Bacon the Vegan Dog!
My girlfriend and her family had three beautiful dogs when I met them. A Lab/Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Cleo, a Beagle mix named Mandi, and a little Chihuahua/Jack Russel named Bacon. They were all aging dogs, in their teens, but were very lovingly cared for and had a lot of personality!
One day, Bacon started vomiting. He couldn’t keep any food down at all. His food would come back up in the exact same form it went down, completely undigested. We took him to the vet and after many tests, he was diagnosed with advanced stages of liver cancer.
The vet told us that his diet was to blame, sent us home with some very expensive medication, even more expensive canned food, and told us that even with all of this, Bacon would probably not live to the end of the month.
We were all very sad to hear this, and started doing some research on liver cancer and dog diets. We continued to find that the most difficult things for the liver to digest (in humans or in dogs) were corn, wheat, and meat products. Amazingly, the special “Liver Diet” food that the vet had sent us home with had those exact ingredients listed as the first three! We couldn’t believe it.
After doing some more research, we found a few recipes for liver-healthy diets. Most called for rice mixed with different vegetables and a protein. Typically the protein was chicken, and many of them included chicken with tofu and/or lentils.
Being vegan ourselves, the family wondered what benefit the chicken could possibly offer the dog. Chicken is very low in vitamins, and protein is much easier to digest from vegetable sources.
We created a diet for Bacon. He would get the rice cooked with lentils or other beans, and a wide variety of healthy vegetables. We gave him the liver medication until it ran out (a month’s supply), and then just gave him the special food.
When we took Bacon to the vet about six months later, the vet was astounded that he could no longer detect any amount of liver cancer. We decided right then and there that we would switch all of the dogs to a vegan diet. It has now been about two years, and Bacon is as healthy as a puppy. We are so happy to still have him in our lives. We are currently fostering a fourth dog and he has made the switch to a vegan diet as well.
I would highly recommend to anyone that loves their dog, or loves the environment that they consider making a switch to a vegan diet for their dogs. Commercial dog foods are literally killing our dogs every day!
