Vegan vet stories: Are dogs’ carnivorous wolves that need meat?
Busting the myths around the ‘high-meat diet’ for dogs By Dr Arielle Griffiths
The recent craze to feed our dogs more and more meat (raw or cooked) comes from the untrue conclusion that dogs need an ancestral diet as they are perceived to be carnivores. Wolves in the wild are different in every capacity to domestic dogs. They hunt in packs and will normally only make a kill once a week, so they would never eat a high saturated fat and high meat-based diet every day; let alone twice a day as pet dogs are fed, without the physical effort of the hunt. Interestingly, wild wolves have been shown to ‘forage' in the summer for berries gaining most of their protein and nutrients from plants!
The most thorough published proof that we have that the digestive system of the dog is different to wild wolves was a fascinating study done in Sweden in
2013. It shows that as dogs have evolved alongside us, so their digestive processes have evolved too. The modern dog of today produces longer chains of specific digestive enzymes that are adapted for digesting starches and grains — not meat. Dogs produce the enzyme amylase, which is present is the human digestive system and allows us to digest carbohydrates. This is a result of thousands of years of evolution in conjunction with humans.
Why is raw feeding so popular?
There are over 100 new online pet food companies selling raw food diets or very high-meat or fish diets to our dogs as the online community influences people's opinions. Feeding such a high-meat content to our companion animals has brought about more issues with pet's health than the pet food companies realise. We are aware of the dangers of eating meat to not just the environment but our pets too, but it is such a profitable business that these dangers are hidden in the flashy advertising presented to the public. The very first incorrect advertising that has been presented is that dogs are descendants of the carnivorous wolf, so they too, must be carnivores. Our dogs are omnivores and always have been — feeding off our table scraps until pet food became big business in the 1800s. They do belong to the order Carnivora, but then so too, does the bamboo-loving panda, who has never tasted meat or fish and thrives on shoots and leaves!
Other wolf descendants include not only our domestic dog, but also animals belonging to the order Hyaenidae such as the brown hyena (image one). They appear extremely dog-like in appearance, but have branched off and adapted to living in harsh African conditions as natural scavengers with an acute sense of smell. Apart from scavenging insects, small, dead rodents and other prey, they obtain protein by sniffing out desert truffles — called Kalaharituber pfeilii.
Image two shows the beautiful and shy aardwolf — another species that branched off in evolution just as our domestic dog did hundreds of thousands of years ago from the common wolf ancestor — it is a nocturnal feeder that exclusively eats two species of termites that provide it with all the protein and vitamins it needs without any animal meat!
Should the beautiful maned wolf change the way we think about our dog’s nutrition?
The striking animal shown in image three, in captivity, is a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus). His marks resemble those of foxes, but he is not a fox or a wolf. It is the only species of the genus Chrysocyon
(‘golden dog'). The maned wolf blows the theory of dogs needing meat in their diet out of the water. These endangered ‘golden dogs' share more in common with our own cared-for dogs than the grey wolf. They are classed as omnivores and live in the savannah of South America where they feed primarily on wolf apples. They do hunt at night but more than 50 per cent of their diet is fruit and vegetables. This fascinating ‘golden dog' surely holds the key to our dog's nutrition and strengthens our belief that we should be adopting a plant-based diet for our dogs as the kindest and healthiest option possible.
If not for our own dog's health, then surely for the health of the South American and African savannah, so that less land is deforested for meat agriculture and the endangered species mentioned can live in perfect harmony with their environment.