Comments on: Cats and Vegetarianism

By: Cissa

Cissa — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:07:25 +0000

Bill-

Our Jack Russell mix not only gets meat in her normal diet, but likes to supplement it with freshly-caught mice. Sigh. But she’s healthy and oh-so-bouncy!

By: My Cat is Lazy

My Cat is Lazy — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:24:35 +0000

Great post.

Cats are intrinsically inclined to consume meat and meat products. What is wrong with people! If you are going on a vegan diet, don’t deprive you’re pet of essential nutrients and protein it needs to thrive. There is no reason that a pet should suffer from the dogmatic arrogance of people. Reading Kidspeak’s post I am simply astounding by how foolish people can be.

By: Kidspeak

Kidspeak — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:44:32 +0000

I have a couple of students who are Vegan, and they, too are trying to feed their cats only vegetables and fruit. They just don’t understand why our cats are large (only one is fat. . .sigh), probably because we fed some of them from time in utereo very high quality food.

Their cat food looks and smells like not food, in fact, one beast tries to cover it rather than eating it! I see their cats and think the poor things are in the process of dying. (As they likely are.)

Their cats get sick (a lot), their vets prescribe food that is meat-filled, the cats get better, and then they go back on their Vegan died. Rinse. Repeat.

That’s what the lives of those cats is. I’m going to give them your blog entry, if they haven’t seen it yet.

By: WereBear

WereBear — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:05:12 +0000

Thanks, Marina, good point! I was working on two thoughts there, and mangled it; dogs aren’t omnivores. Now edited.

And thanks to you too, Bill, I’ve put a text only link in there. Just another lesson for me

By: Marina

Marina — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:03:48 +0000

Great article. One correction though – dogs are not truly omnivores. They are (inobligate) carnivores, meaning that they can survive on plant matter, but do not thrive on it. Here are a couple good articles explaining the reasons for this.

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/omnivores.html
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/canine-nutrition/dogs-carnivores-omnivores/

By: Bill the Splut

Bill the Splut — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:32:18 +0000

Paul McCartney is a cat, not a human! Who knew?

By: larry

larry — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:49:57 +0000

Here’s a good video on meat: http://meat.org

By: Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:17:04 +0000

The scariest internet person I got into that argument with insisted that it was morally okay for him to artificially shorten his cat’s life because of all of the other animals who would be saved when he slowly starved his cat to death by feeding it a vegan diet.

I’m hoping he was just being an internet asshole, because I had no way of finding his IP so I could alert the humane society to take his animals away from him.

By: Bill the Splut

Bill the Splut — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:23:48 +0000

A friend of mine got a Jack Russell terrier puppy. He was vegetarian, and intended to raise Huck that way. I made several of your arguments against it, but he was insistent. “They have vegetarian dog food at the store I go to!” I said, I’m sure they do. That doesn’t mean you should feed him that.

Ever seen a Jack Russell puppy? I’d say “boundless energy,” but there’s actually a lot of bounding involved! After a few days, Huck had no energy at all. My friend went back to the store, and they told him to keep feeding Huck the food; he just needed to adjust to it.

After a week, he stormed into the store. “My dog’s poop is runny and gray!” They told him to keep him on the food. “You’re killing my dog!” he yelled, along with a few other, cruder words. He finally started giving Huck meat, and the little guy made a complete recovery in 2 days. As you say, if you want a pet that doesn’t eat meat, get a pet that doesn’t eat meat.

(BTW, the Amazon book link isn’t showing up on my browser)