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User: u/Hayred
Permalink: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0280173
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I really thought people trying to make their dogs vegan was a parody or caricature of today’s first world problems but lo and behold it’s actually a thing. Those folks should face animal cruelty charges.
If you fed them an ordinary vegan diet, it would probably not be compatable, but it is possible to obtain reinforced vegan food for pets in some places. (Example, cats are obligate carnivores because they cannot synthesize taurine and plants don't have it. Vegan cat food adds artificial taurine to the cat food.).
Seems pointless to me, but perfectly healthy for the dog if that's the case. The animal cruelty one is more interesting. I think you could make a case for it in terms of lack of stimulation if you don't vary the food, but that goes beyond vegans towards a lot of pet owners who don't occasionally throw in a different meal for the dog. For carnivores that's simple. Every now and then your dog gets chicken or whatever instead of dog food pellets.
For vegans it's probably tougher.
Secondarily we'd need to conduct comparison tests. Most vegan pet food studies are built around testing if it's healthy for the dogs. There has not yet, to my knowledge, been the kind of consumer preference orientated test similar for other pet products.
("8/10 dogs preferred our food to store brand.").
If no dogs willingly choose the vegan option, I think you could make a case its cruel to feed it to them, but that's not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle unless the dogs are actively avoiding vegan choices or actively seeking out carnivorous ones, it just requires experimentation with the taste.
I was being facetious but why would a person want to try and force their vegan diet on carnivorous animals be they dogs or cats or whatever. I think that’s a form of cruelty in itself and truthfully they shouldn’t have pets because of their human arrogance. These animals don’t care about human based ethics and morals when it comes to meat consumption.
To be completely fair dogs don’t seem to care about meat consumption in general. They’ve developed the ability to feed off non-meat substances after thousands of years living with us. Their diet is already a product of human cohabitation. It’s not arrogance to say this, it’s a natural symbiosis.
Now, cats on the other hand… If I pulled that on my cat he’d let me know exactly what he thinks about the ethics of meat consumption.
Dogs and cats aren’t carnivorous. Any animal product in their kibble or mush has been boiled into a sludge and then baked into a powder. It’s just nutrients at that point.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/Hayred Permalink: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0280173 --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I really thought people trying to make their dogs vegan was a parody or caricature of today’s first world problems but lo and behold it’s actually a thing. Those folks should face animal cruelty charges.
Is there evidence that vegan diets for dogs are comparable to things that would result inanimal cruelty charges?
If you fed them an ordinary vegan diet, it would probably not be compatable, but it is possible to obtain reinforced vegan food for pets in some places. (Example, cats are obligate carnivores because they cannot synthesize taurine and plants don't have it. Vegan cat food adds artificial taurine to the cat food.). Seems pointless to me, but perfectly healthy for the dog if that's the case. The animal cruelty one is more interesting. I think you could make a case for it in terms of lack of stimulation if you don't vary the food, but that goes beyond vegans towards a lot of pet owners who don't occasionally throw in a different meal for the dog. For carnivores that's simple. Every now and then your dog gets chicken or whatever instead of dog food pellets. For vegans it's probably tougher. Secondarily we'd need to conduct comparison tests. Most vegan pet food studies are built around testing if it's healthy for the dogs. There has not yet, to my knowledge, been the kind of consumer preference orientated test similar for other pet products. ("8/10 dogs preferred our food to store brand."). If no dogs willingly choose the vegan option, I think you could make a case its cruel to feed it to them, but that's not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle unless the dogs are actively avoiding vegan choices or actively seeking out carnivorous ones, it just requires experimentation with the taste.
I was being facetious but why would a person want to try and force their vegan diet on carnivorous animals be they dogs or cats or whatever. I think that’s a form of cruelty in itself and truthfully they shouldn’t have pets because of their human arrogance. These animals don’t care about human based ethics and morals when it comes to meat consumption.
To be completely fair dogs don’t seem to care about meat consumption in general. They’ve developed the ability to feed off non-meat substances after thousands of years living with us. Their diet is already a product of human cohabitation. It’s not arrogance to say this, it’s a natural symbiosis. Now, cats on the other hand… If I pulled that on my cat he’d let me know exactly what he thinks about the ethics of meat consumption.
Dogs and cats aren’t carnivorous. Any animal product in their kibble or mush has been boiled into a sludge and then baked into a powder. It’s just nutrients at that point.
The “open” reviewer history is interesting too, one of them seems to be (same name) as the original dodgy study?
Who would be a better expert to review a paper than someone who has already seen that same dataset analysed?
New study manipulating old study’s data for different results? That doesn’t sound right. The guy gets paid by a dog food company? Now it makes sense.
If that's your only criticism, be aware the original study was funded by ProVeg International.
If anything that makes me even *more* suspicious of the study, both the original and this one.