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Being vegan and having a dog/cat


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Can you have a dog/cat or any other carnivor pet and consider yourself vegan?

 

There is vegan dog/cat food available, but hardly anybody uses that. And if you feed your dog/cat regular food it will also have come from the same slaughterhouses "regular" meat(which vegans protest against) comes from. So isn't having a dog/cat suporting the same industry vegans detest?

 

I know some of the vegans here have a dog/cat. What do you feed them?

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I've discussed this quite a bit, with Topher in particular.

My cats get regular food. I don't like it, but they're designed to eat meat, and buying vegan food for them is just out of the bounds of reality for me right now. I can barely afford to feed myself, I can't afford specialty food for them. Someday, when that changes, I will try to make them vegan kitties and see how they handle it.

In the meantime, the justification to myself is that they're both living better lives with me than they were on the streets so at least I've saved them, and as a vegan, I strive to do the best that I can to reduce suffering and whatnot...that may not be 100%, but I'm doing the best I can.

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In the meantime, the justification to myself is that they're both living better lives with me than they were on the streets so at least I've saved them, and as a vegan, I strive to do the best that I can to reduce suffering and whatnot...that may not be 100%, but I'm doing the best I can.

 

How did you save them from the street? Did you find a nest of kittens? I nursed an nest of baby rabbits(eyes still closed) whose mother was killed. I nursed until they where old enough and I set them free in the forest.

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I dont agree in domesticating animals. however if a human insists on domesticating an animal for whatever reason, I think its important to remember that animal's natural diet. the animal would normally hunt in the wild and kill its own food. but we do not allow for that by domesticating the animal... unless we let them out of our homes to hunt for their own food. but since by domesticating the animals we've taking them out of their natural hunting environment, they look to us to provide, so therefore we must find them food. thus we turn towards pre-slaughtered food in stores.

 

I know many vegans who force a vegan diet upon their carnivorous animal.

and I know many vegans who feed "their" animal dry or wet pre-slaughtered food from stores.

 

I do not support animal cruelty and therefore I no longer purchase cat food or dog food from stores, because I dont support animal ownership/domestication nor the un-naturalness of the industry.

 

I have shared my life with animals. I have left entanceways to the house open for the animals to come and please as they go. I have offered vegan food to them but would never force them to consume something they are not designed to consume (they are carniverous). I have also purchased dry cat/dog food in the past for the animals my family has domesticated.

The cat still continued to hunt animals outside the house and was an "outdoor" cat, though.

 

it is a fine line.

 

I think we are each the judge of our own actions.

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I know some of the vegans here have a dog/cat. What do you feed them?

 

http://www.naturesrecipe.com/pages/dogproducts/allergy/vegetarian.asp

 

Have they always been eating that? and if no, how did they react to the transition of going to vegetarian dog food?

 

I'm glad you asked because I wanted to specify more about vegetarian dog food, but didn't have time to do a full comment before. --- My dog isn't picky about what he eats, he's happy as long as he's getting fed, so there was no problem in the transition. I fed him the vegetarian stuff for over a year and he was doing fine at first, but after a while he started acting more lethargic and his fur started to look less healthy. I thought it may have been due to aging, but my wife suggested we try a dog food that is comprised mainly of salmon and corn meal. We tried this food, and he regained a lot of energy and his fur began looking a lot healthier on the salmon/corn dog food. My dog is a lab-mix from a shelter, I'm not sure what kind of dog you have, but you can always try doing a mix that is 50% vegetarian dog food and see how your dog does on it.

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I don't like domesticating animals at all, but I love my cats and dog from the shelter. I guess there is nothing wrong to feed meat to animals, because of their natural behavior. They would hunt in the wild anyway. But if you give them meat please take meat from organic stores.

My cats are getting meat from Yarrah http://www.yarrah.com. My French Bulldog is getting only vegetarian food from Yarrah and he is just doing fine. I don't know why I havn't switched the food for my cats to vegetarian. I should do it soon.

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If the cat can't naturally feed itself in the wild... then any feeding we do is unnatural? Maybe?

 

Being vegan is right because we can be... right? So if a dog/cat can be and we're sort of it's guardian - like a kid ... maybe it should be vegan too?

 

I'm just saying if it's doable...

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I am in this same predicament too, I am glad that someone brought this up. I am the only Vegan in my family, and to my knowledge my dog does eat factory farmed meats because of what I read on the ingredients.

 

Like Sinister said, he would eat pretty much anything (so long it tastes good that is). Veggies, fruits, cereals, etc. you name it.

 

I dunno exactly what is right because it seems that at one point it is right and on the other it is wrong. I know he wont stop eating his dog food, since I do not buy the food but would be nice to hear ya'lls opinion in case I ever need to in the future or ever become a guardian to another animal,

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It's cruel to force an unnatural diet on them. Cats are not meant to be vegan in any way.

 

It is also cruel to let some people murder innocent animals so you can feed it to your cat/dog. So telling people meat is murder but feeding a cat meat is kind of hypcrit(or however that is spelled).

 

So in conclusion: If you are vegan because you want to do everything you can to reduce the suffering of animals, a dog or a cat isn't good. Of course there will be exceptions like rescueing one, and comparable situations, but in general having a dog or a cat is not the right thing to do.

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We have two cats living in our home, and they eat commercial pet food. The most recent variety was something made of venison and green pea, rather than factory farming byproducts.

 

I can't afford specialty vegan cat food for them, nor am I convinced that an animal that is naturally carnivorous/omnivorous should be completely denied meat. A truly natural diet for them would involve rodents, but we don't have any of those. It could be argued that I should be acquiring rodents for them to hunt and eat, but that's not very practical.

 

Both kitties are curious and will sometimes eat some of what I'm eating. They both like corn chips, potato chips, crackers french fries, cheese, vegan cheese, and bread. The younger one will try some veggies, including green peppers, as long as they are at room temperature. She was loving the leftover tofurkey last night, too.

 

The older one likes to eat the back yard. He was obese for a while (25 lbs is NOT healthy for a cat) and was always begging to get outside. I figured there was no harm, since he was too fat to really climb the fence and get into danger, and finally let him out. He started eating grass (we don't use pesticides or a gas mower on the lawn) and weeds every day and has slimmed down. He's still huge, but mostly solid.

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It's cruel to force an unnatural diet on them. Cats are not meant to be vegan in any way.

 

It is also cruel to let some people murder innocent animals so you can feed it to your cat/dog. So telling people meat is murder but feeding a cat meat is kind of hypcrit(or however that is spelled).

 

So in conclusion: If you are vegan because you want to do everything you can to reduce the suffering of animals, a dog or a cat isn't good. Of course there will be exceptions like rescueing one, and comparable situations, but in general having a dog or a cat is not the right thing to do.

 

Simple solution. If you're unwilling to accomodate an animal's natural diet, don't keep one as a pet. Your ethics have no place at all in the care and feeding of an animal, especially if it's going to jeoparadize that animals health. Cats are natural carnivores and are not meant to eat a vegan diet. Period. You will never find one that lives that way in the wild, so why would you force it on a domesticated one?

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Commercial pet food is generally tested on animals.

 

NO, I dont mean "taste tested" and no, I am not suggesting that pet food should be tested in humans!

 

THIS is what I mean: www.iamscruelty.com. Most all commercial pet foods test in such cruel and appaulling ways, where animals sufffer and are tortured in laboratories so huge pet food companies can maintain their market share.

 

That site/link above provides names of pet foods that engage in home testing, not invasive laboratory testing. Regardles of where you stand on the issue of feeding your cats/dogs non-vegan food, we all at a minimum should be at least ensuring that whatever non-vegan food we feed them does not engage in things like what you see at www.iamscruelty.com. Here is a run down, but the link has much more detail on the campaign and actual pictures and the names of the beautiful dogs and cats that are being subject to torture right now as I am typing this:

 

 

"For nearly 10 months in 2002 and early 2003, a PETA investigator went undercover at an Iams contract testing laboratory, where a dark, sordid secret was discovered beneath the the dog- and cat-food manufacturer’s wholesome image. Our investigator found dogs who had gone crazy from intense confinement in barren steel cages and cement cells, dogs who had been left on a filthy paint-chipped floor after chunks of muscle had been hacked from their thighs, dogs who had been surgically debarked, and horribly sick dogs and cats who were languishing in their cages, neglected and left to suffer without veterinary care."

 

Please visit the link for details and how you can make sure you avoid supporting this cruelty that is common in many commercial pet food companies, NOT JUST IAMS.

Just for some extra info, Eukaneuba is an IAMS brand, and both are owned by parent company Proctor and Gamble -- utter scum.

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In the meantime, the justification to myself is that they're both living better lives with me than they were on the streets so at least I've saved them, and as a vegan, I strive to do the best that I can to reduce suffering and whatnot...that may not be 100%, but I'm doing the best I can.

 

How did you save them from the street? Did you find a nest of kittens? I nursed an nest of baby rabbits(eyes still closed) whose mother was killed. I nursed until they where old enough and I set them free in the forest.

 

One of my kitties is a shelter kitty and the other is an abandoned barn cat.

Cava was brought into the shelter with her litter of kittens, and they all died

I agree that it's not wrong for cats to eat meat, as they are natural carnivores. However since they're not able to hunt for themselves now, I don't want to support the cruel meat industry anymore than I have to, which is why I said I will *try* vegan food out with my cats. Supposedly it's balanced with all the nutrients they need/get from meat, so when it's an affordable option we'll see how it goes. If I see that their health suffers, of course I will switch to a meat based food. They're in my care, so their health is my responsibility, and of utmost importance.

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You need to do what's good for their health, not what's good for your 'ethics'.

 

Then that becomes your ethics and you just did what's good for your ethics. Nice circle.

 

Just because an animal exists doesn't mean that you're ethically required to provide for it. If it needs providing for, care for it within your ethics. I'm not going to chop up a kid to feed it to a failed cat who can't hunt for itself just because it eats meat. And a cow has no responsibility to be food for your cat. And the cat could never take down the cow so that's unnatural anyway.

 

If your can needs meat, and some don't, and can't hunt, find an area with roadkill or some animals that need to die anyway like an army of mice that have moved into your neighbors basement. No need to be all about contributing to animal abuses for your failed cat. So maybe your obligation to your failure of a cat is to do the least harm. So buy fish off the wharf or whatever.

 

I've got a pet mp3 player. I pet it at the volume control and it purs louder. Also if I rub the menu control it changes the type of pur. It's really quite affectionate and only eats batteries. I take it running with me. I <3 it.

Edited by Aaron
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You need to do what's good for their health, not what's good for your 'ethics'.

 

Then that becomes your ethics and you just did what's good for your ethics. Nice circle.

 

Just because an animal exists doesn't mean that you're ethically required to provide for it. If it needs providing for, care for it within your ethics. I'm not going to chop up a kid to feed it to a failed cat who can't hunt for itself just because it eats meat. And a cow has no responsibility to be food for your cat. And the cat could never take down the cow so that's unnatural anyway.

 

If your can needs meat, and some don't, and can't hunt, find an area with roadkill or some animals that need to die anyway like an army of mice that have moved into your neighbors basement. No need to be all about contributing to animal abuses for your failed cat.

 

How is it circular? Doing what's best for the cat, which you've elected to take care of, should take precedence over your own choice of diets.

 

No you're not required to provide for it just because it exists. However, if you take it into your home, you make it your responsibility to provide for it in an appropriate manner. Can't (or won't) do that? Don't get a pet. Simple enough. Some cat owners live in very urban areas, where it's not safe to let the cat outside, much less provide an area for it to be able to hunt. That's not a 'failing' on the cat's part, it's a failing on the human's part. Depriving an animal of it's it's natural diet is just as much abuse as killing an animal for food.

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"How is it circular" It's circular because it just became your ethics. Your ethics just placed the cat over you so you're following them.

 

"That's not a 'failing' on the cat's part, it's a failing on the human's part"

Then stop failing.

 

"Depriving an animal of it's it's natural diet is just as much abuse as killing an animal for food."

1 animal deprived is one abuse. Hundreds or thousands of animals dead to feed it is many abuses.

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Yeah I agree with what Aaron is saying.

 

Also I think the word "natural" is really subjective. I mean, I think a natural diet for a dog would be for the dog to part of a wild pack that hunts other animals and eats them. I've never seen a pack of wild dogs hunting down a bag of Alpo...

 

I'm also against breeding dogs/cats and other animals for profit. But I have no problem with adopting an animal from shelter. I got my dog at a county shelter, and if I didn't adopt him, he probably would have just sat in a cage for a few months and then been euthanized.

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"How is it circular" It's circular because it just became your ethics. Your ethics just placed the cat over you so you're following them.

 

"That's not a 'failing' on the cat's part, it's a failing on the human's part"

Then stop failing.

 

"Depriving an animal of it's it's natural diet is just as much abuse as killing an animal for food."

1 animal deprived is one abuse. Hundreds or thousands of animals dead to feed it is many abuses.

 

So you're saying you'd rather abuse an animal that you're personally responsible for taking care of?

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So you're saying the abuse is less if it's 50 cows versus your cat?

 

Not at all. What I'm saying is that your personal responsibility is much greater to an animal that you choose to take into your home and care for, over some animals at a farm on the other side of the country.

But if the vegan food that you provide keeps that animal healthy, then what harm is done? How is that meeting your responsibility any less than feeding them pet food that includes animal byproducts?

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So you're saying the abuse is less if it's 50 cows versus your cat?

 

Not at all. What I'm saying is that your personal responsibility is much greater to an animal that you choose to take into your home and care for, over some animals at a farm on the other side of the country.

But if the vegan food that you provide keeps that animal healthy, then what harm is done? How is that meeting your responsibility any less than feeding them pet food that includes animal byproducts?

 

If it works then it's not a problem. That wasn't my point. My point was that forcing an animal to eat vegan, just because you do is unethical and wrong. If you give the animal a choice, if it enjoys the vegan food and can maintain a healthy lifestyle from it then it's not a problem.

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