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| My cat has had a health problem with ___. Can you tell me how to correct this? |
| Being as we're not veterinarians, we cannot offer any sort of medical advice regarding your cat's health. We are only retailers of the products we sell, and due to this we are not any more qualified to give advice on health issues for cats or dogs than we are for humans. Your veterinarian who is familiar with the cat or dog you're concerned about is the best resource for recommendations regarding health issues and how to treat them. If you do not find a vet who is willing to work with you having a cat or dog on a vegan diet, then look for another who will until you find one you're comfortable with having take care of your companion animal. Again, we cannot offer medical advice or recommendations, so please do not ask us to assist in this manner - we can help with any questions regarding the items we sell based on what the manufacturer states, but that is all we're able to do at this time. |
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| Don’t cats need a dietary source of Taurine? |
| Yes- and the vegan cat foods we carry contain adequate amounts. Although Taurine naturally occurs only in animal tissue, synthetic Taurine has been produced on a large scale since about 1930. In fact, many meat-based pet foods utilize synthetic Taurine to meet nutritional requirements as well (most naturally-occurring Taurine is washed away during the rendering process)! |
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| Is it true that vegancats.com is telling some people to feed their cats meat? |
Yes. After much soul-searching, we have decided to change our official recommedations for certain cats.
Urinary tract problems are extremely common in cats and, because of the relative acidity of meat to vegetable protein, many vegan cats suffer from them.
Although we have been giving advice for some time on how these problems can be minimized while still feeding a completely vegan diet, we have found that the vast majority of our customers have not been following this advice.
Unless you are very committed to following the advice outlined below, we therefore recommend that you mitigate the risk of urinary tract problems by feeding males cats only a 25-75% vegan diet and females a 50-100% vegan diet.
Our mission is to reduce suffering as much as possible through reducing dependancy on meat products for your companion animals, but at the same time, we also have great concern for the overall health and well-being of cats who are prone to urinary tract problems. We do not believe in making companion animals suffer health complications simply because we'd like to feed them an exclusively vegan diet; rather, we believe that people should do the best they can to find a balance that keeps their companions healthy while reducing dependancy on meat products to the greatest extent. |
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| I don't want to feed my cat ANY meat; what steps can I take to accomplish this? |
Because of anatomical differences, the risk of urinary tract problems is much less in females than in males (although both can develop crystals in their bladders that can cause discomfort, females cannot become completely blocked by an aggregation of these crystals; therefore, urinary tract problems in females are easier and less expensive to fix and are not as painful and potentially dangerous as they are in males).
For this reason, we recommend that all female cats be given a 100% vegan diet unless they display a tendency for chronic urinary tract problems that cannot be controlled through the basic preventative methods outlined below. In those relatively rare instances, giving some canned meat food along with the vegan food may be a necessary step to normalize pH.
Because of the greater risk to males, we recommend that some canned meat (a veternarian-prescribed pH balancing formula is ideal) be given along with vegan food, regardless of their medical history. Cats who have never displayed any tendencies to develop urinary tract problems can probably get by at the lower end of this scale, however, while those who have had problems in the past may need as much as 1/2 to 3/4 of their food consist of meat in order to completely mitigate this risk.
For all cats of both sexes, the following basic rules of prevention ought to be followed as much as possible:
1) make sure your cat is getting as much water in their meals as possible. Wet or canned food is preferable to dry; if your cat will only eat kibble, consider soaking it in water for a few minutes prior to serving. No cat-- particularly males-- should be eating a diet of just kibble or dry food.
2) add enzymes pH to every meal. Enzymes are a good idea anyway, as they aid digestion and reduce metabolic tax on the body; enzymes pH also contains vitamin C and cranberry extract, both of which help acidify the urine and soothe the urinary tract simultaneously.
3) have your vet check your cat's urine pH and make sure it remains in the range of 6.0-6.5. This is the step that most people seem inclined to skip, but it is the number one diagnostic method by which you can head off a problem before it starts. This test will probably only run you in the neighborhood of $20-30, and can pick up a risk before it becomes a serious issue. Treatment for a blocked male cat who requires hospitalization and catheterization, on the other hand, may run you $1000 or more (and this is not even taking into consideration the effect on your cat). It is WELL worth taking the time to get this test done within the first few weeks of introducing a vegan diet to your male cats. |
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| You're not listening to me. I don't want my cats to eat ANY meat. Is such a thing possible? |
Yes, of course it is. There are literally thousands of 100% vegan cats out there and most of them do fine. Females, as mentioned above, can usually be given a 100% vegan diet with no problem. And so can many males. However, we really need to stress that if you want to make your males completely vegan, you need to be very dedicated and vigilant when it comes to maintaining their urinary tract health.
NEVER feed a male a strictly kibble diet. Most vegan male cats will do best on NO kibble whatsoever (we recommend making them meals using Vegecat pH ideally).
Have their urine pH checked by a veterinarian, as outlined above, not just once but periodically. If the pH is over 6.5, or if crystals are detected in the urine, you may need to introduce a methionine supplement into the diet (we sell a vegan version, but you will need to get a dosage prescribed by your vet) and then get another pH reading done to make sure the supplement has been effective. |
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| Isn't it hypocritical and non-vegan to recommend that people give their cats meat? |
No, we don't think so. As vegans personally, and as a vegan company, our goal is to reduce animal suffering and death by as much as we possibly can.
Although we believe that the majority of cats can do fine on an entirely or mostly vegan diet as long as proper precautions are taken, we have come to realize that many people find the steps outlined above to be daunting or confusing, and choose to ignore them and feed their cats vegan anyway (which may lead to urinary tract problems and ultimate disillusionment with the idea of vegan cat food altogether) or decide that feeding their cats a vegan diet is too difficult or risky and so continue to feed them meat.
We hope that everyone with the time, dedication and resources to carefully monitor their cat's urinary tract health and take all reasonable precautions to maintain it-- as outlined above-- will continue to do so. Our intention is not to scare anyone who has completely vegan cats and seems to be doing fine with them into going back to meat.
What we hope to do is encourage people who are nervous about giving their cats vegan food, whether because their cat experienced a urinary tract incident while on vegan food in the past or for some other reason, that they do not necessarily have to choose between a 100% vegan diet and a 100% meat one. A fifty/fifty split, for example, can decrease their contribution to the animal slaughter industry by a significant amount while at the same time mitigating their cats' risk of developing urinary tract problems.
If all the vegans out there who are worried about feeding their cats a vegan diet would instead strive to feed them a partially vegan diet, the collective benefit to animals would be tremendous. For this reason we believe that advising people to give their cats a mix of vegan and meat food is not only not hypocritical and anti-vegan, it is actually the most moral, ethically consistent, vegan position that we can possibly hold at the present time. |
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| Are there any other health concerns I ought to worry about with my vegan cats, other than urinary tract issues? |
| Nope. None. Although veterinarians often attempt to blame any health problem that a vegan cat may develop on the diet, nothing other than the aforementioned appears to show up any more often in vegan cats than it does in non-vegans. |
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| Should I also consider feeding some meat to my dogs? |
| No. Dogs are natural omnivores much like ourselves and adapt as easily to a vegan diet as we do. They do not have the same tendency to develop urinary tract problems that cats do, and so none of the precautions listed for cats applies to them. |
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| Which food should I be buying for my cats and dogs? |
The best food for cats is Vegecat (pH is recommended for most-- see above), which is a supplement that comes with recipes that you can use to make food at home. If you don't have time to cook for your cat, Evolution is also nutritionally complete and doesn't require any additional supplementation. If you are going to be also giving your cat some meat food, we don't particularly endorse any brand over any other; it mat be a good idea to use a special "prescription" pH formula (available through vets) though, as this will allow you to use the least meat possible.
Vegedog is also very good for dogs, but in terms of prepared foods, we recommend Evolution for most dogs, and Natural Balance for those who have food allergies. For dogs with no particular health concerns, it may be the best idea to try a small bag of each different kind and see what they like the best, or to rotate several different brands in order to give your dog more variety. |
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| Do you offer free samples? |
| No, but we sell in small quantities (1 lb. of kibble, single cans) and have specially discounted "starter packs" available that make sampling as simple and inexpensive as possible. |
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| I live in _____. Is there a store in my area that carries your products? |
| Most likely not. If you live in the Milwaukee area, you can pick up all of the products on this site at the VeganEssentials store we own and operate. It's pretty much hit or miss anywhere else as many of these items are not very easy to find in stores, particularly the Hoana and Evolution product lines. In most areas our flat rate shipping is going to be in the range of the sales tax you'd be paying if you bought locally anyway, so it generally works out okay to do your ordering online. We recommend that once you find a brand that your cat or dog likes, stock up and save so that you can keep your costs down and not have to worry about ordering frequently or running out without an ample supply to cover the shipping transit period of the next order you place with us. |
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