Are dogs carnivores or omnivores?

[TriPolar]

@Melbourne

(Checks date of post). Yes, you can feed a cat a vegan diet, including vegan diet supplements (Seawead extract is vegan. Yeast is acceptable to all vegans I know. Krill is acceptiable to some vegans).

Perhaps ?? your vegan friends made an ethical decision about the natural diet of cats and decided that a natural diet was ethically acceptable for cats ??. Or maybe they also don’t like the idea of “diet supplements”.

@friedo

The major deficit for cats in plant-only diets is the amino acid[sup]1[/sup] taurine, which is only found in meat. We humans are smart enough to manufacture it ourselves from plants if necessary, but cats can’t do that, so they need to eat meat.

[sub]1. Not technically an amino acid because there is a sulfonyl hydroxide where the carboxyl group should be.[/sub]

Note Friedo’s post. I believe this is what they were telling me, though it’s a long time ago, and since my friend’s retirement I’ve lost track of him so I can’t check. I’m sure they felt there was an ethical question, but they were people who took the idea of doing no harm to animals quite seriously, if they thought their cat could live on a vegan diet they would have done it.

Whether or not that is accurate info about a cat’s diet I don’t know, but it’s not surprising to me that such a specialized carnivore as a [del]land shark[/del] cat would require nutrients only available by eating other animals.

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

@JeffB

Here you go.

Yes! Exactly!

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

@puzzlegal

Doesn’t that describe about 90% of all dogs?

We raised a poodle for a year. Great dog, but a nervous stomach. He had to always be coaxed to eat.

Our ‘forever’ dog is half Australian Shepard. She sometimes misses meals.

OTOH, the lab puppy in front if me is trying to eat rocks just now.

[JackieLikesVariety]

@spamforbrains

Nope. Dogs who get pancreatitis from high fat diets either have a genetic condition (common in mini schnauzers, I believe) or are middle-aged overweight dogs that have eaten nothing but a low-fat high-carb low-quality kibble for years and suddenly get hold of some real food and gorge themselves. Even in that case, most dogs don’t develop pancreatitis, suggesting something else is going on besides the sudden diet change. Dogs that are used to eating high-fat diets don’t develop pancreatitis.

um, “nope” - my dogs did fine for years on a very good quality mix of food that is low carb and high fat.

now, one of them has pancreatitis.

2 weeks of eating nothing but the very low fat prescription food her symptoms are gone but she tests on the very high edge of normal for her pancreas. she needs to eat low fat forever, now, and I hope that controls it.

the vet said nothing else was wrong with her labs.