Should Your Dog Be a Vegetarian?

---

     Are you a vegetarian who owns a dog? Oh you are? That's great! Do you want to know if it is okay for your dog to eat vegetarian foods? Let's examine some information on this topic to see what we find. This will help you discover if you should feed your dog a vegetarian diet.

Let's first discuss what a vegetarian diet is. Typically it means leaving out all meat, and in some cases, fish. With some hardcore believers, they will not eat any dairy or egg products either. The latter version is normally called vegan. With being vegan, nothing they consume can have animal products in it including their vitamins. These diets are perfectly fine for us humans, but may or may not be for dogs. Keep reading to find out more.

For the answer we need to look at the intestinal tract of the dog. It is rather short compared to animals that are herbivores or plant eaters. A dog, according to science, is a carnivore or a meat eater. Today, though, the dog is more of an omnivore, which eats both animals and vegetables or other plants. The dog's short intestinal tract does not digest large quantities of the plants. Also a dog's nutritional requirements include high quantities of calcium and protein which are easily attained through eating meat, eggs and dairy products, the exact foods you the vegetarian might not eat at all.

You can see by this that a dog should have a diet that is at least partly meat. Sure you can mix in some vegetables (dogs like veggies) but make sure the meat is there for protein. If you just can't bring yourself to feed your dog meat though, then you need to become aware of the substitutes for it. Below is a list of foods to help you round out your dog's vegetarian diet.

The protein for your dog's diet can be from:

Tofu
Soybeans
Cheese (if not pure vegan)
Eggs (if not pure vegan)
Beans
Whole cereals
Wheat germ
Lentils

Carbohydrates for your dogs can be found in certain nuts, cereal products and even bananas, just to mention a few. Dogs can get fiber from raw or cooked vegetables and bran, as well as from many other foods you can research online. They can be given sunflower seed or flax seed oil for healthy fats.

If this vegetarian diet does not agree with your dog though, remember physiologically they are a carnivore or omnivore not an herbivore. Some experts recommend against the vegetarian diet for the dogs, stating that they are in danger of not getting all the nutrients they need to be healthy.

You might be better off to get a horse or other herbivore for a pet than to feed a dog a vegetarian diet. But if you have your mind made up, at least you have enough information now that you can help keep your dog healthy for many years ahead. Just make sure that your dog gets some vitamin and mineral supplements too, which aides their vegetarian.