Should my dog go vegetarian?

My dog gets diarrhea.  Bad.  And often.  Every month or so, she’ll wake me up in the middle of the night, squeaking and crying to go outside.  And then she’ll do it again, every hour or so, and if I don’t get up fast enough … another spot on the rug.  I took her to the vet (again) last month during a particularly bad spell, and the vet suggested something crazy: a plant based diet.  My dog, she said, might be allergic to meat.

Wait, what?  Aren’t dogs mighty hunters, descendents of wolves, meant to roam the savannah ripping apart antelope with their jaws?  How could my ferocious stalker of squirrels, tormentor of groundhogs, chaser of deer, be allergic to meat?

When I was a kid, we had a dog who ate baby carrots.  I guess at some point she was overweight and the vet told us to try giving her baby carrots instead of treats, which seems ludicrous but it worked.  She would sit up and beg and balance a carrot on her nose then flip it off and swallow it with as much excitement as I’ve ever seen in any dog.  So a dog eating vegetables didn’t seem THAT strange.  

But don’t dogs NEED meat?  Apparently not.  Dogs aren’t wolves.  Dogs have had tens of thousands of years to evolutionarily adapt to living with humans and eating what humans eat, which includes a lot of plants. Specialty dog food made with vegetarian ingredients can actually be better for dogs[1], especially dogs with sensitive stomachs like mine.

And these vegetarian dog foods have a lower carbon footprint than meat.  In the US, animal-based ingredients in dog and cat food contribute around 60 million tons CO2 equivalent per year[2].  There is increasing interest and investment in alternatives, including insect-based pet food[3] and other alternative proteins[4]. 

This doesn’t mean you should just start feeding your dog nothing but broccoli.  Dogs still need a balanced diet with sufficient protein and other nutrients.  Turns out the easiest, best way to feed your dog a vegetarian diet is to buy specially formulated vegetarian dog food.  Before starting any new diet, you should definitely talk to your vet.

As for me?  I think we’re going to try it.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

[1] Knight, A.; Leitsberger, M. (2016). Vegetarian versus Meat-Based Diets for Companion Animals. Animals, 6, 57. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani6090057

[2] Okin, G. (2017). Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301

[3]Funt, D. (2021). Pets can help climate change with an insect-based diet. Owners just need to come around to the idea. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/09/21/pet-food-sustainable-bugs-insects/

[4] Thomas, I. (2021). Mark Cuban invests in plant-based protein company, but its not for humans. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/12/pet-food-goes-plant-based-as-investors-including-mark-cuban-line-up.html

Mighty hunter … and vegetarian?