The issue of what to feed your pets is one that comes up for any vegan pet owner. And while I certainly don’t feel I can call myself vegan yet (I figure I need at least a year or so under my belt), it’s certainly something that’s on my mind as I seek to live in a way that is more compassionate towards all animals. At the same time, it’s one thing to declare that we no longer want to consume animal products ourselves, and quite another to impose that belief system on our dogs and cats.
I have been the happy owner of a French Bulldog named Huxley for the past 2.5 years. Given my recent exploration of the plant-based diet, I wanted to see whether or not I could also feed him a plant-based diet without adverse effects to his health.
For the first 2.5 years of his life, my dog has been on a mixture of kibble (made using meat) and raw food (all raw meat). The raw food movement has exploded in popularity in recent years. And to be fair, I noticed benefits when I switched him over from kibble to raw food. He was a very chubby puppy, and he quickly slimmed down on the raw food diet. In retrospect however, it appears that may have purely been because I was simply feeding him too much – and Frenchies will eat everything you put in front of them!
At first, I was skeptical about the merits of feeding a dog a vegan diet. Could a dog really thrive on a plant-based diet? After all, they’ve descended from wolves. Aren’t they obligate carnivores that need meat to survive?
I really wanted to figure this out and share it with the world, since I know first-hand the ethical dilemma posed by feeding our pets. If the cost of owning a dog is that other animals must suffer, then is it ethical to own a dog in the first place? The following article will share what I’ve learned about the science of canine nutrition. I hope it is helpful for you and simplifies your task of deciding what to feed your beloved pet.
Dogs are Omnivores
Before we dive into plant-based nutrition for dogs, it will be helpful to contrast their situation with that of cats. Let’s start with some definitions. As most of us know, herbivores eat only plants, carnivores eat only meat, and omnivores eat both meat and plants. The term obligate carnivore applies to species who are required to eat meat to survive. House cats, for example, are obligate carnivores. Cats require 11 amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. The most notable of these amino acids as they pertain to dog and cat health is called taurine. Yes taurine – as in the stuff that’s added to Red Bull energy drinks. Cats are not physically capable of synthesizing taurine from other amino acids (called “precursor” amino acids). And taurine is only found in animal foods, such as chicken, seafood, etc.
When pet-owners have ignored this basic biological fact, the results have been predictably disastrous. Cats fed an improper diet can and do die. Without taurine, cats can develop a condition known as DCM (dilated cardiomyopathy), which is when the walls of a cat’s heart thin and weaken, thereby failing to deliver oxygen throughout the body properly. (Note: There are vegan and fortified cat foods on the market, so this may be an option for some cat owners, but it’s outside the scope of this article)
Dogs can develop DCM as well, though it appears not be as prevalent in them. The causes of DCM are only partially understood. Genetics appear to play a large role. But what appears very clear is that taurine deficiency also is a significant contributor to a dog from a vulnerable breed developing DCM.
Dogs need taurine too, but unlike cats, they possess the remarkable ability to synthesize their taurine from two other precursor amino acids: cysteine and methionine. And unlike taurine, those cysteine and methionine can be found in plant foods. Thus, taurine is considered a non-essential amino acid for dogs.
To get into the weeds even more, dogs have the ability to make taurine from cysteine which is in turn made from methionine. So this amino acid precursor chain works sequentially.
How Much Taurine Do Dogs Need?
This is tricky. Short answer: It depends. Large dogs synthesize their own taurine at slower rates than that of small dogs. Certain breeds also appear to be particularly susceptible, such as golden retrievers, boxers, spaniels, and Newfoundlands. So for someone like me with an approximately 22 lb. dog, the concern is lower than for others.
This is why it’s so critical to buy dog food that is fortified with taurine. Even though dogs can make their own if they have adequate amino acid precursor levels, it’s a risk. The safest route is to just give them taurine in a readily bioavailable source, such as fortified food or a supplement.
The particular food I’ve recently started buying for my dog is called v-planet. My dog absolutely loves it! This is no paid endorsement; I just genuinely love the product. They add in a ton of essential nutrients and vitamins to the food. It contains B12, vitamin D, and taurine – the big 3 things that are naturally lacking in a plant-based diet. I encourage you to check them out here: https://v-planet.com/. It’s also surprisingly affordable. I’ve seen plant-based kibble go for crazy-high prices. As in $100 for a 16 lb. bag. V-Planet was about $70 CAD for the same 16 lb. bag. It’s an American company but the food is made in Canada (where I live), which I also like.
It’s also good to know that the taurine that comes added to products today – whether it’s dog food or energy drinks – is in synthetic form. It isn’t derived from animals, which is useful to know seeing as taurine used to be derived from bull semen. Yuck.
What Does the Science Say About Artificially Added Taurine?
One of the fascinating things I learned while doing research for this article is that most meat-based food actually is supplemented with synthetic taurine, which is vegan. So even meat-based kibble companies acknowledge that their product doesn’t ave enough naturally-occurring taurine either!
The story gets even more interesting. A 2015 study at Ross University of Veterinary Medicine took a group of 34 dogs currently being fed conventional kibble (and almost certainly meat-based), and put them on a plant-based diet (V-Planet kibble). The dogs showed a remarkable 54% increase in their taurine levels after just 30 days! Remember, these are dogs that were eating commercial kibble prior to the diet, kibble that ostensibly would have already contained supplemental taurine. And after 90 days on the diet, zero dogs showed any signs of DCM. Admittedly, this was a pretty small sample size, and further research needs to be done. But this is a promising sign that dogs can not only thrive on a plant-based diet, but do better on it than they do on a conventional diet.
Should We Really be Feeding Dogs Fortified Foods? Isn’t that Unnatural?
This is a really common argument that you hear all the time when it comes to diet. The uber-popular Paleo diet is premised on the idea that we should eat how our ancestors ate for millenia as that diet will be optimized to our evolved biology (although the notion of whether or not we ate large quantities of meat in our evolutionary history continues to be hotly contested). This argument, of course, extends to pets. We should be feeding our pets the diets they evolved to eat, so the thinking goes. And so if dogs are direct descendants from wolves, and wolves eat primarily meat, then that’s what we should be feeding our modern day dogs too. And this was the argument I believed in and espoused to those willing to listen for years as I fed my pup a raw-food diet. I even would grow visibly agitated and annoyed when my vet would question this philosophy.
However, I’ve had a change of heart when it comes to this line of thinking. For starters, I no longer consider past behaviour to necessarily be an indication of what is optimal for us or our pets today.
Let’s start with people. Human beings have done a lot of stuff throughout our history that most of us would consider abhorrent by today’s standards. In the light of modernity, we recognize that raping and pillaging a neighbouring village is immoral. We recognize that killing other humans is wrong and we’ve attached a criminal sanction to such behaviour. We’ve denied women and minorities the right to vote. We’ve prosecuted unjust wars. Our history is a litany of mistakes as our sense of morality has evolved, which is what we call progress. So the all-important question becomes: If we can feed ourselves and our dogs a healthy diet by leveraging the power of technology and innovation without needing to kill other animals, shouldn’t we?
We use technology to make every aspect of our lives better. Why would we not also use technology to fortify something like dog food with essential nutrients to make the lives of millions of farm animals better? If we can put the essential vitamins and minerals that a dog needs and that they’d normally get from meat into their food, why wouldn’t we?
People get a bit squeamish when it comes to eating food that is made in a lab. They call it frankenfood. They say it’ll give you cancer. They say that it can’t be good for you because it isn’t natural. And while it’s true that much of our processed food today is unhealthy, that doesn’t logically equate to the statement that all processed and/or fortified foods are necessarily unhealthy. When we can take healthy, whole, plant-based food and add to it essential nutrients like vitamin D and B12, I welcome such an innovation for me and for my dog.
The Bottom Line
Before starting your dog on a new diet, it’s best to consult with your veterinarian. However, you should be aware that they might not necessarily know about the science of feeding a dog a plant-based diet. They may not be aware of the various brands on the market, the fact they contain all the essential amino acids and other valuable nutrients, etc. I encourage you to challenge your vet on why they are making the recommendations they are, whether any of their other dog patients are on a plant-based diet, and whether they think plant-based kibble plus supplementation would be a viable alternative to feeding your dog a meat-based diet.
We all love our dogs. They’re one of life’s greatest gifts. We all want to feed them the best, highest-quality food possible. And we have to be very careful about imposing our ideology onto other species. While humans can thrive on a plant-based diet, that may not be the case for other animals. But we also don’t want to have the cost of treating our dogs well to be cruelty to other animals. How can we plausibly claim to love animals if we are knowingly contributing to their abuse, horrific treatment, and inhumane slaughter? In order to be consistent in our professed love of animals, we have to make every effort to reduce the suffering of all living beings on this planet – not just the ones we call pets.
I hope this article has encouraged you to seek out plant-based sources of food for your pup and talk to your vet about the viability of this shift. I promise I’ll keep you guys updated on any changes I notice in my dog’s health – for better or worse – as well as whether I have decided to take him off the plant-based diet, add in supplements, etc. As always, thanks for reading, I hope it’s been valuable for you!
Growth 365 