Review: The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book
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This will be a simple little review for The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book
(Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book.)
The book is divided into three main parts: “The Vegan Lifestyle”, “Hazardous and Safe Ingredients”, and then a recipe section.
“The Vegan Lifestyle” makes the case for feeding your dog a vegan diet. It debunks a lot of the myths, most notably the one that, “Dogs are carnivores. They need meat!” Dogs are carnivores in taxonomic classification only. Wild dogs are not carnivores, they are omnivores. You don’t need a degree in biology to know this. Just take a hike around the Las Vegas area until you see some coyote scat. You’ll see a lot of bean and pea seed coats from the mesquite trees that live around here. These bean pods are one of the southwestern coyote’s staple foods.
Indeed domestic dogs that live with humans are, by and large, not carnivores either. They are kibble-vores. The fact is that a whole-foods vegan diet is healthier for most dogs than the cut-rate kibble on offer at most pet stores.
After you are educated by “The Vegan Lifestyle”, you’ll learn briefly which human foods to avoid feeding your dog in “Hazardous and Safe Ingredients.” I’ll reproduce the list of foods to AVOID here because it’s important that all dog-caregivers know these foods:
- alcohol
- avocados
- chocolate
- cold cuts
- fried foods
- garlic
- grapes
- mushrooms
- nutmeg
- nuts
- onions
- raisins
- salt
- sugar
- tomatoes
- xylitol
Some of these foods are more harmful than others. For instance, salt is no problem in small quantities, but never feed your dog grapes or raisins. To find out why each of these foods is on the list, read the book!
The final section is a list of recipes for your dog. These recipes are delightfully simple. You don’t need to have human cooking skills to be able to prepare nutritious food for your dog companions. For instance, here is “Snoopy’s Great Pumpkin, Rice, and Beans”
- 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
- 1 cup cooked brown rice
- 1 cup cooked or canned red or black beans, rinsed and drained
Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth.
There you go, a healthy and nutritious meal for any dog. For the adventurous, the recipes get a little more fun (and complicated) than that one.
All-in-all, at just 80 pages, The Simple Little Vegan Dog Book
Thanks for posting this. I will obtain a copy of this book. He joined our family before I became Vegan and I kind of have to feed him products made, in part, of animal by-products. I think almost all grocery store products for dogs are like this, even the dry kibbles. I do know that my dog prefers my Vegan cornbread to anything in the kitchen. This gives a ray of hope.
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