archive.today • How Owners Are Putting Their Pets on Human Diets - The New York Times
Karl Malone starts his day with a breakfast that includes ashwagandha root and psyllium husk powder. His dinner is always seasoned with ground turmeric, and then he takes his joint supplements. He goes on two brisk walks daily and avoids restaurant food, as his doctor recommended he lose weight.
Karl Malone is a dog — an 11-year-old sandy-brown Australian shepherd mix.
[…]
The market for what the pet-food industry calls “nutritious pet food” — higher-priced products that claim to contain premium or nutritionally enhanced ingredients — is expected to reach $17.9 billion by 2026, according to a report last year by Pet Insight, an independent analytics company. Pet wellness in general has become an even bigger industry, and has spawned a subset of social media influencers and Facebook groups devoted to refining the diets of all kinds of domesticated animals.
This sentence annoyed me: “Vegetarian diets, he said, are not suitable for most cats because they need animal protein, but can be acceptable for dogs.” For NYT pet articles are the words obligate carnivore now taboo?
Naming your dog after a black person is incredibly sus.
Beyond the stupid shit of not understanding animals aren’t human, “owning” a black person just don’t sit right.
I was going to say “Maybe she doesn’t know anything about sports.” But even if that’s true - it’s still weird that nobody told her.
Yeah like he’s a known pedophile, but it’s not like “common knowledge” but just the act of naming the dog after him is really getting the alarm bells to go off 🚨🚨
People will surely tell her now.
Ninja edit: The more I think about this - the more improbable it seems that she never learned or she didn’t get strong hints. Like if she took him for a walk (or a dog park) and he did something bad and she told him “Karl Malone - stop that!” - somebody might ask her why she named her dog after a black man. Or at least she’d get dirty looks. And we live in a google era - all it would take if for her to take out her phone and google.
Ruh roh, I sense the revival of a struggle session.
Hopefully this list of points can help people discuss this comradely:
CW: non-vegan descriptions of food, slavery
- Yes, cats are classified as obligate carnivores. They can’t synthesize a bunch of stuff their bodies need and they get those nutrients from eating other animals.
- Dogs have fewer nutrients that they don’t synthesize themselves. They still eat other animals in order to get them.
- Food is just chemicals. It is entirely within the realm of possibility for us to create nutritious food for cats and dogs that has no meat or dairy in it. Hopefully this contextualizes the meaning of calling a cat an obligate carnivore, because that term does not exclude humans creating a healthy diet for them without animals in it.
- Pet diet research is difficult and poorly-funded. Veganism is treated like a fad diet by US companies, as is vegan pet food. It is difficult to know how much you should trust corporate-funded studies about vegan pet foods.
- With that said, cat and dog foods are already bullshit not backed by gold science or flying in the face of it. Pet food is full of vitamin additives because those nutrients that cats + dogs need from meat get cooked out during the preparation of canned food / kibble. The only way you’re simulating a wild-appropriate diet for your cat is if you’re feeding it raw, recently-killed rodents and birds. And c’mon, nobody is doing that. We’re all just crossing our fingers and hoping that grain + cooked ocean fish gathered by Thai slaves + factory-added vitamins is “good enough” despite the fact that cats are frequently allergic to both.
Basically, I hope we can t least all get on the same page about pet food already being crap and that it is at least theoretically possible to create a healthy vegan cat/dog diet.
Basically, I hope we can t least all get on the same page about pet food already being crap and that it is at least theoretically possible to create a healthy vegan cat/dog diet.
No.malnourish yourself for all I care, but don’t do it to your defenseless pet
:bait:
They sell CBD pet stuff everywhere as well. Probably harmless since CBD doesn’t do shit but I’ll stick to just rolling catnip in cigarette paper for Yma thank you very much
