The environmental footprint of pet food is substantial, and choices about what we feed our pets have both direct animal welfare and indirect environmental welfare implications.
Pet food sits at an uncomfortable intersection of animal welfare values. Companion animals themselves have welfare needs that must be met - a cat fed an inadequate plant-based diet suffers directly. At the same time, conventional pet food production involves the slaughter of billions of farmed animals annually, many in poor welfare conditions. The most coherent welfare approach uses the best available evidence: dogs can be fed on carefully formulated plant-based diets and can thrive; cats require animal-derived nutrients and cannot be fed vegan diets safely. For dogs, high-welfare or plant-based diets reduce the farmed animal welfare cost without compromising companion animal welfare. For cats, choosing pet food using by-products from higher-welfare farming, or novel proteins like sustainably farmed insects, reduces but does not eliminate the welfare trade-off.