Vegetarian diets for pets put their health at risk and could even be fatal say experts as sales of v

[catman44]

I do not agree that animals cannot go vegan.  My dog who is almost 15 years old and never had one single health problem has been a vegan his whole life.  He eats what I eat which is vegan and mostly organict.  And I am not a meat eater either.  Now the cat may be different.  I have never tried to put a cat on a vegan diet as they require higher amounts of protein so I am told.  Dogs in third world countries eat scraps from the owners, as do many dogs in civilized countries.  The whole dog food thing the vets promote has never panned out for me.  My two dogs that were not vegan and ate dog food which I thought was high quality both died of cancer.  My current dog will most likely die of old age as the vet says he is very healthy.  And he has no joint issues or cancer.  I often wonder who trained these vets to think our pets have to live on the spoils of the slaughter houses.  My parents, grandparents and relatives when I was growing up always fed our dogs table scraps and they all died of old age.  Not diseases like you see nowadays.  If I find a good vegan cat food I will try it.  

 

[catman44]

It really is species related when it comes to cats.  Even though I am a vegan, I don't think it would be good for my cat.  However my 15 year old dog is doing great as a vegan dos whole life.  No cancer, never been sick.  So go figure.   I never get sick either.  My meat and dairy eating friends are always sick.  As for India being vegetarian, it is a spiritual belief of the hindu's and they do have a greater understanding than that of most Americans.

Handling meat is tough for most vegans because we have a different philosophy about the life that has been taken and handling meat is not comfortable for many of us.  It makes me very sad that an animal had to die.  I understand in the wild this is natures way.  But as a human I cannot do that to another living creature.  

 

[Willowy]

Dogs, while being carnivores, are highly adaptable and have developed over thousands of years of eating humans' table scraps. So they lean more toward the omnivorous side of carnivorism. Cats, however, are obligate carnivores. That means they need meat. Their historical relationship with humans is to eat the small mammals that are attracted to human habitation. As I said before, they can survive eating a heavily supplemented commercial vegan diet but they would not be able to survive eating unsupplemented meatless table scraps, unless they also hunted for their own meat.

I don't feel that a vegan kibble is any worse than a cheap kibble (which is what the majority of pets in this country eat :/), so I won't make sweeping moral statements. But don't try to feed a cat a homemade meatless diet! That definitely won't work out.