I have seen a lot of information on Vegan diets for cats and dogs and I think that whole idea is just WRONG! Vegan's shouldn't keep "pets" at all. Holding a dog or cat hostage is no different than holding a chicken or cow hostage. Why not keep chickens for "pets" and then you can justify eating eggs as a by-product of having pet chickens around.
If you think your cat or dog is better off as a pet, you are wrong. In their natural idea of a life, they would have as many babies as possible and eat everything that they could catch. You probably get your pets fixed and feed them "Science Diet"....at least until it was recalled. This is not what nature intended for cats or dogs so it doesn't jive with the Vegan philosophy.
Using the arguement that dogs and cats are "domesticated" is no excuse for keeping them as pets. Sheep are so domesticated that they cannot survive in the wild in most parts of the world. To right that wrong, each of us should keep one as a pet to insure that it is well looked after. If each Vegan did that, then it would be ok to use the wool, since shearing is a requirement for a sheep's health and well being.
Picking and choosing which animals to use and which animals to abuse is part of the over all pattern of denying animal rights. Using 10,000 years of domestication as an excuse to continue the pattern doesn't make it right. Veganism is a choice to stop using and abusing all living creatures, whether the animal is a cow or a cat. Keeping either one as a pet denies that animal a natural and self-directed life.
Keeping a cat or dog and forcing them to exist on corn, rice and vegetables is just plain wrong. Part of being a good keeper is being prepared to feed that animal the food that is most natural and healthful. If you can't do that, then don't have pets. Or, if you must have pets, then pick pets that are naturally vegetarian.
No Vegan can justify owning another creature, period.
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I came across this post deliberately, but I admit that I have not read your profile. Are you vegan?
If so, I must say that this is the most well-reasoned argument I have seen from a vegan on this issue. The whole idea of converting carnivorous animals into vegan pets seems to me not only ridiculous, but cruel. The arguments supporting it overlook the facts. I read a post on a vegan message board that intimated that feeding your pets meat is cruel because the "non-humans" that died to feed "'your pet' did not want to die."
That is a ridiculous argument... without human intervention, each of those animals that have been selectively bred for companionship or for production of fur or meat would either eat other animals or be eaten by other animals. Nature does not care whether animals "want to die." While I completely understand loving animals and wanting to minimize the harmful effect that humans have on them, dogs and cats do not, and I think it is immoral to expect them to.
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