Vegan Pets

Can our companion animals be vegan? Yes. There are many reasons to feed your dog or cat a vegan diet. Most obviously, if you're buying Kibble and Bits for your pup you are supporting the meat industry, but your pets' health is another factor you should consider. Pet food is made of animal byproducts that is considered unsuitable for human consumption. Until just last year SpokAnimal was sending the remains of euthanized animals to a local rendering plant. Horrifyingly enough, byproducts from the rendering process are used not only in livestock feed, but also in pet foods. In 2007 there was also the incident of pet food that was found to be tainted with melamine.

We all choose a vegan lifestyle for various reasons. Whether it's for health or animal welfare reasons, feeding your pets a vegan diet seems like an obvious decision. However, there are some things you need to consider before starting your pets on a vegan diet. Proper nutrition is very important and cats especially need a good source of taurine in their diet. I'm not an expert in this area, but there are some helpful resources online. The Mad Cowboy website has a great list of resources, including shopping and more information on pet food.

I feed my dog, Skippy, Natural Balance Vegetarian Formula from Petco and we haven't had any problems.