What do you think about feeding pets "vegan"?

Or more specifically, feeding pets which are by nature strictly carnivorous (this could mean dogs or ferrets but usually pertains to cats) modified vegan diets because the owner is so.

I've looked up a fair a bit about this and seen various arguments from both sides and for the most part it just seems like pushing your own personal agenda on an animal that couldn't possible understand or care about it and potential animal endangerment.

I think I pretty decently debate arguments for it, but I'll wait for what anyone has to say on the matter.

So, what are your thoughts?

It's not only that, but also putting their health at risk because they're not biologically built to live without the nutrients they find in meat.

Otherwise, if it's completely artificial stuff that does contain what they need, there's little problem witth it.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Replace potential with absolutely and endangerment with abuse and that pretty much sums it up. You don't want to deal with an animal that needs meat in its diet, get a budgie, or rabbit or something like that.

edited 2nd Jun '15 1:12:43 AM by rmctagg09

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

I don't even know what sort of arguments could be made for making a carnivore follow a herbivore diet. Feeding your pet appropriate food for them should be a no-brainer, there's a reason pet shops always educate new owners on this subject.

Yeah, an all around terrible idea.

People usually try to claim that dogs are omnivores by nature, like humans, so it's okay to feed them vegetarian or vegan diets. This is true on the first half, but nooooooot on the second.

I guess it'd be theoretically possible to formulate a vegetarian diet with the right amounts of protein and various other nutrients for carnivorous pets? But I suspect it would be a lab-formulated diet with lots of added artificial 'meat' stuff. Definitely not a home-cooked 'vegies and legumes in gravy' kind of thing that people seem to like to feed dogs.

And why the hell would you even want to bother? If the idea of supporting human meat industries bothers you that damn much, get a guinea pig or rabbit or something that is naturally vegetarian.

EDIT: I haven't actually met any people who feed their pets vegan, but I have met a few people who are all "dogs are CARNIVORES, they eat MEAT, therefore it is NATURAL and HEALTHY for me to feed him nothing but SLABS OF STEAK and RAW COW BONES".

edited 2nd Jun '15 4:46:22 AM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

This might possibly be viable once we get synthetic meat off the ground, but I can't exactly see vegans feeding their pets stuff that was artificially grown in a lab. I guess some might though.

The people that tend to do this are usually the same people who think being vegan makes them superior in some way to everyone else.

I'm thinking they weren't burdened with an overabundance of schooling.

edited 2nd Jun '15 4:49:42 AM by Deadbeatloser22

"Yup. That tasted purple."

I rather doubt you'd find a supporter amongst most of us here. The few people I know who subscribe to this sort of nonsense are usually so deep in various flavours of bullshit that they're drowning in it.

I say feed the vegans to the pets. Problem solved.

I only espouse murder when it is awfully convenient and ironically hilarious.

edited 2nd Jun '15 8:01:20 AM by Aszur

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

I like the way you think.

I'm thinking they were. I tend to see attitudes like this in college students riding high on trust funds and scholarships. Economically privileged individuals who experience the world through book-learnin' and campus activism.

At least in the U.S., it's rare to see a poor, ignorant, underprivileged vegan. Among other things, fruits and vegetables are expensive. You can get a pack of hot dogs for 1/3 the cost. Many of us literally cannot afford to be herbivores.

edited 2nd Jun '15 10:21:14 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

@Title: It's animal abuse and anybody that does it should be charged accordingly. If you don't want to feed a pet the correct diet then don't get a pet.

I don't think there's going to be a lot of distension on this topic.

It's a terrible idea and animal abuse. I can kind of intuit the thought process that since a vegan diet works for humans (and some vegans would say is morally superior), it's a good idea for one's pets. But that misses the point that pets aren't omnivores like humans are.

I would imagine that you could probably feed a pet pig a vegan diet, but dogs are more carnivorous than humans are and cats are carnivores, so it is not healthy to feed them vegan to say the least.

The reason for becoming a vegan is usually to diminish suffering from animals. So it would make sense to diminish it further by having a diet for pets that doesn't involve suffering. If artificial meat becomes a thing that can be achieved. But it would still be easier to just get a herbivore pet and decrease the number of herbivore ones.

Why can you not see this?

Maybe it's different in other places but in my experience there's a strong overlap between vegans and people that are against GM Os. Synthetic meat will probably be viewed with suspicion since to them it's similar to GM Os.

Because many vegans ascribe to even more eschewed ways of life that deal with no animal products, or anything "unnatural". Some of the most extreme ones even refuse to eat anything cut by metal, and prepare their meals with wooden instruments. Not to mention their aversion to chemichally produced stuff, even prefering organic stuff over things grown normally, which involves chemichals.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Isn't that a bit strawmaning vegans? Sure those exist, but it doesn't make sense to be against "unnatural" stuff and being for vegan diets for carnivore animals. I considered becoming one for a while and still have lot's of sympathies for it. Yet, I'm pretty supportive of GMO's and think artificial meat is fucking great for reducing animal suffering.

Especially GMO's line up perfectly with why I consider vegan diets to be beneficial (in theory), both make it possible to feed more people.

That sounds accurate.

The same privileged trust-fund college kids who can afford to spend $10 every meal to make a salad from organic^HEY I hate that term so much. Anything derived from a living organism is organic! fruits and vegetables and can't understand why cheaper methods of production are better for impoverished communities and/or countries. The kind that do things like campaigning against genetically-modified crops in Third-World countries where people are starving and desperately need food, because f*ck starving people, those crops aren't natural and that's what's important.

edited 2nd Jun '15 1:37:41 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

There also seems to be some overlap with the OMG NO CHEMICALS crowd.

Despite the fact that everything in existence is made of chemicals.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

My response to meat-only and veg-only idiots when it comes to dogs and cats is a simple one: an eye roll.

They obviously haven't watched either species too well when they've been left free to pick what they either want or need. (Show me a dog turning down nachos, and I'll show you somebody who adds a lot of hot salsa. And, maybe not even then. A cat won't say no to kale if it wants a little fibre for the hair ball. Point them both at minced pork, and prepare for a showdown.)

edited 2nd Jun '15 1:47:36 PM by Euodiachloris

To those saying they couldn't even see the arguments for it it usually amounts to something like "who cares if it's their natural diet, we've modified their natural behavior by making them pets so why not their diets" or "I can't justify killing millions of animals just for the sake of one" the second reason is wrong for the very obvious reason that there are millions of pet dogs and cats so it's not exactly running slaughterhouses for one animals sack but the other, while still ridiculous, is more nuanced, I think.

It seems inherently hypocritical to oppose chemicals but support veganism.

If the argument is that chemicals aren't natural, well, there is nothing more natural for a predatory animal than killing and eating a prey animal. Nature isn't pleasant most of the time. It is a bloody competition.

Those fruits and vegetables are living things too. They don't have a face, but they're living organisms competing for survival, just like the rest of us. Some of us may have the luxury of living in a place where we can be wholly divorced from the ugliness of wholesale slaughter, but the unpleasant truth is that in order to sustain life, something has to die. Life perpetuates by consuming life.

edited 2nd Jun '15 2:07:59 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Well I'm told cows make nice pets, and horses, and goats. Those could all potentially live off of a vegan diet.

Even then, I would oppose it though, at least when it comes to calves and such. Drinking milk is healthy for young mammals, even herbivorous ones. A vegan diet for adults though, sure, go ahead.

Depending on the species, it's animal abuse with an D-minus in biology.

Don't get me wrong, there's an minority of animals that can metabolize human refuse (tiger shark, goat), quite a few are omnivorus, and some are "monovorus." And it all boils down to the enzymes in their digestive tract: some only works for meat, others for vegetation.

How hard is it to understand biology?

Answer no master, never the slave Carry your dreams down into the grave Every heart, like every soul, equal to break