safer.
Yes, but you also have to realize, that unless you are feeding your pets meat or dog whose meat comes from grass-fed, free range animals, then this is a risk inherent in our food system. These parasites exist mainly because of the condition in which the animals are kept. And while cats and dogs may be domesticated, and may not be "heartier", the fact is a healthy animal's stomach has a higher PH than a humans and should have no problem destroying such parasites.
Giardia and some other parasites, including worms and such, are a little different, as they can survive the digestive tract. I was referring only to the common causes of food poisoning. So yes there is a risk of food poisoning or parasites, but I think it is far smaller than the risks of a biologically inappropriate diet, and these risks can be managed far better than the risks of improper diet. What I fear is that since there have been no longterm or lifetime studies on vegan or vegetarian diets for dogs and cats, we don't know the risks. You can be fine and seemingly healthy on an improper diet for very long, but you wouldn't know the harm being caused until it was too late.
P.S. From what I've read, no raw feeders aren't against freeze dried, some do feed it. But if you are trying to choose the most complete and minimally processed food, which it seems most raw foodists (for pets & themselves) seem to be, you choose fresh and raw. I guess it's a matter of preference.
I see.
Interestingly, one of the arguments against prop 2 in California (which mandated certain living conditions for chickens and other farmed animals, starting some time in the future) was actually about parasites. Both the farmers and some "large animal" (agricultural) veterinarians said that by having their chickens on the floor/dirt rather than in wire cages, parasites would transmit much more easily. I can't really argue with that (but on the other hand, is the risk of parasites not as important as the benefit of being free range?), but as far as a health issue for the humans and other animals eating these animals, it is apparently more risky under these conditions.
We had some people at our hospital who swore by freeze-dried or by evo (which I think, for cats, is 100% meat, but not raw). Some other tried it and hated it because of the, er, smell of what comes out of the other end. IMHO, if a guardian is aware/educated about what to watch for/what risks are of any diet, then all the better for the cat or dog.
Some people though... still come in with a sick cat who lives off of cooked chicken alone =/ I guess people make the same type of choices with themselves though.
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