my cat hates meat wont touch it, any cat sachets i give him with meat in he turns his nose up at, also ant meat flavour biscuits so everything is the fish and tuna and veg variety, he does however love yoghurt/moose, grapes, melon bananna, and cheese lol.

Depends on your reasons to be vegetarian. If you're horrified at the thought of killing animals for food, the OP's point might be the irony of you choosing to maintain a pet that also needs animals to be killed for food!

If you are horrified would you actually have an animal that has to eat meat ? I can't imagine it happening.

Perfectly concisely put!

Animals are natural carnivores, humans can get by with alternative means of protein (tofu, beans...), but animals need meat, end of.

Anyone who forces vegetarianism onto animals descended from Wolves and Lions and Tigers are complete morons and shouldn't be allowed to keep animals.

You do realise cats are lactose intolerant

Our (late) cats loved cream and yoghurt I don't remember it ever harming them. Is this a new finding or we we just lucky and had the only 5 cats who were tolerant ?

Most adult cats are intolerant of lactose; because in adulthood, they stop producing enough of the enzyme lactase which is needed to digest lactose.

It won't kill them but a lot over a prolonged period can cause really bad diarrhoea, but giving milk to cats is such a common myth most people don't even realise! I only learnt it when I actually studied animal welfare at Uni! xx

So like many many things if given huge quantities it will give them problems - I do worry we restrict many of our pets now from things that did most of them no harm in the past because of what may happen if they are fed a large quantity. I would guess like any good cat owner Pet is not feeding huge amounts and if the cat had problems would stop, as none of us are so stupid we would allow our pets to be harmed surely.

As meat is a by product of the leather industry it is OK for vegetarians to eat it and feed it to their dogs. But of course they should make sure they don’t have a leather collar.

Seriously though, it is OK for humans to artificially restrict their diet but it is not OK for them to impose it on an animal. If they don't like the idea of a dog or cat eating meat then the simple answer is not to have one. This rubbish about "my pet doesn't like meat" is ridiculous. Put the food down and if they don’t eat it immediately throw it away. Repeat until they do eat what they are given.

Actually I think instinctively some dogs do know on some level what is Good and what is not good for them, one of mine was reluctant to eat any grain based foods we have since found she is gluten intolerant, one will not touch rice or pork or lamb it took a while for us to realise he is allergic to all of them. The dog we had who hated meat thrived on a vegetarian diet I have a feeling he wouldn't have done so well if we had forced him to eat meat. Oh and I think it is not for one person to say what another should feed their dog if the dog is/was happy and healthy it is what is important not what someone else thinks and says.

Be careful with grapes ( and raisins ) , they are posionous to both cats and dogs and can lead to kidney damage.

This is what i thought. If you were a veggie, why would you force your animals to be veggies. Cats don't even like veg.

Anybody who says "animals [sic] are natural carnivores ... animals need meat" and leaves it at that isn't exactly the brightest lamp in the street.

Spot on.. Mind you you can't be healthy as a human if you don't eat meat or animal produce. Or should I say you never see a healthy vegan.

ah MamboJimbo you missed a lot in that little exchange.

if mirrorimage had said he was an elective obligate carnivore would that have made it clearer?

i think mirrorimage knows that biologically he is the same as other humans, so you have to think was he trying to make some other point.....

I wasn't writing an article for National Geographic, I was stating a simple fact!

Also I'll have you know I am intelligent. I have a 1st Class BSc (Hons) in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, so have some authority on the subject, not that I have to justify myself to you.

Also why the *sic*, anyone who corrects beginning a sentence with a capital letter clearly isn't the "brightest lamp in the street"....

Yes, same here.

Wrong on both counts.

What is it about veganism and vegetarianism that attracts such demonstrably false and easily falsifiable myths? Is it sheer laziness? I wonder.

Yes, though no less wrong.

It isn't a fact, simple or otherwise.


The mind boggles.


The word sic means 'thus' in Latin and indicates that what another writer has written is being reproduced exactly and literally. In this case it was to draw attention to the fatuousness of the statement of somebody claiming to possess a 1st Class BSc (Hons) in Animal Behaviour and Welfare writing "animals are natural carnivores ... animals need meat," which is being almost unbelievably sloppy in the use of written English. You're not expected to write an article for National Geographic, but you'll always be pulled up on bullshit whatever audience you're pitching this sort of witless trash at. You'd be a long, long way down the educational scale, way, way way before a supposed 1st Class BSc (Hons) in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, and you'd be taught about the existence of herbivores.

I hope you feed your cats uncooked meat... as you said, natural carnivores right?

bullshit?

lets look at a cats teeth shall we?
they are all sharp and pointed - designed for cutting and tearing *meat*
as are the majority of a dogs teeth, as well as ferrets teeth.
you would never find a snake in the wild gulping down fallen fruit.

naturally speaking, the cat family is strictly carnivorous.
vegetation based diets can be produced for them, but they as a species are designed to hunt and eat meat.
their digestive tracts are short and simple with no hind gut fermentation to process plant matter. they can eat it but gain little, if any nutritional value from it. vegetable and grain based foods can be produced for them which meet MOST of their dietary requirements
but taurine is required in their diet, they need to consume meat as they have no means of synthesising it themselves - they have had no need to produce it, its already present in the tissues of the animals they would naturally consume.

it's the same with canines for the most part, however they can process some vegetation through fermentation, but most of their energy is derived from protein and fat.
they would, if wild, naturally prefer to look to animal sources for their food as they are much higher in nutritional value and easier to digest than forage sources.


saying "animals need meat" was a sweeping statement - not ALL animals need meat, that is quite obvious.
it is very easy to tell what emzie meant from their post.

but you wouldn't expect a rabbit to eat a steak & be healthy why expect the same from a cat eating muesli?

Thank you just ignore the idiocy, it's just a baiter which is actually against the rules of the forum and whom I certainly won't let get to me. I know what I spent ages 18-21 doing and I've got the student loan and certificate to prove it! T****r...

Great post