Vegan Dog Diets: Not Recommended

by Dr. Chris

March 13, 2011 Vegan dog diets, while growing in popularity, may not be best for the health of your dogs, despite what celebrities like Alicia Silverstone say. Recent reports by the New York Daily News and CNN International caution pet owners who what to put their dogs on vegetarian or vegan diets.

For humans there are some advantages of a vegan diet. But similar to pets, humans on vegan diets have to be very careful about how they go about replacing the animal proteins in their diets.

Dr. Donna Spector, according to CNN says that while technically a dog could do a vegan diet, you would have to meticulously plan how you are going to replace animal proteins with plant proteins in order to ensure a complete and healthy diet. Beans, like soybeans would have be a large component in order to replace the loss protenin found in animal byproducts. Dr. Spector recommends buying a product that has gone through a AAFCO feeding trial or consult with a dog nutritionist.

Alicia Silverstone talks about her pet's vegan diets in her book: The Kind Diet. She herself decided to become vegan after coming to the conclusion that she could never eat her dogs. She has three dogs.
 
Resources:

Vegan Diets may not be the best route for dogs, says vets;

Vegan Dog Diets: A question of thriving vs. surviving

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