Vets warn on vegan pet owners

This isn’t a Montreal-specific story, but it’s about the Quebec order of veterinarians, so here goes: not all pets thrive on a vegetarian diet. The article soft-pedals on cats with “It’s hard to say exactly what would happen to a cat over the years if fed nothing but plant-based foods”? No it isn’t! A cat fed only plant-based food will first go blind and then die. Cats are obligate carnivores who must get certain amino acids from fish or meat: unlike ours, their metabolisms simply can’t manufacture them from plant proteins, nor are their digestions tuned to extracting sufficient nutrients from plant biomass, like a cow.

Any cat fed a vegan diet who goes outside will not be rushing back home for its broccoli dinner, but not all cats can save themselves by going outside.

The text article doesn’t say, as the radio piece does, that if you want a vegan pet, adopt a rabbit or a guinea pig, not a cat or dog, but it’s good advice.