Becoming a Vegan Vet and Finding the Best Food for My Dogs
I am a vet and as a vet student you are required to spend much of your holidays doing work experience. Living in London all my life, I had always wanted to be a farm animal vet… live in the countryside healing animals, chatting away with farmers while carrying out heroic surgeries.
How I Became a Vet Who Makes Vegan Dog Food
Work experience as a vet student – with stints all over Scotland, England and Australia (I did my degree in Melbourne) really brought me face to face with a world that I had in fact, completely romanticised.
While I did cry at things I saw at the time at a hatchery and a dairy farm, I held it together for most of the farms – for of course, you are trained to keep production animals healthy, treat those who are not, and maintain farm productivity i.e. not to question the ethics of livestock farming.
I continued to justify it all in my head throughout my years at University. It was only when I was visited by my friend Jason back in England after graduation. I was actually teasing him about being vegetarian when he said something which literally changed my thoughts completely – and then as a consequence, my life.
I argued as I always had done, that as long as the animal had been ‘free-range’ (& organic to maintain biodiversity) livestock farming was all morally and environmentally justifiable. This was of course a few years before it became common knowledge that livestock farming is one of the greatest contributors to global warming.
He just looked at me and said:
‘ I just don’t ever want an animal to feel any pain or fear for me’.
And suddenly, something in me just clicked!
The inclusion of ‘fear’ in that sentence resonated because I knew no matter how we can control pain in animals at time of slaughter, I knew and still know that we do not and cannot take their fear away.
I became vegetarian from that day.
I still couldn’t bring myself to veganism as I could not imagine how to go through life without milk in my tea. I’m actually now very much a coffee drinker but don’t let that spoil the story.
A few years later, I woke up at 2am one night and allowed myself to remember all of the things I saw at hatcheries and farms… all the sadness and the unfairness; the plain meanness of keeping 15 pigs in a small pen with metal floors and only 1 metal chain screwed to the wall for their one shared ‘toy’, the dairy calf chained to the wall in the rain shivering while the farmer had a breakdown as his wife had left him, all the cows I’d seen walking into the milking parlour searching for their calves that had been taken away, the chicks in the hatcheries who couldn’t make it out of the eggs, taken to a room where they were ‘graded’ as to how bad they were getting out of their shells – then loaded into the bin when still alive but dying. I sobbed for the animals that I didn’t or couldn’t help. I also definitely cried a little for the new me who would have to drink my tea without dairy milk.
After finally falling asleep again and waking up the next morning as a new vegan – the soymilk in my first tea was actually OK and I would go as far as to say I love soymilk now! I felt so much lighter as a vegan, I actually don’t think I had realised how much guilt I was carrying before I made the decision. I still have that lightness now, and it is really a very wonderful feeling!
How did this all move on to vegan dog food?
In 2017, having been vegan for 6 years by this point, I was finding it harder and harder to make it to the till at the petshop with my bag of ‘lamb and rice’ dog food for my rescue doberman, Kizzy. There was no doubt in my mind that she couldn’t have cared less whether there had been a lamb anywhere near it or not, as long as it tasted delicious.
Searching through the very limited vegan dog food options at the time, I couldn’t find one where I was happy with every single ingredient in the ingredient list. I thought I could make one that was truly nutritionally complete but with an ingredient list that would satisfy me that I was doing the best by her, as well as all the lambs! I also thought there would also be other owners who would feel like me – and that perhaps if I could make such a recipe, and dogs agreed that it tasted great… that we could revolutionise the pet food industry.
A little bit more about me
Born in 1983 in Kingston-Upon-Thames, I was absolutely fascinated by animals from a very early age. We weren’t allowed any pets but our next door neighbour had 4 cats, a dog and luckily for me, 2 loose fence-boards in her fence just big enough for me to squeeze through. I spent most of my childhood time outside of school at her house hanging out with the animals. Animals seemed so much better in every way than humans. Not complicated, generally easy to read and just fascinating in every way,
Over the next few years I did work experience in local vet clinics and dairy farm belonging to a family member in Scotland so I might be looked on as a good candidate for vet school. I became more and more interested in sustainability and the environment or my 16th birthday my parents bought me the Good Shopping Guide which I loved and referred to often – and when anyone I knew might buy a new oven/ hoover/ clothes would implore them to buy from the more ethical brands.
I was not predicted great grades at A level so could not apply to Vet school immediately, my science teacher advising me since my GCSEs that I was not a natural scientist and I would be better as an animal activist, than a vet – where I could better use my natural creativeness and passion for a cause. I knuckled down and got the grades for vet school.
Once you go vegan…
… your world kind of slowly shifts year by year and you look at things differently. I always thought I would have a horse-drawn carriage to take me to my wedding – now I can’t think of anything worse than knowing I am being ferried around by a horse with a bit in its mouth. Questioning my dog’s food came after quite a few years as a vegan – can we make a delicious food with no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives with all the nutrients we know dogs need … without other animals being hurt? Yes, we can!
Noochy Poochy is a complete food and fully vegan — How can it provide all the nutrition a dog needs to thrive?
The right nutrition is absolutely vital for every animal’s body to work correctly and for cells to carry out their various duties and processes as they should. Essentially dog’s bodies have a checklist of nutrients that are needed for cells to do their thing, and these nutrient requirements change as the dog changes; for instance, throughout puppy growth and development, when they are sick, have a medical condition, or for a mother dog nursing her puppies. While it is vitally important that at all these times, the dog is getting the right nutrients in the right proportions – like humans, it doesn’t actually matter whether the source is vegetable or animal …. the amino acid Arginine (amino acids being the building blocks of protein) is the same to the body – whether it comes from soybean or turkey!
So it stands to reason, for the same reason you can’t feed a dog only chicken and rice, you obviously can’t feed a dog only chickpeas and rice – in both cases they will be missing out on vital nutrients. It has to be a carefully balanced recipe – where everything is accounted for – right down to the micro-minerals.
FEDIAF, the European trade body representing the European Pet Food industry, outline a list of nutrients that every complete dog food must have in a certain proportion in the final product. This is good. One of the drawbacks at the moment is that there is no way for the pet owner to realistically be sure of the ‘quality’ of those nutrients in the final product (whatever you define that to be), only the amount.
FEDIAF have historically been writing nutrient requirements for complete dog foods that have a meat component. It likely never occurred to them that suddenly the whole world would be suddenly concerned about the environmental impact and ethical question of rearing livestock for slaughter. This means plant-based dog food companies have to think about two things – complying with FEDIAF guidelines of course, but also we have to go a little further about it – is there anything that a meat based dog food might provide that a vegan dog food might not, or might give in only marginal amounts? This is why our Noochy Poochy recipes have added amino acids Taurine and Methionine to ensure that dogs have adequate supply.
Noochy has a 30% organic ingredient component, a 28% protein content, can claim ‘complete’ as per FEDIAF guidelines plus supplemented Methionine and Taurine, and what we are most proud of, an Omega 6:3 fatty acid ratio of 4:1.