There certainly are vegans who are against all pet ownership – or is that “there are people who are against pet ownership who are also vegan”?
I’m vegan and have pets.
While I believe that it’s inappropriate to make wild or exotic animals into pets, and I see far too many irresponsible pet “owners,” I personally believe the human-animal bond is too strong to be entirely severed – people are going to want pets. I want pets. Preferably species we have already made dependent on us, species with which we have “co-evolved,” such as dogs.
And of course always rescued or rehomed pets, never buying or selling lives as commercial commodities.
There’s a couple of things you can do about food. One is to have herbivorous pets, like house rabbits or hamsters. You can also feed commercial vegetarian and vegan diets to some omnivorous species, like dogs.
Our dogs get a hand-cooked specialty diet consisting of sweet potato*, tofu, Metamucil for fiber, cooking oil (usually canola), a little salt, and custom doggie vitamin supplement for vegetarian dogs. The recipe was created for us by a canine dietician we consulted when Sadie had repeated diarrhea on other diets.
*The ancient Polynesians fed their dogs largely on yams, supplemented by a little fish (which our oils, salt, and vitamins replace), so this diet is similar to one used
for thousands of years.
This is supplemented by Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance vegetarian formula kibble. The dogs also get dry roasted unsalted peanuts as training treats and they get peanut butter daily smeared on a dental toy.
They’ve done really well on this diet.
The birds are naturally seed-eaters, so they’re vegan as long as we replace their calcium with a mineral block instead of a cuttlefish bone.
The cat is the big problem for us. Cats are “obligate carnivores,” and even other vegans we’ve talked to agree that it’s not practical to feed a cat a strictly vegan diet. Further complicating things is his recent trouble with Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease, which requires a special diet (low in things that cause urine crystal formation).
So we don’t feed the cat vegan food. He gets wet food that’s basically meat, and he gets kibble made with meat (his kibble is now mixed with water to get as much dilution as possible into his urine.)
Basically a cat isn’t a vegan pet. Of course, we didn’t set out to GET a cat; we took him in when he was left outside in 10 degree weather last winter to fend for himself by a neighbor who moved. Shelters and rescues, in our experience, are all full, all the time, with cats – simply dumping him on someone else would result in another cat somewhere else getting squeezed out of the system.
So we took him in despite the unpleasant (for us) compromises involved. We’re keenly aware of the compromise; the cat’s non-vegan food requires special handling in our kitchen, and dealing with canned meat is just as pleasant as scooping the litterbox. His behavior has been atrocious too; we’re not particularly happy with him, but sometimes he’s pleasant to have around, and he’s gradually becoming more friendly.
I would not advise vegans to adopt cats, generally.
