Vegans and meat-eating pets.

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Permalink Reply by Vicky Ewbank on August 20, 2008 at 5:37am

I'm the same - I never though I'd be making friend with my local hunter/butcher! But he's a dog lover too and it's so much better for the dogs/cats to have fresh, wild game - and so much better for the game to be wild than farmed - so I'm happy with my solution. If your uncle hunts definately ask him for scraps and bones that just otherwise go to waste! And get yourself big freezer! The organ meats are good - (if your squeamish skip this bit!) brain, heart, lungs, liver and small intestine; for some reason not kidneys or stomach - does anyone know why? My dog turns her nose up at kidneys, all that filtering perhaps...)

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Permalink Reply by Jocelyn on August 14, 2008 at 6:53pm

my dog is a healthy vegan. Her food is not raw but I don't see how if it would be much of a difference would be made. You could look up some vegan dog food recipes, not cook it (or dehydrate it as most are baked) and see how your dog responds. No dog food should severely hurt your pup if he/she tries it once and it has wholesome ingredients.

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Permalink Reply by Zoe on August 17, 2008 at 12:01pm

I have a very health raw cat. He is not a vegan! He has rabbit, chicken and chicken liver, hemp oil and vitamin and mineral supplement.

I have met a very, very healthy and happy raw vegan dog though. He belonged to a raw vegan, and she basically gave him everything she ate. Including loads of seaweed.

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on August 27, 2008 at 5:28am

Aw I tried giving my cats seaweed and they looked at me like I was insane! I thought they'd go for it as it tastes and certainly smells similar to some of the things they already eat but no way.
Also, they won't go NEAR hemp oil, which I have to admit, did disappoint me =(
I am hoping it is only because they are not fully raw and so still have some weird bits in them. =p

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 17, 2008 at 1:19pm

I followed the guidelines in this book, Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, with my last pet, a seal point Siamese male I raised from kittenhood. He had his share of eating disorders for most of his life as I switched him from brand to brand of what I thought was the best commercial food. As he got old I could see him declining health wise, though he outlived our other 3 cats of the same age, and I switched him to a raw food diet using recipes from Pitcairn. It worked and he became very healthy and he virtually stopped throwing up masses of undigested food, his coat got shiny and he attained a healthy weight.

My information gathering at the time universally said that cats are obligate carnivores and trying to impose human vegan preferences on them was unnatural and ultimately would be unhealthy for them. So I had to reconcile my feelings about my own preferences about meat and my obligation to my friend to care for his needs. When I stood in a spiritual place with it it was easy. God made cats carnivores. They must kill and eat other animals. I do nothing but that God does it through me. So handling dead flesh became an act of surrender to God. Sounded pretty weird to me the first time someone said those words to me.

Even though I was a raw vegan, I would still handle the meat and eggs with disposable gloves while I prepared his chow. I had a set of small canning jars just for his food. My routine was to make his food about every two weeks. I would keep a week's worth fresh and freeze the rest. I had a workspace for cat food prep and washing that was away from our raw vegan kitchen and separate utensils for the job. We also had a second refrigerator on the back porch for our overflow and his food was stored in a big sealed tupperware box. That seemed to satisfy my roommate's and my desire to not have contact with animal products.

I used coarsely ground turkey, but was just about to switch to coarsely ground whole fowl carcasses and rabbit when my pal left at age 18. I was going to use a butcher to do the job and pay him extra for the cleanup he would have to do on his machine. I agree that small chunks would be more like nature for a younger healthy cat. If I had several raw pets I think it would be worthwhile to invest in a meat grinder and/or be prepared to put a cleaver and knife to flesh. Even with a grinder, the flesh must be in small enough pieces to fit into the grinder hopper.

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 18, 2008 at 1:55am

I used glass 8 ounce wide mouth canning jars. They held a day's ration for my 12 pound Siamese.

As far as meat selections go look at what wild cat species eat: rodents, birds, reptiles and insects.

Once you get your routine fine tuned, it takes very little daily effort. Just take a frozen portion out of the freezer to thaw for the next day.

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 18, 2008 at 2:40am

One of the facts of life is that we usually outlive our pets. In the past 7 years I have had to witness the passing of my 4 cats. The first one was my Siamese best friend and when his kidneys failed we held on to him until he could no longer eat or drink. Thankfully we had a vet who was a cat person and who came to our house to put him to sleep. I grieved and cried for him for weeks. The second one was our black and white unit who got a large cancer on his leg which spread throughout his body, which we also had put to sleep at home. Again, I held him until I felt his last breath and the life force in him leave. Then grieved for days at my loss. The third one was the B&W brother and we did things differently. He taught us how to let nature take it's course and how to just be with the death of a loved ones body. We sat with him day in and day out while he decided when to let go of his body. Instead of enshrining him in a kitty grave, we took his body for a drive up into the hills and left him on a rocky out cropping so that the vultures would find him and he would symbolically soar with those magnificent fliers. A year later an odd little black and white kitten was born to one of the half wild cats on the farm. He was an exact carbon copy of our old friend and he now lives at the ashram where he is such a love bug. Finally, the last of my Ex's and my "children" was the raw food Siamese I described elsewhere. The way he chose to leave was to simply do that ---leave without a trace. I do not know what his death was like. I was on day 26 of a water fast and did not have the energy to search for him when it got dark outside.

My friends taught me a lot about death, attachment and loss ----how I feared my own death.

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Permalink Reply by Vicky Ewbank on August 20, 2008 at 6:07am

Thank you for sharing your experience of your friends deaths. 6 years ago I lost my best friend and soul mate (she still is...) It might sound strange to some to love a dog so much but she had been with me through many difficult phases of my life and was a true life line through much of it. Later when things had improved we worked together, walking other dogs, and she, being a very bossy alsation/doberman, kept perfect order amongst all my charges.
She died suddenly at age 8, from an immune dissorder that I learnt she had all her life. In the earlier years when I would not have been able to bear her loss we managed successful treatment with homoeopathic remedies - even bringing her back from the brink of death after she had been hemorrhaging from her uterus for 3 days and had lost the use of the back legs. One dose of Pulsatilla 200 and in the morning she was completely better - miracles do happen! But 6 years later when the same happenend again she was ready to go and I was ready to let her. She kept her symptoms hidden until it was too late for even heroic surgery to do anything for her. She had lain quietly overnight, choosing a quiet spot to die. When in the morning her gums went yellow and I realised the extent of her jaundice and liver failiure I rushed her to the vet. As he carried her away from me she looked at me as if to say - really? Are you leaving me here - but why? She held on for the day going through tests until the vet pronounced her too far gone for even a blood transfusion/steroids/antibiotics to help and died in my arms, in the vets surgery, that evening.
The vet said she should have been obviously declining for weeks. She didn't show any of it until the day before! He said he had never seen such rapid organ failiure. I think she had decided that it was her time to go and had gone in such a way that she couldn't have been saved. I know that she was content to die at home in my arms. I took her to the vet because I felt that's what I needed to do to satisfy the society in which we live - to try to avoid/postpone death, to only trust an expert, to avoid later feelings of guilt.
I know she lived as long and as well as she did because of her fresh raw diet that I put her on for the last 2 years of her life (as a pup she was cooked vegan and hated it), because of her job and because I needed her to. I learnt from her that there is a time for death, and that it can be a peaceful and beautiful thing. She showed me I would be ok without her, and how much I had grown up and become more in charge of my life. I thank her for everything we shared.

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Permalink Reply by Uti on August 20, 2008 at 12:33pm

Very sweet story Vicky. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Vicky Ewbank on August 21, 2008 at 5:03am

Thank you, I'm glad I shared my story and appreciate your kind words. She certainaly lives in my heart and my memories - she is only a thought away. Love and joy to all our friends x

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Permalink Reply by Vicky Ewbank on August 20, 2008 at 5:43am

I must admit that I go outside and wield an axe to chop the bones up for my dogs...I would cringe to put meat in my vitamix - heaveb forbid!! But axe wielding, surprisingly enough, seems to suit me quite well...

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Permalink Reply by Alicia Smith on September 3, 2009 at 2:23pm

Our Precious Pets:GOD MADE THEM FOR LOVE by: Ann Wigmore, has some good information on raw vegan animals. She also gives recipes. Im hoping so switch my cats over soon.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Genesis 1:29-31

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