“You’re kidding, right? You don’t actually expect me to eat this crap. do you?”
Here’s my latest theory: California progressives have decided that they can adopt any left-sounding idea, no matter how crazy, and get away with it, so sometimes they propose these things just to see if there’s nothing Californians won’t accept if it has the right progressive label. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for this story.
A proposal pending before the Los Angeles City Board of Animal Services Commissioners would make the city’s animal shelters the first vegan system in the nation. That’s right: the dogs in the city’s care would be placed on a strict vegan diet. Maybe the idea is to have the dogs beg to be euthanized.
Supporters include musician and animal rights activist Moby and the most unethical feminist lawyer in captivity, Lisa Bloom, who want to make L.A. shelter dogs “the vanguard of a meat-free movement.” Commissioner Roger Wolfson, a Hollywood screenwriter, was the genius behind the proposal, which he justifies by his desire to bring down the meat industry and his belief the “feeding animals to animals” is unethical.
Yes, he’s an idiot.
“We have to embrace the fact that the raising and killing of animals for food purposes must only be done if we have absolutely no other choice,” Wolfson said at the council meeting debating the issue. meeting. “This is about the long-term survival of every man, woman and child in this room, and all of the people in our lives.”
In other words, screw the dogs, this is about politics and exploiting animals for a progressive human agenda. Got it.
Is it too late for me to propose feeding the dogs illegal immigrants? KIDDING! Jeez, nobody has a sense of humor about anything these days….
The consensus among experts seems to be that dogs, which are omnivores as opposed to wolves and cats, which only eat meat, can be healthy on a vegan diet, but that except in the case of food allergies, it’s probably not the best or safest way to treat them. When CNN examined the issue six years ago, it wasn’t bowled over by enthusiasm from the experts they queried.
“If you go to India you can see dogs living on the scraps. They can survive on almost nothing once they’ve evolved to living on the streets, but is that what’s best?” pet expert and author Tracie Hotchner, host of the radio show “Dog Talk,“explained. “If a dog has a choice he’s not picking a pile of beans over chicken or meat, and he’s not going to be lapping up soy. If you’re going to be harmonious in your choices, be harmonious. I say respect each species for what it was meant to be, and if you feel that strongly about being vegan, get a vegetarian animal. Bunnies make wonderful pets.”
Donna Spector, a veterinary internal medicine specialist who runs SpectorDVM, an animal nutrition consultancy, emphasized that dogs have a significantly higher daily protein requirement than humans. Finding protein sources that provide adequate amounts of nutrients such as amino acids in the sufficient ratio can be difficult under the vegan approach, which relies on plant protein sources that have less biologic value than meat protein. “Vegetarian pet foods require the addition of synthetic amino acids to fill nutritional gaps or a much higher overall protein level to supply all of the essential amino acids,” she said. “Overall, it is much easier and more reliable to supply a dog’s essential nutrients in a food containing both plants and meat.”
The vegan diet also lacks some essential fatty acids that are only available in animal products like butter and fish oils, noted veterinarian Michael Fox, former president of the U.S. Humane Society and author of “Dog Mind, Dog Body.” “We don’t have the real science to back up whether [a vegan diet] is safe enough, so, for dogs’ sake, we need to adopt the cautionary principle.”
LA’s chief veterinarian, Jeremy Prupas, agrees. In a report to the commission, he recommended rejecting the proposal, saying that it could deprive dogs of sufficient protein, calcium and phosphorus and that it could be inadequate for injured, pregnant or lactating pups. Prupas said he’d consulted three clinical nutritionists at veterinary medical schools, one shelter medicine specialist and a veterinary toxicologist who works with a pet food company. None endorsed vegan dog diets, he testified.
But the scheme really isn’t about the dogs’ best interests, is it?
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Pointer: JR
Ethics Alarms 
I have a friend who tried to put her cats on a vegan diet. They went out and killed everything they could in sight. Mice, moles, chipmunks, birds, baby rabbits, all disemboweled on her doorstep.
She’s lucky SHE didn’t end up eviscerated in her sleep. Never cross a cat.
Excellent example of cant trumping reality. Cats (and probably wolves, as well) are what is called ‘obligatory carnivores’. In other words, they have NO CHOICE. Their digestive systems simply will not extract any nutrients from a vegan diet. We need a law against owning a pet without learning SOMETHING about them.
I’m pretty sure that dogs are facultative carnivores which is something like a true carnivores but they can survive on other food for a while when meat is scarce.
Probably. That’s why lamb-and-rice formulas are somewhat common dog food these days.
Precisely. However, there is a dog food out there (forget the brand) that is advertising ‘no grains’.
“California progressives have decided that they can adopt any left-sounding idea, no matter how crazy, and get away with it, so sometimes they propose these things just to see if there’s nothing Californians won’t accept if it has the right progressive label.”
If you put forth a sensible idea, the people who agree with it might support you personally, or they might just be sensible people who can appreciate a good idea. The sure way to find out who supports you personally is to find out who agrees with you about crazy s–t.
Wow! You’re on a roll today Jack! The lefties in LA are so amazingly stupid it is breathtaking!
I know smug arrogance is a Leftist trait…but I can’t say that this episode is inherently a Leftist “thing”. I have little doubt that the Euler Diagram of Vegans and Leftists has more overlap than not, but probably not enough to ascribe this purely to Leftists.
I think we can all enjoy a step away from partisanship for one post and just communally bag on
thesevegans.Jack, actually it would be OK to propose feeding illegal aliens to dogs, but only if they are violent criminals and rapists. Otherwise, the ones who aren’t violent have done nothing wrong and are unjustly persecuted and turned into Soylent Green. And I meant to say Citizens-in-waiting, instead of illegal aliens, pardon me.
Being an ethicist and a devotee of black humor is a hard sea to navigate, let me tell you…
Oh, that cracked me up! I can imagine the contradictory feelings at such moments.
‘ware the icebergs off the port bow . . . .
IMO this is not a modest proposal!
It could be that they’re about to relearn an old truth in American politics. You can mess with people quite a bit and there may be outrage for a while that dies down after a while.
Mess with cute dogs and cats — the Hounds of Hell may descend upon you.
We shall see what happens. I do feel that this is a stupid, pathetic, cruel case of incipient animal abuse. The ASPCA should be picketing the city council.
Maybe once the dogs start to die from complications arising from nutrient deprivation, they’ll be able to blame it on global warming.
I bet that they operate kill shelters, and thus no dog would live long enough to die from starvation.
The law of unintended consequences shall rear its ugly head; Social Engineering of the Humanoid genre efforts stand to suffer.
Una Propuesta Modesta by Juan Rapido
Vegan dog food?
Maybe their vegan food choices are creating or feeding their delusions?
P.S. It is wildly unethical to force one’s on food style of life upon others, even if the others happen to be dogs. These people are out of their f***ing minds.
P.S.S. Any dog that has ever been part of my family gets an addition to its high quality produced dog food it also gets to eat “similarly” to my family, we have always shared a portion of our food mixed in with their production food. Both dogs we’ve had over the years lived healthy, happy, and very active lives that were somewhere between 10 and 15 years.
Well, this should work if they convince the dogs to self-identify as bovine, right?
funny…
I propose that Roger Wolfson be required to eat his vegan dog food in perpetuity. After all he is a wolf.