Friday 11 September 2015

vegetarianism for dogs

Once I had a falling-out with an acquaintance about her decision to rear her puppy as a vegan. I thought she was being cruel to her puppy and wouldn't be able to raise a healthy dog. Now I'm not so sure.

And just the other day, I noticed dog food labelled as 'vegetarian'. I wondered whether it would be as good for a dog as the labelling suggested it was.

So I was most interested to see this article suggesting that dogs can, indeed thrive on a vegetarian diet.

I'm still not convinced it's possible, but this may mostly be because I don't trust manufacturers of dog food. It seems to me it's not likely that feeding a dog one type of food exclusively would  be healthy. (After all, the manufacturers want us to choose their brand and feed only that.)

I'll continue to feed Penny a diet that is a mixture of commercial canned and dry food, as well as meals I cook myself, and a substantial amount of raw food - all of which is a combination of meat and vegetables or fruit.

It's all a bit of a conundrum, but so far we seem to have the right formula for feeding her.


4 comments:

Molly the Airedale said...

We pups love a wide variety of yummy foodables ☺

Love ya lots♥
Mitch and Molly

parlance said...

Mitch and Molly, I've seen you eating some really yummy things!

proud womon said...

as an ethical vegan i have pondered the notion of veganism for those i am guardian of... and have finally taken the step and started feeding petey vegan - she has no problem whatsoever... however shadow, my feline companion, is not so impressed - so as he is an obligate carnivore i may still have to feed him something i find abhorrent because there is inherent cruelty in the industry and he is not able to live his natural life and hunt for himself... you may find this from bite size vegan interesting parlance - http://www.bitesizevegan.com/vegan-lifestyle-2/all-about-ooby-the-vegan-bulldog-birthday-qa/

parlance said...

proud womon, as you know, I follow your blog and I lean towards the vegan life, for ethical reasons, but haven't made the step yet. I think for me one of the main issues is the arrogance of humans in claiming it's okay to treat other sentient creatures as 'machines' without feelings or rights. In the past, cultures seem to have understood that in eating another living creature, they needed to value the death that had occurred and value the life that animal had lived. But maybe, even in thinking this, I'm being naive.

By all accounts, cats do have to eat meat, as you say.