to think that you cant...

[OutOutLetItAllOut]

force a cat to be a vegetarian?

You could try, but why?

I think they die actually.

You can feed a dog vegetarian food, but I remember hearing that cats need meat to live - there are essential amino acids in meat that they cannot produce from plant protein.

you're right. Infact i thnk it will kill the cat. I fed the cats of a vegan neighibour and they were fed meat.

well, I suppose you could if you kept it indoors its entire life and only offered it veg. When it was starving enough, it might eat them.

But it's certainly not a natural thing to do and actually very cruel.

Why?

Trillian is right - cats can't live on a purely vegetarian diet because they can't make certain amino acids themselves, so have to eat them. At the very least they'd have to have a supplement, which would not be vegetarian.

Anyway, why would anyone who cared about animals be cruel enough to try?

No - cats can't be vegetarian (well they can, but only for a very short time!!).

Dogs are fine on a vegetarian diet though :)

The vegetarian society says

"Cats are regarded as obligate carnivores, this means that in the wild they could not survive without eating meat to obtain all the nutrients they require. However, for the domestic cat there are commercial vegetarian foods available that contain synthetic versions of essential nutrients."

So it is possible. But you need to feed it highly-processed fake food. It's not dead animal, but it's not the lentil-weavery organic type of vegetarianism.

a woman at the school announced that she was going to 'turn' her cat vegetarian. as she is a veggie and feels it is wrong to kill one animal to feed another.
the cat is allowed out, so when i pointed out it would prob just go and kill and mopuse or bird, she said it wouldnt because it would know it was wrong...
she is also a total loon about her kids eating or touching ANYTHING that could possibly have any animal involved. proudly announces decided to be a veggie at the age of 9, BUT will not allow her 13 yr old to chose to eat meat, as she is to young to make such a decision...

the cat will just go elsewhere.

I am grinning wildly at the thought of a cat knowing that killing other animals is wrong.

Cats kill for fun! Never mind for food!

( i know, it's not 'fun' it's practise, but by heck they do enjoy batting those mice around!)

i just want it to wander in the house with the half of a mouse which it thinks is a gift!

I guess the only saving grace in that is that the cat gets out of the house and will hopefully manage to get enough animal protein on its own to allow it to survive. You could try pointing out to her that it's a damn sight more wrong to deliberately harm an animal to suit her own idea of morality, but it doesn't sound like she has enough grip on reality to be persuadable.

i just thought she was a loon, didnt actually realise it could harm the cat.

Morality for Cats.

Always play with your food.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill again.

She should get a Guinea pig not a cat! Why on earth if she has such strong principles has she got one? It will probably wander off and find a new home.

I am a vegan but my DH son DS aren't as it?s my decision - and no one has a right to make that decision for anyone else ? although it would be nice to not have to cook 2 separate meals every night though!

i think its fine and right to make decisions about what you chose to eat, and what you chose to feed your kids, until they are old enough to chose and make something different..but a cat? he cant say, er, no actually i like a bit of chicken!

Has Go Cat got meat in it then?

I always thought it was like the cat equivalent of beef flavoured Monster Munch, where it is just meat flavoured.

I think it is fair to feed an omnivore (eg humans) on a vegetarian diet, if that's your choice for yourself, your children, and any pets you have that are omnivores (erm, can't think of any obvious ones, but I suppose a pet monkey would count).

It's totally not fair, and immoral, to feed a herbivore meat products (and that's what we have to thank for BSE!), and equally unfair and immoral to feed a carnivore (exclusively) on vegetables.

I think the cat will just go and live next door.

You can make a porch swing, a diamond ring, a fireside chat, even a baseball bat; but I've done seen just about everything when I see a vegetarian cat.

This is weird. My whole family is vegetarian, but our dog and cat most definitely are not. My mum very very briefly considered it for the dog when we got her (before the cat), mainly because of the stink of dog food I think! But she very quickly decided it would be cruel. She's even got the dog proper meat from the butchers when it's been ill (bloody spoilt dog :)).

I'm the only one who's vegetarian from birth, and I really dislike the smell of meat (smells like death to me) but I'm quite happy to feed it to the pets. The way I see it, I can be vegetarian, they can't. We have evolved enough to think about moral implications, etc, they just act on instinct. As for killing animals to feed other animals, pet food is usually made of leftovers that humans wouldn't eat anyway, so it's actually useful to use the waste...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315145/Is-pet-food-poisoning-dogs.html
I know it's the Daily Mail, but it makes some very interesting points about feeding dogs food that isn't entirely meat. I was pretty horrified reading it.

'In North America, ?mammalian meat and bone meal?, a key animal component in pet food, has been shown to include the ground-up remains of euthanised cats and dogs ? flea collars, name tags, microchips and all.'

Hope no one just lost their dinner...