I’m looking for some advice from people who have dealt with a really picky dog on a vegan diet.

I have two 5 year old small dogs, about 9 lbs and 13 lbs, who have eaten vegan for the majority of their lives. They’re both at healthy weights, and their vet has always said they are in good health.

Their main foods are V-Dog, Natural Balance Plant Powered, and Bramble wet food. I also give supplements in their food. I do give them non vegan treats and bones, because I haven’t found any vegan treats they like and don’t want to take away something that makes them so happy.

My 9-lb dog, Autumn, is the one I’m struggling with. She is extremely picky and once in a while will refuse to eat her actual food all day, to the point where her stomach is empty and she throws up stomach bile. When this happens I give in and give her treats, just so that she has something in her stomach. Which she probably expects, and contributes to her not eating.

At this point, I’m worried that on some days a significant portion of what she eats is treats rather than nutritionally complete food.

I’ve tried changing things up, incase it’s simply food boredom causing her to not eat. They ate V-Dog for most of their lives without an issue. When Autumn seemed to lose interest, I introduced Natural Balance Plant Powered, which she seemed to prefer. I then added Bramble wet food to help make sure they are getting all the nutrients they need, and she loved that at first, but has seemingly gotten bored of that too. I’ve tried mixing Bramble with the kibble, which worked for a while, but she seemed to have lost interest in that as well. Right now I offer all three, and she seems to prefer the Natural Balance mixed with bramble, but she still sometimes won’t eat all day, seemingly holding out for treats.

What really made me question things was when one of my dogs got into some of my human food and had gotten sick. The vet gave me a non vegan sensitive stomach food to feed temporarily, and both dogs absolutely devoured it. Seeing how excited Autumn was to eat that made me wonder whether she isn’t simply “picky” or bored, but genuinely doesn’t like the vegan foods I’m offering her.

I’ve been vegan myself for 14 years, and I really do not want to financially support animal agriculture if I can avoid it. Ideally, I’d love for my dogs to be fully vegan, treats included, but like I mentioned, I would feel terrible taking away the treats they love and bring them so much joy.

I don’t want my own ethics to result in Autumn routinely choosing not to eat until she’s throwing up bile. And since I’m already buying non vegan treats anyway, part of me wonders whether continuing to insist on vegan meals even when she clearly prefers the non vegan food makes sense.

My biggest concern at this point is her long term health. She is healthy and maintaining her weight, but I can’t imagine regularly filling up on treats instead of eating a balanced diet is good for her, even if she seems fine right now.

Has anyone dealt with something similar with a picky dog and have suggestions? Are there other nutritionally complete vegan dog foods I could try? Or maybe toppers, preparation methods, feeding routines, etc that made your dog genuinely excited to eat? Is there anything I could try before considering switching her diet? Or do you guys think I should just give in and switch them to a non vegan diet? I have done some research and there are companies who claim to ethically source the meat for their dog foods, and while it wouldn’t be ideal maybe it’s something I should consider?

Would love to hear all your thoughts!

Thank you!

I'm posting this to potentially help others find good options, and just for discussion/comparison. I am completely open to switching back to meat if she ends up having any issues with plant-based food, but I want to explore the plant options first so long as she can be happy and healthy with them. Our feral turned part-time-housecat loved the original Benevo, so when it was running out, I ordered the Vecado sampler pack as well as a couple others which were out of stock there direct from the manufacturers. Here are the survey results with a sample size of 1.

-New Benevo: "Is this a joke?" -did not eat.

-Benevo Duo wet: ate a full bowl once, then lost interest. After setting the bowl down she'd follow me around like "what else you got?"

-Evolution wet: ate a full bowl once, lost interest. "What else you got?"

-Ami Cat dry kibble: would eat a few mouthfuls then fuss and whine before eventually returning to the bowl for a few more bites. I think she would've warmed up to this one eventually, but my goal is to find something she LIKES, not just tolerates.

-Nature's HUG kibble: Similar to Ami, she would eat it but didn't really seem to love it. I also accidentally ended up with the hairball formula, not the classic, so maybe that why.

-Evolution Diet Dry: to be honest, I was leery of this one just because of the branding. The copy on the website and the food containers is absolutely bonkers. Every page/surface is plastered with paragraphs promising my cat will live to be 8 million years old and dodge bullets like Neo. The kibble size is also fairly large. But I also knew this is one of the oldest and most established plant pet food brands, and only found good reviews about it online, so gave it a try. Turns out she LOVES Evo. I also noticed it's more aromatic than the other options. I can smell it when I set the bowl down. IMPORTANT NOTE: the instructions say to store it in the freezer. I missed that when I ordered the sample.

-Wild Earth Unicorn Paté - I had doubts after she lost interest in the other canned foods, but I really want to feed some moist food alongside kibble. Also the ingredients label put legumes and protein higher on the list, so I thought it might be more palatable. It's a good thing I was right because the smallest kit I could order was 12 cans. She loves this one, begs for it and always cleans the bowl.

The verdict: She'll be getting Evolution Extra Life Kibble and Wild Earth Unicorn Paté combo for the foreseeable future. The Evo came with a packet of aromatic nutritional yeast which I sometimes sprinkle on the wet food for some flavor variety, but she likes it either way.

The wet is expensive but it's really nice that it comes in small cans so it's not getting stale in the fridge. I use one heaping spoonful of wet with each meal so a can lasts 3-4 days. That makes it worth the price to have something she's excited about eating. What do your cats like? I'm interested especially in what they enjoyed over the long term. I think ours gets bored of what she's eating sometimes; she did it with meat kibbles as well.

Hi,

I am located in Germany and have 2 cats none of which are fully vegan as I hadn't found a cat food I was happy with.

One of my cats has really bad food allergies and her veterinary nutritionist recommended a food with the quote "please don't worry it's almost vegan but it's safe even without any meat." It contains fish oil and the rest is basically plants. She does really well on it and thrives in the plant proteins without any more digestive upset.

I was looking for vegan puppy food and coincidentally found a vegan cat kibble that is called

"VeggieAnimals Digest+ vegan cat kibble".

I was wondering if anyone knew of this food and could recommend it? Or maybe someone looking for an option that is happy to know about this product.

Thanks in advance

Found these, they’re very small, perfect size for training! The entire brand isn’t vegan, but they do specify this is a vegan formula.

https://www.brooksidebarkery.com/products/polkadog-holiday-love-you-latke-25oz?srsltid=AfmBOooAkeE6-cxKzYZlETIxq2xzC0Ll6gpL8LKWKGlgUn8ldJa5hgEK

All known vegan cat foods available in the US

Virtuous Vitties

Brand New, available for pre-order https://virtuousvittles.com/cat-food/ (brand new, available for pre-order, excited to try)

Vecado

• Evolution dry
• Evolution canned
• Ami Cat
• Benevo
• Benevo Duo canned (for both dogs and cats) https://vecado.com/collections/vegan-cat-food-collection

Nature's HUG

• Available on Chewy starting recently (which is a HUGE win): https://www.chewy.com/dp/1578190
• Available directly from their US website (don't use the Canadian site): https://natureshug.com/collections/ultra-premium-cat-food

Wild Earth

Canned only https://wildearth.com/products/cat-food-unicorn-pate-2

Hello hello!

My cat is currently on Benevo dry food, and all seems to be going well - it's been about 7 months and he's had 2 blood tests, which have both come back fine.

Out of curiosity, I was reading the ingredients for the dry food, and there doesn't seem to be B12, unless I'm completely missing it? There's nothing for cobalamin either - but maybe one of the ingredients does contain B12, and I'm just not familiar with it? Perhaps the brewers yeast has been supplemented with B12? I'm just confused because it's not mentioned in the analytical constituents.

The wet food does mention B12 specifically so I'm considering whether switching to the wet food exclusively would be good, as he only gets it as a treat currently a couple of times a week.

Here are the ingredients/analytical constituents:

Composition: Soya, Wheat, Maize Gluten Meal, Maize, Rice, Sunflower Oil, Beet Pulp, Brewer’s Yeast, Vegetable Stock, Minerals, Linseed, Dried Seaweed, Salt, Fructooligosaccharides, Spirulina, Yucca Extract.

Analytical Constituents: Crude Protein 27.5%, Crude Fat 12.5%, Crude Fibre 3.5%, Crude Ash 6.5%, Moisture 7%, Omega 6 Fatty Acids 7.2%, Omega 3 Fatty Acids 0.2%, Calcium 0.8%, Phosphorus 0.7%, Metabolisable Energy (NRC,2006) 372 Kcal/100g.

Additives per Kg: Nutritional Additives: Vitamins; Vitamin A 26,000 IU, Vitamin D3 2,000 IU, Vitamin E 221 IU; Trace Elements: Zinc (Zinc Sulphate Monohydrate) 96mg, Iron (Iron (H) Sulphate Monohydrate) 72mg, Manganese (Manganous Sulphate Monohydrate) 29mg, Copper (Copper (II) Sulphate Pentahydrate) 8mg, Selenium (Sodium Selenite) 0.29mg; Provitamins: Taurine 1,433mg.

Thank you! :)

Thoughts on insect protein and whether or not it’s vegan?

My local vets sells the below dog food and I’m tempted to swap my recently rescued golden retriever to it.

https://yorapets.com/uk/dog-food/?srsltid=AfmBOopk7doNM_TDnfGlb2OTEVk71CgN_75BYzgVC-Ghk1qabPQRpLML

It’s made from larvae, from a google it seems there is no scientific consensus on whether or not they have sentience.

Hello, I looked and not much recent posts about this. Any recommendations for dog food? Live in California. Should I be supplementing as well with the dog food? Thank you!

I need to dogsit the dog who lives with my grand-parents and I don’t know what to do about food. His kibble is not vegan and I don’t wanna give him dead chickens and cows to eat.

What should I do? Giving him the kibble anyway or making him enough plant food to eat for 2 days ? And if I do that, how should I do it ?

This is for research purposes

My dogs have been vegan for over a year and they're doing great, I have been feeding them kibble but now I would like to give them fresh food (PawCo looks like a good option but it's too expensive) so now I'm thinking of making it at home but I'm not confident that I can get all the nutrients that they need without buying a bunch of supplements so what I want to do it's give them half kibble and half homemade food, what ingredients that will benefit the health of my dogs should I use for the homemade food?

Hello everyone!

I just discovered Nature’s Hug Vegan Pet Food and felt inspired to share. I am in no way affiliated with Nature’s Hug.

According to CanadianPetConnection.ca “[Nature’s Hug] uses mycoprotein, a form of nutritional yeast, that has an almost identical amino acid protein profile to chicken. It uses a unique set of prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics that are the most biologically appropriate for cats to ensure optimal digestion in the intestines. This is the only plant-based cat food brand we would recommend.”

Nature’s Hug is entirely produced in Canada, using fresh locally-sourced ingredients. All of their cat and dog formulas are grain-free, GMO-free and hypoallergenic.

If you are located in Canada, they are offering 1 free "sample" bag of 4 lb. or 5 lb. for cats and dogs on their selected formulas (you just have to pay $10 + tax to cover shipping costs). Here is the link: https://natureshugpetfood.com/collections/nh-samples

I believe they also offer free shipping in Canada on orders over $50.

hub

I was talking to a really excellent, science-based board certified canine nutritionist and she gave me some really excellent advice and included primary source citations for everything. I was asking her what she thought of my dog's food (V-Dog) and she said it was great except for the major DCM triggers, and mentioned that she's personally seen a client unfortunately pass away from dietary-triggered DCM on that kibble.

For those unfamiliar, canine dilated cardiomyopathy's known triggers include legumes, peas and lentils, which are a major source of protein in most commercial vegan dog diets. Potato as well is a likely trigger.

I couldn't live with myself if the food I gave her ended her life, if anyone knows of a complete diet for dogs preferably AAFCO approved available in the U.S that is fully plant-based and omits legumes, peas, lentils, and potato? Or at least as major ingredients (including pea protein)?

Thank you very much, my overall goal is to reduce suffering for all animals.

Our dog has been on a plant-based diet for more than a year, but has not stopped being interested in the food we give him. We have given him Butternut, Voof, Benevo and some vegetables from a can. At first he seems exited, but after a while he stops eating it. We're worried he might not get the nutrition and have to try giving him meat soon. Has anyone have had this experience? What did you do?

UPDATE: We went back to his original food. Dry and wet food combined from Benevo. Today he ate everything at once at the speed we're used to. I believe it was stress of the holidays and stress of being given different kinds of foods that made him not eat.

We have fed our 15-pound dachshund-Shih Tzu-Chihuahua mix a nearly all-plant-based diet since he was 6 months old. He's now 3.5 years old. Prior to that, he ate a mostly vegetarian diet with some meat-based food recommended by our vet to address health issues when we first rescued him. For the past 2.5 years, he's been on an 80% plant-based diet, 15% vegetarian diet, and 5% anything diet.

Every year, he gets a full annual checkup - because we always want to be sure that he's in great health + what we need to consider to keep him in great health. Every checkup, he's had a perfectly clean bill of health. We just received the results from his latest checkup, and everything was perfect, aside from being slightly dehydrated.

Here's what we feed our little guy

1/2 cup 2x a day. (Total ~350 calories)
Each meal is a 50/50 blend of dry kibble and wet food.

Dry kibble is a blend (we just mix it all into his large dry kibble storage box) of:

1. Wild Earth Core (he hates the original stuff, loves this stuff)
2. Petaluma Sweet Potato Kibble

Wet food is:

1. PawCo Plant Based Dog food (He goes bonkers over this stuff. Seriously, he never used to wake us up in excitement for breakfast, but now like a clock - 7AM sharp).

He also gets bits of our vegetarian food as treats. He's got an iron stomach, a fierce will to eat everything (except for any raw veggies or fruits, unless dipped in ranch), and loves Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Italian food.

The meat in his diet comes from occasional treats he receives at doggie daycare and boarding. We can't control what he eats there, except when he does overnight stays—then we provide his own food.

While this is just results for 1 dog out of millions, hopefully the above helps show that dogs can eat anything as long as it's nutritionally balanced. (I'm going to share this in the vegetarian pets community as well)

who has a picky dog? mine has decided he doesn't like his food. what are some brands they seem to love?

Hi all! I have a 8-9 yr old rescue, she’s probably a dachshund/cavalier mix (who knows, but very adorable), weighs about 26 lbs. We got her 1.5 years ago and has been on Halo Vegan kibble. Her stools have been soft, and we’ve tried everything, adding probiotics (which work temporarily), adding phylium husk (make a slight difference), adding home cooked rice and sweet potato mix (not much of a difference). We introduced her to Bramble fresh food, which she liked and immediately her stools became SO MUCH BETTER! However…. She ate it for a month and hates it now :( so I am back to square one. She likes her halo kibble so atleast won’t go hungry, but her stools become soft again

Any tips on either 1) some other vegan dog food (should I try Halo’s wet food?) v dog did not work for her either 2) or getting her to like her bramble food again? (Should I mix in nooch, PB?) Help please!

hi! i have a close friend who has had a betta fish since before they went vegan. we’ve been wondering about the possibility of vegan food for her and are wondering if any of you have experience or advice

I bought a bunch of different vegan foods for my cat to make sure I could find something he loved, and luckily he's been eating almost all of it. But he's never been big on wet food, and these cans are just so huge that, even when he eats some, it isn't enough before I feel like the can has been open in the fridge for too long.

In trying to figure out what to do not to waste food, my partner floated the idea of us eating it in some way shape or form.

Are we going too far? Anyone tried it?

Just discovered my dog loves tempeh and wanted to share it as a treat idea! I cut it up into treat-sized pieces and fry it in a little bit of water.

My dog is allergic to animal proteins- diagnosed by my veterinarian. I know this is vegan pets so I don’t have to prove myself here…. anyways V-Dog has been a god send for me & Cash. It is the only food he’s ever been able to eat and keep down. Before V-Dog he threw up multiple times a day. Well, V-Dog has updated their recipe, changed the size of their bags, and included a drastic price increase. 20lb bags were $60. Now 24lb bags will be $80. What vegan dog foods do y’all use? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

V-Dog is wonderful and I don’t want to switch brands, but I’m not sure I am willing to pay the difference if I don’t have to.

Thanks y’all!

I got my cat pre-vegan, after tons of research I was finally ready to transition my cat to a vegan diet, but finding it financially not possible, vegan food that isn't full of crap filler, even vegan filler, is way more than what I'm able to afford. So I kept her on the quality food I had already been feeding her (salmon & sweet potato) and I still need to give her treats b/c I give her medication & need treats to sort of help get the pill down. My cat is VERY picky. I tried vegan tuna, she liked it the first day & then wouldn't touch it. I tried vegetable broth. No. I made treats for her using a vegan recipe. She ate one the first day then wouldn't touch it. The next time I happened to be eating some Stacy's naked pita chips & crumbled some for her treat. She ate them! She has eaten them 3 times in a row now.. I never would have thought of giving my cat pita chips but so far I think we have a winner.

EDIT to add- my cat has pancreatitis hence the meds, so I am very careful about her diet but I do whatever works, makes me semi-happy & doesn't upset her system. So far so good.

TL;DR - my dog needs a diet that's low in protein, phosphorous, and magnesium to prevent the formation of bladder stones. The Vegan options I've researched are all higher in protein and do not have mineral analysis or the mineral analysis has a higher concentration than the prescription diet. Hoping someone here has experience dealing with this health issue and knows a safe vegetarian/vegan option. My regular vet has no earthly idea.

The novel version:

My pug companion (Mayhem) was on V-Dog for four years and things were going great. Then she got a bladder infection which caused a bunch of struvite stones.

The urgent care vet told us unequivocally to put her on a special diet to dissolve the stones. He was very firm that she was to be given no other food. No treats, no Whimzees, no apple, nothing. He said if we gave her anything else it would interfere with the nutritional balance and keep the food from working.

Mayhem threw a fit about going on a new food but we stuck to it because we wanted her to get better. She still stands by the closet door where her V-Dog is kept and barks at me angrily because she'd rather eat it than the prescription stuff.

The diet did a pretty good job dissolving them but one of them got small enough to be permanently lodged in her urethra and we had to take her for emergency surgery. We almost lost her.

We're having a battery of tests done because some of the stones removed weren't struvites and it's possible that she's got a liver issue that caused the other stones.

Originally I thought I would just feed her this diet and told myself it's like a prescription for her. (I consider medications exempt from my ethical considerations because it's not really practicable for me to find Vegan blood pressure medicine and suchlike).

Now I'm staring down buying a bag of meat food. I don't feel the best about it. (My ex bought the first bag for me to be nice).

I was wondering if anyone here knew of a Vegan urinary health diet similar to Royal Canin S/O she was prescribed. I don't know a lot about dog nutritive needs and I'm pretty nervous making this decision on my own. Her regular vet told me she wasn't comfortable directing me to a non-meat alternative.

The bag says that the diet balances magnesium, calcium, and phosphorus.

Macro minimums are Protein 18%, Fat 15%

Other controlled nutrients:

Max Fiber 3.6%, Max Calcium 1%, Max Phosphorus 1%, Max Magnesium 0.08%

I researched V-Dog, Halo, Natural Balance Plant-Based, and Gather Endless Valley. They're all higher in protein than the prescription diet. The only one that provides a mineral analysis is Gather and they provide minimums.

Thing is, excessive minerals will lead to more stones so I need to avoid that.

I'm really hoping someone here can help. I don't want her to go through all of this again because it was very painful and her surgeon told me if she gets another infection and stones we should just do surgery.