Just an excuse to post a picture of Mädchen using my wrist-rest as a pillow. (If I don’t offer a pillow she ends up falling asleep on the Tab or Caps Lock key.)
Actually, there’s a pretty big fight going on over at Huffington Post, over a story on whether it’s safe to feed dogs and cats a vegan diet. No surprise that a lot of the comments are off-topic, just ripping on veganism in general, but some of it’s pretty funny, especially when someone comes in with a bit of research and stops the thread cold.
We all know it’s pretty simple to raise healthy dogs on a vegan diet, but cats are a lot tougher, what with their short-ass digestive tract. I know people manage to keep vegan cats and there are carefully formulated vegan cat foods out there, but I just can’t do it—if that strips me of the “vegan” label in your book, so be it. I’d be super neurotic about it, testing her urine pH weekly, and I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I caused her any sort of malady. Plus she’s got those teeth—them’s flesh-tearin’ teeth. Watching her hunt down the tiniest of flies is amazing. She gets so focused…as if she’d starve without it.
I feed her Evolution vegan kibble to keep her teeth clean and moist organic poultry and fish (I did give her Evolution moist food to try but she wouldn’t go near it). And I’m seriously considering adding some raw poultry to the equation. I’ve seen it frozen in little serving sizes, so you just thaw it and make sure any uneaten portion is not left out—it’s expensive, but it’s cheaper than raising a kid.
Maybe if I were vegan 13 years ago I would have gotten a guinea pig or some other herbivore (are there many guinea pigs in shelters?), but Mädchen’s been my pal for a long time and I hope she’ll be around for a long time.
I’m with you on not keeping a cat on a vegan diet. I’ve read a lot of research on the subject and I just can’t justify feeding my cat vegan. And yes, that may make me less of a vegan in someone’s book, but so be it, I’d rather have a happy, healthy cat.
When you say you feed her organic chicken do you just mean canned cat food? I, too, have not been able to bring myself to feed my cats vegan diets because as you say they have flesh tearing teeth.
I have recently heard bad things about feeding kibble because in the wild they would be chewing on soft flesh (ok gross for us I know). I guess in the wild they would be noshing on flesh so I am interested in this raw meat you mentioned. I think I have seen it in freezers at Whole Foods.
I just found your blog via LindyLoo over at “Yeah, that Vegan shit.” Will be adding to my Favorites. Thanks!
Yes, as of right now I give her canned. She’s an 8-pounder almost-13-year-old, so she eats about a half can of moist food a day and not very much kibble.
I know I’ll never be able to give her the ideal diet of birds and squirrels and whatever she might catch outside, but she’s an indoor city cat and we do what we can. She also needs a lot of help cleaning her teeth because half of her face is a little paralyzed (the vet thinks she stroked at birth) so I don’t mind giving her the dry–and she loves it. She still plays and fights and jumps up doorframes like a maniac so I’m guessing she’s pretty healthy.
The stuff at Whole Foods is what I’m talking about. They have it at some high-end pet supply stores, like Meat here in Portland. My friend just goes to the natural food store and buys fresh organic ground turkey for his kitties and they love it.