“Following a plant-based diet is good for some pets, less so for others. Rodents, for example guinea pigs and rabbits, are herbivores and mainly eat plant material. That is why it is no problem for these animals to raise them plant-based.
cats
With cats it is a bit different. The cat is really a strict carnivore, which means that a cat’s diet must at least partly consist of animal material, because it contains nutrients that the cat’s body cannot produce itself, for example animal vitamin A.
While dogs can convert beta-carotene, which is found in carrots and leafy vegetables, for example, into vitamin A, cats cannot. In order to get this nutrient, a cat has to eat real animal material.
dogs
Aside from the ethical issue, you can raise a dog vegetable-based, because the animal can convert the nutrients from plant material into the substances that he or she needs. This is because the dog has started to live together with humans and eat with humans over time, for example when dog food did not yet exist. As a result, a dog is much more flexible than a cat when it comes to nutrition.
Harmful consequences
A cat must therefore ingest animal substances. If a cat has a long-term shortage of these substances, this can have harmful consequences for the animal. First, when cats eat a lot of plants, the acidity of the urine goes up. This makes the cat prone to developing bladder stones.
In addition, the animal nutrient taurine is very important for the cat. Dogs can make this nutrient themselves, but a vegetarian diet in cats results in a deficiency of taurine. This can cause them to develop heart and vision problems.
These harmful effects are sometimes difficult to spot because you cannot see them from the outside. Heart problems due to a lack of taurine can be recognized by fatigue and fainting. Consequences such as anemia are more difficult to recognize. A cat can therefore walk around with complaints for a long time before the body indicates that it cannot continue.
Carefully
Nowadays there is a demand for vegetarian cat food and this is also produced. Sometimes synthetic additives are added, so that the cat still ingests animal substances. But not much is known scientifically about whether this is healthy for your cat.
At the moment I have not come across a vegetarian food in which I have 100% confidence. I would therefore be very careful with this type of food and would not recommend a completely plant-based diet for a cat.
Take a good look at your pet
We can distinguish between raising your pet vegetarian or vegan. With a vegetarian diet the animal is still allowed animal products such as eggs and milk, with a vegan diet the animal only eats plant materials.
If you as a cat owner find it important that your cat does not eat another animal, I would therefore advise you to look at which animal products your cat can still eat. This way your cat still gets important nutrients. A plant-based diet is therefore not such a problem for dogs. I would like to advise people to look at their animal and what it responds well to: how is the stool, is he active, does he like to eat the food and is he comfortable in his own skin. This way you can analyze which diet works well.”
Research
A new publication in the scientific journal Plos One shows that dogs who eat vegan are less likely to get sick and need medication less often.
Researchers compared the health outcomes of more than 2,500 dogs on three different diets. These included a conventional dog food diet, a raw meat diet, and a vegan dog food diet.
On conventional food, 49% of the dogs studied suffered from health disorders. In the dogs in the study group that ate raw meat, this percentage was 43% and in 36% of the participating dogs that ate vegan food.
However, it was noted that the vegan diet must be complete in terms of nutritional value.