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.
jeather 10:52 on 2019-06-14 Permalink
I’ve had this fight and failed totally. Not just vegetarian cats, who can at least get some egg and dairy in their food, but vegan.
jeather 10:58 on 2019-06-14 Permalink
To be clear I was on the cat needs meat side, not the vegan cat side. (They won’t go blind, I am sure even the idiots who make veggie cat food enrich with taurine.)
Kate 11:00 on 2019-06-14 Permalink
That’s if they’re feeding commercial vegetarian food, which I’m appalled to find exists. Some might be determined or crazy enough to make their own.
jeather 11:02 on 2019-06-14 Permalink
Point taken, I was talking to someone who knew to supplement with essential amino acids.
jeather 11:03 on 2019-06-14 Permalink
That also included the “it’s wrong to drive anywhere but if you want to vacation in New Zealand and fly there that’s fine because you have no choice” argument which finally clued me in that this was a waste of time.
Kate 23:09 on 2019-06-14 Permalink
jeather, I wonder where they thought those essential amino acids came from.
jeather 10:18 on 2019-06-15 Permalink
I assume it can be synthesized in a lab, though I have no idea where taurine in vegetarian cat food comes from. (Google suggests that there are simple synthetic pathways, and also that spiders have lots of taurine, something I assume vegetarian cats still have access to.)
BUT STILL just get a not carnivore pet if this is important to you.
Michael Black 10:30 on 2019-06-15 Permalink
One of the first vegetarian cookbooks I got forty years ago was “Laurel’s Kitchen”. In the back there was a small bit about get pets. A warning threats couldn’t be, but dogs could and a recipe for some food. Never seen much since. Harriet who was the only began I knew then and into animal rights, basically said the same thing. She had a dog but I can’t remember if needed it meat.
Michael
Kate 11:07 on 2019-06-15 Permalink
jeather, I might’ve thought a pure vegan sensibility would reject the idea of pet animals entirely.
Michael, I’ve never had a dog, but things I’ve read suggest they’re more omnivorous than cats. A cat won’t thrive on a diet of dog food, for example. Anyway, I’ve walked around a few times with friends who had dogs, and those dogs will eat anything – dead animals, old food dropped in parks. I doubt a dog living on enforced vegetarian food at home is so careful outside, probably scoffs dead birds and moldy pepperoni pizza once it’s off leash.
jeather 13:42 on 2019-06-15 Permalink
Given that we’ve already domesticated them, it’s okay to adopt and sterilise pets, but not make more, is, I think, the general gist.