On: Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs ...

[shados]

Dogs yeah, they're omnivores as far as I understand.

Cats though are straight up carnivore, and while they might enjoy the taste of some veggies, and some stuff can help with their digestion, they don't really get much nutrients out of vegetables, and a large portion of veggies are downright harmful to them.

[stevenwoo → shados]

Dogs picked up the ability to use some starches for nutrition around the time humans started to farm. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/how-farming-changed-d... Wolves (from which we domesticated dogs) have only a tiny ability to digest starches. Dogs that were bred in mostly hunting communities like the Siberian Husky do not have the ability to digest starches well, same as wolves.

[tertius → shados]

Cats are obligate carnivores.

Dogs are carnivores. They need protein, fat and bone.

[soggypopsicle → tertius]

incorrect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog#Diet

[tertius → soggypopsicle]

What is incorrect? I implied that they're not obligate by contrasting them with cats.

They forage when in a fasted state.

And no, they have no carbohydrate requirement. Yes they'll eat it. They have some omnivorous capability. So do wolves, clearly carnivores though.

Teeth, digestive system and behaviour clearly show this.

How do wolves get calcium? Bone.

[soggypopsicle → tertius]

Dogs needing bone is incorrect. Plant sources can meet all their food requirements. But the science around if plants can form an ideal diet isn't clear currently (similar to humans).

Not sure why you are bringing wolves into this.

[tertius → soggypopsicle]

> Not sure why you are bringing wolves into this.

I'm guessing you're trying to trap me into saying the following:

Why? Because they are direct descendants of the gray wolf.

> Dogs needing bone is incorrect. Plant sources can meet all their food requirements.

They cannot live on a purely protein based (i.e. only meat) diet. They need organ meat and bone as well.

Saying that they cannot live on meat alone is a very weak "they are omnivores" argument. So I make sure to add where they can get their micro-nutrients. A whole prey model is the carnivorous model.

Whether you can substitute that with a plant based model and have them survive is arbitrary. I did not claim that they are obligate carnivores. They will forage when starving and survive, cats will not.

> Dogs needing bone is incorrect.

Bone gives them calcium and most of the other minerals that they require. So yes, what bones give them is something they absolutely require. Can it be artificially substituted, yes.