People make decisions about what to eat based on their beliefs and backgrounds, including health, political, environmental, cultural, or religious ideals.
For some people, that carries over into what they choose to feed their dogs and cats.
“Concern for animal welfare has to include a biologically-appropriate diet. You can't force your ideology on the cat or a dog”
EATING HABITS:
Dogs out in the wild scavenging for food will eat pretty much anything including fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, poultry, and raw meat.
Unlike humans, a dog’s body can handle large variety of foods to ensure they adapt to their hunting lifestyle.
Study researchers were amazed to learn the tie between human and dogs is so strong that both species developed same seating habits over time
Cats are strict carnivore; they primary eat small rodents, birds, and bugs. Because hunting is such a big part of a cats’ life, even indoor cats want to engage in hunting.
They must have animal source of protein in their diet
HISTORY OF DOG FOOD:
From the wild to luxury diners…
Dogs have been around for about 15-30,000 years, according to the fossil record.
Dogs have survived for many years on their hunting skill and whatever they could eat and later what was tossed to them by their masters from fire and the pit-stove.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, pets came to be regarded as luxury items. This sparked new interest in canines.
Victorian kennel masters took pride in their own dog food recipes, some handed down from generation to generation.
The world’s first manufacturer of dog biscuit in 1860 was an American,
James Spratt - an electrician and a lightning rod salesman from London.
He saw dogs being fed left-over ship biscuits and decided he could do better. With a carefully compounded preparation of wheat meals, vegetables, beetroot, and meat, the Spratt Company was in the right direction selling food to English country gentlemen for sporting dogs.
Early improvements to provide nutritional pet food went into creating healthy food and a result of pets living long.
Canned horsemeat for dog food was introduced in the United States after World War I.
Canned cat food and dry meat-meal dog foods were introduced in 1930.
The 1950s expanded to dry pet foods and introduction of breakfast cereals.
1960s marked diversification in different types of food available to pets with vitamins and minerals. Many more companies with varieties of canned products were introduced
Pet owners at this time were beginning to understand the importance of balanced diets for dogs and cats, with proper weighting of protein, fat and carbohydrates, and the inclusion of essential.
MELAMINE CONTAMINATION:
The 2007 notorious Chinese milk product contamination fiasco in North America, Europe and South America came from a single Chinese company with reported increase in renal failure in infants associated with ingestion of infant formula.
Soon after, numerous media reports on animal deaths followed as a result of kidney failure which was mostly associated with wheat gluten, rice protein. Contaminated corn gluten which was associated with kidney failure of pets came from South Africa.
TURNING POINT:
This decisive change took place when pet owners, animal lovers and celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Russell Simmons, Alicia Silverstone, and a host of others extolled the benefits of plant-based diet to give the notion of a holistic approach that gives pet owners more control over their pet’s diet.
THE VEGAN MOVEMENT:
The origin of the English term vegetarian is unknown.
The earliest known use is attributed to the actress
Fanny Kemble, writing around 1839 in Georgia in the United States.
Vegetarian practice can be traced to Pythagoras in the 6th century BCE Greece.
Greek Philosophers Empedocles and Theophrastus were vegetarians.
Vegetarian Resources states that ‘Vegans’ in addition to being vegetarian, do not use other animal products and by-products such as eggs, dairy products, honey, leather, fur, silk, wool, cosmetics and soap derived from animal products.
NON-VEGETARIAN DIET:
The debate rages everywhere, with many veterinarians opposing vegetarian diets.
Dogs and cats are built to handle bacterial loads from food that would cause significant illness in you and me. Your pet’s body is well equipped to deal with heavy doses of familiar and strange bacteria because nature built him to catch, kill and immediately consume his prey.
Cats are one of four creatures in the world who are obligate carnivores; they need to have meat protein in their diets. Cats are designed essentially to eat carbohydrates.
In retrospect, concern for animal welfare has to include a biological appropriate diet. You cannot force your ideology on your pets.
GREY WOLF DIET:
The diet your dog should be eating is that of a grey wolf in the wild. If you dissect a dog and a grey wolf you’ll find that their digestive systems are identical. The two animals are essentially the same species and so closely related that they can interbreed.
Grey wolves live on prey such as deer, rabbits and mice, and eat everything including the bones, from which they get about a third of their nutrition.
They also eat fruit and vegetables.
In short, their diet consists of raw meat, raw bones and raw herbage. This, then, is the diet that allows dogs to achieve optimum health and longevity.
RAW MEAT DIET:
Biological Appropriate Raw Food (BARF)
Remember, dogs ate raw meat for thousands of years before “dog food” was invented.
Raw meat and raw vegetables are healthier for dogs than cooked food because cooking destroys the enzymes needed for superior digestion and nutrient absorption.
These enzymes survive the freezing/defrosting process just fine.
VEGETABLES:
Dogs have actually eaten vegetables the whole period of their evolution, and that’s a long time!
As such, vegetables, particularly green leafy vegetables should form part of the domestic dog’s healthy diet.
Dogs need vegetables because they contain many important health promoting nutrients.
The fiber your dog obtains from raw vegetables includes both soluble and insoluble fiber. Vegetables supply many other nutrients.
Many of those nutrients are the ones that have been found to be in short supply in the modern dog’s civilized diet. This includes the difficult to obtain omega 3 essential fatty acids.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS ON RAW MEAT
• Shinier coats
• Healthier skin
• Cleaner teeth
• Higher energy levels
• Smaller tools
POTENTIAL RISKS
• Threats to human and dog health from bacteria in raw meat.
• Potential for whole bones to choke an animal, break teeth or cause an internal puncture.
• An unbalanced diet that may damage the health of dogs if given on an extended period.
TYPICAL RAW MEAT DIET
• Muscle meat, often still on the bone
• Bones, either whole or ground
• Organ meats such as livers and kidneys
• Raw eggs
• Vegetables like broccoli, spinach, and celery
• Apples or fruit
• Some dairy, such as yogurt
POTENTIAL PROBLEM:
The nutritional requirements for dogs and cats are very different from those for humans.
Thus, a vegetarian diet perfectly suitable in meeting a person’s nutrient needs may be grossly deficient where dogs or cats are concerned.
The decision to feed a dog or cat a vegetarian diet is not one to be taken lightly.
There is a lot of room for error, and these diets probably are not appropriate if they contain least animal protein.
Trying to feed a cat a vegan diet would not be appropriate. It goes against their physiology.
For dogs, certainly vegetarian and vegan diets can be done, but they need to be done very, very carefully.
STAYING ALIVE:
The key word here is ‘survive’. To survive is not to thrive. To thrive is grow vigorously and flourish. Survive simply means to stay alive.
Both cats and dogs are carnivores.
Felines are obligate carnivores, meaning they must eat meat to sustain life.
Dogs are scavenging carnivores.
In general terms this means they are primarily meat-eaters, but can survive on plant material alone if necessary.
They have evolved biologically as omnivores, meaning their system can derive nutrients from a wide variety of sources, including fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and animal products.
TAKE A CALL ON YOUR DOG’S DIET:
First of all speak to your vet and ensure that there are no health issues or nutritional imbalances which may mean that a vegetarian diet is unsuitable for your particular dog.
Ask for your vet’s advice on how you can ensure that any vegetarian food that you feed is complete and fit for purpose, and how to introduce it into the diet.
Make the transition gradually, and monitor your pet closely in both the short and medium term to ensure they are making the transition well.
It is important to remember that feeding a vegetarian diet to your dog is a choice, and one which may have to re-assess if your situation changes, or your dog fails to thrive, or shows any signs of nutritional imbalance.
It is important to reiterate…
“Concern for animal welfare has to include a biologically-appropriate diet. You can't force your ideology on the cat or a dog”
Good luck with your decision…
