Two years ago, a study was published that claimed nutritionally sound vegan diets are "the healthiest and least hazardous dietary choice for dogs". We recently challenging those findings. Based on our analysis of the data the original study used, we argue the association between diet and dog health (or more accurately, the owner's opinion of their dog's health) is minimal at best.
To understand why we came to a different conclusion, you need to understand how previous research on vegan dog food has been conducted and why scientists have different views on the subject. To date, there are about the health effects of vegan dog food. Some are , where are monitored while dogs are fed a vegan diet.
The longest was published in 2024, where 15 dogs ate dry dog food made from plant-based ingredients. All dogs remained healthy and there were no obvious adverse effects. However, since there was no control diet group, we cannot assume that means a plant-based diet is superior to a conventional one.
Some do claim for dogs versus other food types. However, these studies based their findings on information from owner surveys. The results from such studies rely on owner recollections and perceptions.
You are studying owners' beliefs about how healthy their dog is rather than their actual health. The , published in 2022, gathered data from over . It included information both about the owners and their dogs, including of course the type of food the dogs were fed.
Owners were asked to recall de.
