You thought you were being clever, but you weren't. I don't actually think adult cats do very well as vegetarians--dogs do if the vegetarian food is very high quality. I think kittens might thrive--there are many instances in the literature of cats and kittens living a very long time and eating vegetarian diets. So it is not inherently cruel, but I would do so only under a veterinarian's care.
The fact is that most commercial pet foods are full of extremely bad, dangerous, carcinogenic, unhealthy ingredients. Certainly people who are conscientious and trying to spare additional animals' lives by feeding their own animals vegetarian diets are doing a WHOLE LOT better than most mindless consumers who just believe that large corporations must be doing a very good job. These people are hurting their pets with their ignorance.
WATCH THIS VIDEO!!!
iamscruelty.com
Here is a print version of an expose on Iams, a purportedly premium food but a very bad company that engages in misrepresentation and animal torture:
Exhibit A: Iams
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a claim with the FTC that Iams commercials were misleading, simply by saying their food was "Good for Life." The claim came out of a nine month under cover investigation of the research labs.
"When it comes to caring about dogs and cats, Iams is telling consumers one thing and doing another," said PETA Senior Vice President Mary Beth Sweetland. "Iams' customers love animals and would be outraged to find out how dogs and cats have suffered for Iams' bottom line."
Guy Webster, owner of Earth Pets Market in Gainesville, FL, explains that the tests Iams was doing were to determine how low-quality the food can be, and still have the dog retain muscle mass.
To do this, Iams cut chunks of muscle out of the dogs' thighs. PETA caught these images on video.
Other things shown on the video are:
Dogs and cats, with names like H0B101 and HILMLM circling in their barren cages
Paws that are splaying from walking on the slats of the cages
A lab tech telling the undercover PETA worker to slap the dogs on the chest if they stop breathing
Dogs laid on a cement floor after their operations, barely able to move
Dogs with open wounds and hair loss
Dogs and cats circling in their cages, suffering from loneliness and lack of socialization
The PETA representative also saw and heard things that were not caught on tape. She claims:
The vets at Iams stuck tubes down dogs' throats to force them to drink vegetable oil.
She heard coworkers talking about a kitten that had been washed down the drain.
Coworkers who had to go home because ammonia fumes so bad that their eyes burned. The animals stayed in their cages.
Cats had only a wood board to lie on, and they had nails sticking out of them. The boards weren't removed when one fell on a cat and crushed it, only when the lab director heard they were going to be inspected.
The lab director ordered all the dogs to be debarked because the barking disturbed him. The PETA representative tried to intervene, but then saw a lab tech covered in blood after performing surgery after surgery.
iml.jou.ufl.edu |
