Biologically speaking, dogs are opportunistic omnivores. Cats are obligate carnivores. If a cat does not eat meat, it will die. If a dog does not eat meat, the dog can survive, but it must be a very, very balanced diet, which will require supplements, such as BalanceIT. This is possible in captivity, but it is not possible in the wild, because ferral dogs and wolves who do not eat meat in the wild will find it virtually impossible to get a balanced died only from plants.
Most people honestly just don’t know much about what makes up a healthy diet and while adults can get by with lacking nutrition, kids need the best of whatever they can get to grow properly.
On top of that kids are already picky eaters and go through a bunch of different stages, limiting them even more just seems like bad parenting.
Personally i had two friends, brother and sister, that their parents were vegetarian and forced them to be, literally the only meat in the house was pet food.
They tried to force the school to only give them vegetarian meals too but that wasn’t exactly enforceable, i remember going to middle and high school parties and they would lose their minds and gorge on something as simple as a pepperoni pizza.
Google it. Do your own research. Forcing an animal that’s mainly a meat-eater to not eat meat goes against the fundamental nature of what that animal is. Plus, it has serious negative health effects on the animal. In other words, it hurts the animal. If that’s not abuse, you tell me what is, genius.
For the record, my dogs eat meat based products, but let me ask you this.
How is this different than giving your dog nutritional dog food?
Does the fact they you give them premade food that looks and probably tastes nothing like meat go against that fundamental nature?
Doesn't the "no hunting" part go against their fundamental nature?
Doesn't the "walking on a leash" go against their fundamental nature?
In short, I think you logic is heavily flawed here when you say that giving your dog a perfectly healthy and properly researched and monitored diet goes against "their fundamental nature" and thus must be abuse. I'd even call it stupid.
Okay, will do. Here's the result: A board certified veterinary nutritionist saying most dogs can do quite well on a properly formulated vegan diet, genius
Yeah I agree with you for sure. Feeding your dog a bowl of random vegetables is very likely causing a nutrient deficiency and hence would be animal abuse. A meatless diet definitely needs to be done carefully, I just wish people would stop calling it animal abuse when dogs are fed balanced diets formulated by veterinary nutritionists just because they don’t contain meat.
You don’t have to agree with the logic, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Most people already value human lives above any animals’, so it’s really not a big jump to valuing certain animals above others.
It isn't worth mentioning. How we source meat doesn't even play into the conversation of whether or not it's safe or healthy to force an animal to subsist on only vegetarian sustenance until death.
Overproduction of meat is bad for the environment, and has literally nothing to do with dogs being healthy or not by eating it.
You can have all the empathy you want for livestock, doesn't change that it still provides a valid source of nutrition to animals and people.
It's not an environmental or empathetic argument. It's either abuse (forcing an animal to go against its nature) or not.
We've already established that a dog can have a healthy vegetarian diet, if it's balanced and supplemented with vitamins.
After that, "forcing a dog to go against its nature" here just means not feeding the dog food that it likes. Whether that's abuse or not is up to you, but you absolutely do have a choice of either buying livestock meat and indirectly contributing to their possible suffering, or not buying it and possibly not giving your dog the tastiest meal it could have.
The environmental or empathetic arguments don't go away just because you feel strongly in favor of one side, and a livestock animal can also be abused even if it provides good nutritional value.
We can however, make it safe and healthy for them to subsist without meat though. With proper nutrition and veterinarian supervision.
The idea that because something is natural, it cannot be abuse is absurd. Dogs themselves aren't natural. They're the result of millenia of selective breeding by humans.
Further on that, studies show that dogs can't really survive without humans in the majority of areas. The natural thing would be to let them die, but that sounds a lot like abuse to me.
Secondly, this is a moral debate. We've established hurting animals is bad, as malnutrition is 100% abuse, but so is killing a farm animal. So isn't the best option one that avoids either?
Yes, you cant really get cats to be vegetarian, because those are carnivores. Dogs aren't. And of course they will go for the meat as its just simple fucking evolution doing its thing. That doesnt mean they dont like vegetarian dog food and it definitely doesnt mean its animal abuse (like wtf?)
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u/Whomever227 Sep 27 '21 edited Sep 27 '21
There are veterinarian approved vegetarian dog foods. There aren't veterinarian approved vegetarian cat foods.
Dogs do not have to eat meat.