Interest in vegan diets for dogs and cats raises important welfare questions. Understanding the evidence helps owners make informed, welfare-based decisions.
The welfare question of plant-based pet diets involves multiple layers: the welfare of the pet on the diet, the welfare of animals in conventional pet food production, and the environmental implications. For dogs, the evidence now suggests that nutritionally complete commercial vegan diets can be healthy, though longer-term research is needed. For cats, the evidence base does not currently support vegan diets as safe — cats have specific nutritional requirements that are not met by plant-based ingredients without careful synthetic supplementation, and the consequences of deficiency are serious. The welfare of individual cats must be the primary consideration; the environmental motivations for plant-based feeding, however genuine, cannot override the known nutritional needs of obligate carnivores.