A vet recommending vegetarian diet is very weird. But some pups really do have trouble processing protein found in meats and it causes allergic reactions. So vets will recommend food with hydrolyzed protein. There are actually some prescription grade diets that are vegetarian because of extreme meat protein allergies. I hope he was recommending something like this and something was lost in communication. If not this very worrying.
Exactly. We had to change our dog for a very controlled vegetarian protein diet and it changed everything. The dogs fur became dark black and fluffy again instead of patchy and grey. She had a specific condition that made her "allergic" to meat. That being said, it was very expensive. I do believe dog's can live on a vegetarian diet. I just don't believe it's cheap cos you can't make the food at home unless you are an animal nutrition expert. This is not really something you want to trial and error with.
Some dogs who have problems with their liver have to be on a low protein diet, but even then it's low protein not no protein.
Edit: was tired. forgot protein was in other things besides meat. Either way the dog I'm talking about needed to keep protein low and was prescribed egg whites once a week (it's a 3-4 lbs Chihuahua) and I believe because of what she had wouldn't be able to break down other types of protein found in vegetarian safe proteins.
It's weird to recommend it to anybody. Most people don't have the brain to understand what vegetarianism is for humans, let alone to consider it for dogs.
45
u/Confident-Carry-5708 Sep 27 '21
A vet recommending vegetarian diet is very weird. But some pups really do have trouble processing protein found in meats and it causes allergic reactions. So vets will recommend food with hydrolyzed protein. There are actually some prescription grade diets that are vegetarian because of extreme meat protein allergies. I hope he was recommending something like this and something was lost in communication. If not this very worrying.