Yes, you can feed your dog a meat-free diet
- Wild Earth
- 22 de fev. de 2018
- 1 min de leitura
People choose to eat a plant-based diet for many reasons including their health, ethics, and environmental concerns. But what about our dogs? Does the same reasoning apply? It’s natural to wonder if a meat-free diet is a healthy choice for dogs.
I’ve got good news. Dogs can thrive when eating a vegetarian or even a vegan diet.[1] Evidence is curled up at my feet.
I joke that my dog Apollo is allergic to food. When he was only nine months old, his previous owners made an appointment with me to euthanize him because he simply couldn’t eat. No matter what food they tried, he lost weight and had uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea. Several veterinarians had tried to figure out what was wrong, but Apollo’s owners had reached the end of their resources. When I asked if I could try to diagnose and treat instead of euthanize him, they happily signed him over and wished me luck.
Long story short, Apollo has severe inflammatory bowel disease. The only food he can eat that doesn’t result in a flare-up of his symptoms happens to be vegan… in other words, it contains no animal products whatsoever. Apollo is now 8 years old, completely healthy, and weighs in at a muscular 82 pounds.
The science behind the ability of dogs to do well on a meat-free diet is quite straightforward. While their wolf-like ancestors certainly hunted to survive, modern dogs have many traits that make them more omnivorous.
1. Vegetarian versus Meat-Based Diets for Companion Animals. Knight A, Leitsberger M. Animals (Basel). 2016 Sep 21;6(9). pii: E57.
Read the article written by Jennifer Coates, DVM at:
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