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Originally Posted by kindlekitten
interesting article at CNN about vegan dogs. I think this is just plain wrong. HOWEVER!!! I do believe that American pet food companies are singlehandedly responsible for killing more pets than all humane societies combined. the absolute CRAP that goes into most of the food is criminal! commercially prepared pet food really wasn't available until after WWII. before that the dogs ate what we ate, and personally I think that is the way it is supposed to be. supposedly the book "Inside of a Dog" has details about this and also claims that the majority of Europeans do not feed their animals commercial kibbles and such. I don't know, I haven't read it, but it would be interesting to know what everyone has to say about this
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That article wasn't what I was expecting. My opinion is that dogs should not be fed vegan diets except in the case of allergies that preclude food from animal sources. They can live healthfully on that kind of diet if necessary, though, since they are nearly omnivorous. I think the first person in that article and her vet should have worked to add animal proteins back into the dog's diet until they narrowed down what it was allergic to. But since the owner seems to be careful about the diet, as long as the dog is thriving and the owner is open to adding animal protein again if something goes wrong it's not so bad. Cats should
never be fed a vegan or vegetarian diet unless an individual has severe allergies or intolerances to meat and dairy, since they're obligate carnivores.
I agree with you, KK, that most pet foods are crap. The corn and wheat used as fillers are the culprits for most pet food allergies, cats in particular don't get any nutritional benefit from them at all. And ingredient quality is not what it should be. If someone is going to feed kibble (which I do), it should be a high quality kibble, grain-free for cats and low grain or grain-free for dogs, with human quality ingredients and few preservatives. The type of kibble should be varied, too, none of this feeding only one thing ever for the animal's entire adult life that the companies try to sell us on. And cats should ideally be supplemented with wet food, since they tend to not adequately hydrate themselves.
As far as eating what we eat, that's probably not such a good idea for the standard American diet.
Our cat eats better than I do! If someone is eating a variety of un- or lightly processed foods, then perhaps, and I think it's a better idea for dogs than for cats. I would worry about my pet getting the right variety of nutrients in any case, which is different for dogs and cats and humans. I'm not convinced that pets were much healthier before the advent of kibble, I would bet that the health problems were just different. (But I haven't done a lot of research on pre-WWII pet health.)
You really got me going, heh.
