vegan cats – Pain In The Bud

‘I Just Beat Your Cat Again. She Can’t Walk. We’re Done.’

This Caturday we look at how pets fare in domestic violence situations, plus a study about obesity in meat-eating and “vegan cats.”

The headline is a quote from a text a man allegedly sent to his girlfriend after abusing her cat so badly that the poor kitty had to be euthanized.

The story is grotesque, tragic, and sadly not uncommon. Between 75 and 89 percent of domestic violence victims who have pets report that their partners threatened, abused or killed their companion animals, according to research from the ASPCA and SafeHouse, a non-profit that provides direct support to victims of domestic violence.

In the incident referenced above, an Indianapolis man was arrested and charged with killing a domestic animal and torturing or mutilating an animal, both felonies. The suspect, Rashawn Bentley, originally tried to stage the violence as the result of a break-in, but was undone by his own menacing texts to his girlfriend as well as photos of the injured cat, according to the local NBC affiliate, WTHR.

Just so it’s abundantly clear how we feel about this issue: if you abuse, harm or kill a cat, you’re not a man. You’re a weak, despicable, cowardly facsimile of a man whose “flex” is taking your frustrations out on an innocent animal one twentieth your size.

You should be arrested, charged with the most severe penalties under the law – even if they’re not commensurate with the horror of the crime you’ve committed – and imprisoned for years. The other inmates should know you killed a cat. You should be removed from society, because if you think taking life is an acceptable way to vent your frustrations, there’s something clearly wrong with your brain and you are a danger to animal and human alike.

Close-up of a curious orange kitten with large, expressive eyes resting on a bed. — Credit: Mayara Caroline Mombelli/Pexels

Of course the majority of these attacks, especially targeting cats, are committed by men, but women aren’t off the hook here either. Some women do try to harm significant others by killing or abusing their cats, in straight relationships and relationships between women.

Ignore that study on supposedly healthy ‘vegan cats’

Headlines about a new study in Frontiers In Animal Science are trumpeting the supposed benefits of vegan diets for cats, who are obligate carnivores.

The media stories style the effort as a large-scale study involving more than 1,300 participants.

In reality it was an online survey that recruited cat caretakers from Facebook and recorded their subjective opinions about the health of their cats.

Everything, including reported weight, mobility, questions about potential physical problems, times fed per day, sex and neuter status, et al, was filtered through the self-selected respondents, not pulled from veterinary records. The respondents weren’t given reference illustrations or standardized criteria from which to base their subjective assessment of their cats’ weight.

There’s no way to determine if the people who participated were being honest, keeping records, guesstimating or just having a bit of fun.

To be clear, most of our criticism here is directed at the way online publications reported the results, not necessarily the authors of the survey, who chose a much more dry, cautious headline: “Impacts of a vegan diet on body weight and related health disorders in 1,305 cats: an exploratory cross-sectional survey.”

Obviously, even a jazzed-up version of that honest headline would never be used by click-chasing modern media.

Google search results showing articles about a study on lower rates of overweight among vegan-fed cats. — Notice the bottom right headline, which misinterprets a statistical analysis for “odds” of being overweight.

Ninety percent of the people who responded were female, and 71 percent were from the UK, according to the published paper.

Then the authors kneaded the data with the usual opaquely-named practices: “exploratory regression analysis” (a data-mining technique), regression models (AI-assisted statistical technique that involves comparing existing data with the result you predicted/hope to see), sensitivity analysis (changing variables to assess their impact on the overall findings), and so on.

When all was said and done, 4.1 percent of the meat-eating cats and 3.1 percent of the vegan cats were over their ideal weights, in their humans’ estimation. Meat-eating cats were also more likely to be underweight (2.3 percent) compared to vegan cats (0.8 percent).

The conclusion? The findings were “non-significant,” the researchers wrote, along with the obligatory call for more research on the topic.

We should also point out that in addition to their classification as obligate carnivores, cats require specific proteins and nutrients (taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamins A and B12) from meat-based diets that they cannot synthesize themselves and are not found in plant-based protein. “Vegan cat food” must have those proteins and nutrients added. If cats are deprived of them, they suffer slow, painful declines that result in organ shutdown and death.

Because of their evolutionary history, cats aren’t as adept at breaking down plant-based starches and their bodies don’t produce enough of a specific enzyme (amylase) that breaks down starch and complex carbohydrates.

Human ideas of morality aren’t applicable to cats. Feed them meat.

Open comments Caturday! Although not mentioned in the headlines, today’s the day for open comments: anything off-topic, marriage proposals or modeling contracts for Buddy, updates on your own cats, suggestions on stories to cover and whatever else is on your mind. Happy Caturday!

Header image credit: Pexels

‘Vegan’ Cats Turn To The Streets For Their Fix

As more humans force vegan cat “food” onto their felines, cats turn toward the black market for their yums.

The exchange was so swift that unless you were looking out for it, you’d miss it.

A young, skinny ginger tabby approached a pudgy tuxedo in front of a stoop. The felines exchanged a nod and bumped paws, then the tabby scurried into an alley, disappearing into the shadows between two buildings.

“Gotta get it in me!” the tabby said, taking quick breaths. He dragged a claw across the top of the pouch to open it, poured every last morsel of meat into his mouth, then dropped to the ground, leaning against the brick wall.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, his pupils dilating. “That is the good stuff! Man, I needed that.”

The tabby, who would only identify himself by his street name, Skinny G, is one of thousands of so-called “vegan cats” in New York who have been defying their humans, finding ways to slip out and connect with a burgeoning network of “can slingers.”

Resembling drug dealers in their methods and presentation, the can slingers nevertheless point out that what they’re doing is not illegal.

“We like to think of ourselves as a charitable organization even though we earn a tidy profit,” said Tuco Salamanclaw, vice president for emerging markets with Los Gatos cartel. “It’s tragic to see so many misguided humans forcing their faithful felines to eat tofu, soy and other junk that doesn’t have the nutrients we need. We’re here to help address that injustice.”

Meowfioso — Louis “Linguini Louie” Felinzio, a Meowfia capo and director of taste testing for the Meowfia’s can slinging operation.

The rise of the underground meat market — and the profits it promises to organizations that can muscle their way in — has attracted the Meowfia as well as The Buddy Organization, which was rebranded last year as Nipped In The Bud Catnip Co. Jostling for position among those three major players, as well as smaller groups, has led to a revival of the territorial battles that marked the catnip wars years ago.

“It’s just a matter of time before we see another drive-by spraying,” said Pawl Oreoson, a criminologist at John Jay College of criminal justice in New York. “Los Gatos is not an organization that surrenders territory easily, and the Meowfia also play for keeps. There’s just too much money to be made here.”

Profits from the underground cat food market set a record for the 10th consecutive quarter in March, reflecting the growing number of humans forcing their felines to eat meat-free diets of ultra-processed, plant-based “food.”

“Disgusting,” is how three-year-old Nala put it when asked about the “vegan cat food” her humans feed her. “Imagine eating damp cardboard with little clumps of carrot and celery embedded in it. No self-respecting cat should be forced to eat this stuff.”

Chonk — “After two weeks on the vegan stuff I was skin and bones,” says Slim Sal, above. “I was almost too weak to make it to the can slingers and get my paws on proper food. No cat should have to endure that trauma.”

Tigger, a striped eight-year-old from Brooklyn, was admonished by his humans two weeks into his vegan “cat food” diet when he got into the fridge and helped himself to an entire pound of Boar’s Head ham and two large chorizos.

With a child lock now preventing him from opening the refrigerator door, Tigger said he’s been squirreling away portions of the vegan kibble and dumping it off the fire escape when his people aren’t looking. He hunts rodents to keep himself from starving, but says he’s getting sick of mice.

“If these lunatics want to subsist on broccoli, quinoa and hummus, that’s on them, but I just can’t,” Tigger said. “I’ve scraped together enough cash to buy a few cans of Friskies, and tomorrow I shall feast!”

Girlfriend Says ‘Me or the Cat,’ Guy Chooses Cat

Ms. Vegan also advocates the extinction of domestic cats. What a charmer.

A distressed Redditor says his girlfriend of seven months gave him an ultimatum: Get rid of his cat, or the relationship is over.

He chose the cat.

If only he’d seen the warning signs earlier.

“She is an outspoken vegan, and she made it clear at the start of our relationship that it was important to her that any potential had similar cruelty-free values,” the Redditor wrote. “Me, already being a pescatarian, had little difficulty transitioning to a fully plant based diet. My GF was proud of me for going cruelty free and everything seemed well.”

With her boyfriend converted, the pair “became ‘the vegan couple’ on our college campus.” Retch.

However, Ms. Vegan wasn’t done creating the Perfect Boyfriend:

Fast forward through all the quarantine stuff… My gf and I have spent a lot of time together during this pandemic and we’ve started talking about taking our relationship to the next level. We began seriously looking at either buying a new apartment together or having one of us move in with the other.

However, after a lot of talking and planning, my GF sat me down and dropped a bomb shell on me. She said that with this next phase of the relationship, she did not see a future with me unless I was willing to give away Mittens. She said that she believed owning a cat is unconscionable for vegans, because they hunt mice and eat meat, and because the very act of owning a pet is a violation of vegan principles.

If you’re reading this and thinking that’s strange logic, you’re not the only one: The guy’s girlfriend wanted him to dump a well-loved animal because the cat eats meat and might hunt mice. (It’s not clear from the post whether the cat has access to the outdoors.)

But that’s not all!

I was stunned. I told her that I was absolutely not willing to give up Mittens, and she had no choice but to eat meat so I was reducing harm as much as possible by buying reputable brands of cat food. Plenty of vegans own cats and think along those same lines. My gf got mad and said “how much flesh does your cat eat? How many animals died to make all that food? Would you be okay with that being human flesh?”

I got mad and told my GF that I would have really appreciated her telling me about her cat opinions before we got serious. She went on and on about cats killing animals. I ended the conversation there. I was so angry that I left my gfs apartment. And I snuggled with Mittens when I got home! Although the mood soured a bit when my GF sent me a link to a Reddit thread advocating for the extinction of domestic cats. Sigh

I don’t think the Redditor’s vegan (ex)-girlfriend has really thought her position through.

Cats have been living with humans for thousands of years. The process of domestication results in genetic changes that make cats more friendly, sociable and curious than their wild forebears, at the expense of traits — like aggressiveness and cautiousness — that would help keep them alive in the wild. It’s nature’s trade-off, and it happens in every domesticated species.

In other words, domestic cats don’t have a “natural habitat.” They don’t have a home in the wild, and they belong under the care and protection of good humans.

We domesticated them, so it’s our responsibility to care for them.

If vegans are motivated by ending animal suffering, exterminating an entire species of cat — millions of animals — seems an odd way to go about it. So does advocating the dumping of millions of animals who are damned to short, brutal lives without human care.

Thankfully, the Redditor refused to dump his cat — who he’s had for more than three years — and ended it with Ms. Vegan.

“So, we broke up, obviously,” he wrote in a follow-up post. “I would never, ever give up my cat Mittens. Many users said that this situation was about control, not veganism, and looking back, I do see a pattern of control on my GFs part. I was blind to it I guess.”

Introducing Buddy’s Old Fashioned Meat-based Vegan Cat Food!

Now your cat can eat meat AND be a vegan!

You’ve got a dilemma, one that has tormented many a vegan before you.

While you’ve joined the ranks of the enlightened and meat-free, you also have a cat…and your cat eats meat.

Your vegan side urges you to put kitty on a strict plant-based kibble regimen. Your rational side reminds you she depends on you and cutting meat from her diet will seriously harm her.

Angry cat eating salad — “I will murder you for this, human!”

Cats may be obligate carnivores, but how can you admonish the meat-eating savages of humankind when your four-legged friend gobbles down chicken and turkey flesh every day?

Fear not, vegan friends, for a genuine solution is upon us! I present to you Buddy’s Old-Fashioned Meat-Based Vegan Cat Food. It’s vegan with meat added, meaning kitty gets all the nutrients she needs for a healthy, happy life while you get to tell everyone that you AND your cat are vegans.

After all, what is the purpose of veganism if you can’t tell everyone you meet that you’re a vegan?

Buddy’s Old-Fashioned Meat-Based Vegan Cat Food, available wherever fine cat foods are sold.