Those of us who have pets, how many use vegan animal food? I don't though I have offered veggie items to my animals to see if they like them. One of my cats likes tofu though he dislikes soy milk. One dog will not touch any vegan items though the other one will (then again she eats anything and everything.

my cat eats meat based cat food. though i buy a slightly higher quality one which i'm pretty sure doesn't contain animals an omni human wouldn't eat. it's not human-grade i don't think but there's no horse or dog or cat etc in it, like there is in lower quality pet foods, and also in Iams i believe. eww

he likes veggies :) loooooooves tomato sauce and tomato soup. i want to find out which veggies are good for him and start adding them into his usual food

I feed my animals what nature intended for them. Dogs can be omni or veggie but I believe a cat needs meat.
Just my two cents:)

I agree sasha, The whole thing with trying to see what vegies my animals would eat started because they'd beg for stuff. They used their cute sad eyes on me and I caved in because I love them.

I can see that. I cave in too! My dog loves carrots as much as my horse. My cats are a differant story...picky little things. LOL

LOL yeah some are. One of mine is sooo picky but the other is almost like a dog in that he'll eat just about anything.

my cat likes miss vicky's jalapeno chips. he's nutters

Go Leafs? As in NHL Maple Leafs?

um yes

My mom made biscuits and gravy tonight (she makes it with the Morningstar Farms patties) and the cats were going crazy over it. I've never seen them like that. It's good stuff though. I got to bring some home! Yipee! :lick:

There are vegan and vegetarian commercial dog and cat foods available. Also there are a lot of vegan pets that eat them. There is a picture gallery of some of these pets at www.vegpets.com. Recently a Canadian news site featured a story of a 23 year old dog that had been vegetarian most of his life. His owner cooked vegetarian meals for him until the commercial foods became available. The cat foods are AAFCO approved for complete nutrition.

yup, but some of them don't include taurine, or enough taurine, and you need to supplement them, mostly for cats.
my friend Amy is vegan, and so is her dog for the most part. i think she occassionally gives him some cheese or egg but not all that often. he eats a commercial veggie dog food, and she supplements with fresh fruit and veggies, and a powder supplement that you sprinkle into the food that helps keep the teeth clean and stuff like that. being a large poodle breed though, he is in risk of stomach problems so she has to give him only soft food, dry food can make him very sick. and apparantly dogs can't digest whole veggies very well. so his meals get complicated. they grind up veggies or use the pulp leftover in the juicer, and he has to eat smaller meals more often than most dogs.
whereas my cat is perfectly happy to have a bowl of dry food available at all times for munching, no canned food, no treats, no scraps, and yet somehow he still remains a big FAT ball of cuteness

Hmm only feed pets what nature intended them to? In that sense us humans should eat meat than :) What people see as nature is basically the equivilent of what is right in are society. It's considered right cause people been doing it so long, and most people except that. But just cause dogs can eat meat doesnt mean they should. I can eat a cardboard box, but i dont :) And if the shar[ teeth is an issue, i think the reasoning for that, is dogs liked meat so there bodies of the centuries adapted, same with all other so called carnovores.

But you have a choice in what you can eat. Companion animals don't. Put a bowl full of lettuce and a bowl full of canned pet food in front of a dog and see which they choose. To a dog it makes no difference what society sees as being "right".

I'm just saying pets been eating a certain way for a longtime, so there adapted to it :) And of course the dog will eat the canned pet food, meat taste waaaay better than a head of lettuce :)

that's your opinion :p

see but you can't feed a dog a head of lettuce anyway, cause they can't digest whole vegetables. you can buy vegan petfood that looks and tastes like the regular stuff. my friend buys veggiedog food and supplements it with pureed veggies and fruit and whatnot and the dog is perfectly healthy and happy. but yeah dogs in the wild eat mainly meat. but if you can provide the same nutrition and taste they need/want, without supporting horrible slaughterhouse conditions and the meat industry in general, then why shouldn't you? so long as the dog isn't lacking anything it needs to be happy and healthy it's up to you.

you are wrong about dogs and lettuce, I had a dog who died at age 17 and he loved lettuce sooo much he would beg for it . He also loved cauliflower, brocolli, carrots and most other veggies. He would sit right by me when I was chopping up vegetables and wait for his share. He got some of everything due to the big brown eye factor. He never had a problem digesting any of it. If I had known that pets could be vegetarian at the time I would have let him be a veg pet.

guaranteed. my dog loved whole veggies and we gave him loads of lettuce and carrots. also liked brocolli which resulted in calling him brocolli now and then (his name was Barkley so it fit) didn't know at the time that they can't digest them very well and they likely cause stomach aches. but in small amounts i don't think it's harmful. like a couple chunks of whatever a day shouldn't affect them much.

Hmm well i have cats that were content eating dry food (ash, racoon, etc <--same as hotdogs :)) but one day my mom decided to treat them by giving them a can of catfood. Now they wont touch there hotdog graded meat, they will starve themselves for days, looking at me crying until someone forks over the meat, guess its just a matter of the animal tho :P

correct me if i'm wrong, but wild animals of the canine variety ARE omnivores, and will, after making a kill, go after the tasty guts of the herbivore they just felled. and those guts are filled with the partially digested bits of vegetable matter the herbivore had been consuming, correct? so canines MUST be able to digest veggies, and, i think, considering the gusto with which they rip into the carcasses belly, might even ENJOY eating vegetable matter. at least of the partially digested variety.

pure carnivores, though, i think lack an enzyme required to digest starches.

yeah they can digest veggies, if they're ground or pureed or.. partially digested ;) just not whole, generally speaking

I just don't feel that it's right to force *our* diet and lifestyle on animals. I feel that is making them conform to *our* lifestyle and I feel that is very selfish. I also feel it is a control issue.

Just my humble opinion.

i'm with you sasha, but if the animals are happy and healthy with their new diets then i think its a good idea. it just needs a bit more planning and care than spooning out dog food from a can

kind of like forcing other humans to conform to are diet cause it right? if its wrong its wrong for all species not just for the ones that know better

if the dog/cat likes the food as much as the nonveg*n food, and is 100% healthy and happy and has no complications or deficiencies because of the new diet.. why does it matter? they don't know that what they're eating isn't meat. for that matter, do they even know that what they normally eat is meat??