i see dog foods that claim to be 100% vegetarian.
is this healthy for canines? to eat only vegetarian?..dont they NEED meat?

Properly formulated vegetarian dog foods can be healthy for dogs. Dogs don't have a nutrient requirement for "meat" per say but rather for the amino acids that are abundant in meat. These amino acids can also be obtained from non-meat sources.

But wouldn't they need vast quantities to compensate for the loss?

After all in the wild dogs don't go out to hunt vegetables. I suppose this brings up the question that maybe we are trying to impose human belief systems onto our pets?

Originally Posted by Dopeydawg

But wouldn't they need vast quantities to compensate for the loss?

After all in the wild dogs don't go out to hunt vegetables.

No, I wouldn't say vast quantities.
In the wild, dogs are scavengers so they do eat a variety of things...including plant material. Although, I think meat is preferable to them when available.

I suppose this brings up the question that maybe we are trying to impose human belief systems onto our pets?

I think this may be true in many cases but this is not the only reason that people opt for vegetarian diets. Vegetarian diets are sometimes recommended for dogs with certain health alignments. Dalmations who require a low purine diet due to recurring urate stones, for example. A vegetarian diet is not required for such dogs but can be helpful.

For the record -
I do not feed nor am I trying to promote vegetarian diets for dogs...just providing information.

Guess I will have to stop one of the shih tsu's from eating veggies in the garden.

No, what you have to say is fair comment, Opokki, my own dog sometimes has vegetables either raw or cooked, but not as a stand-alone meal.

I know which he would choose though if given a bowl of meat and a bowl of veggies, even if I did put down his favourites!

Originally Posted by Dopeydawg

I suppose this brings up the question that maybe we are trying to impose human belief systems onto our pets?

Wow, I have thought about this a couple times, weird as it is. I myself am not a meat-eater. So I couldn't help but wonder if a dog could be healthy not eating other animals. Someone once told me that chow chows actually do like veggies..

Which made me wonder, with enough evolving and selective breeding... Maybe, in the future, is it possible we will have a canine that lives on veggies?

I do not intend to try to take meat from my dog's diet. For some reason, he seems very prone to dog allergy as it is. Poor quality dog food that I fed him before I knew better, made him have bald spots near his tail on his back, and he spent most of his time licking his swelled up paws.

Maybe a vegetarian dog in the future?

I hadn't heard of chow-chows and veggies, but I do know that they have their own little oddities peculiar to their breed.
Not that I can think of any at the minute mind, apart from their black tongue.

My own dog loves carrots, but maybe that is because we have goats and he sees me feeding them. A bit of jealousy always makes him greedy.

It wouldn't surprise me if we did see breeds developed purely to eat veggies, it seems to be 'designer' everything these days.

Makes me happy that someone agrees, that maybe this is a possibility that we could see someday. Dog health is a very important issue to many people... As for 'designer' dogs, I couldn't agree more, and find it sad that we have sacrificed function for appearance, even though it doesn't better the breed. Most of today's dogs just aren't capable of doing what their breeds were originally intended to do.

I believe other things about chow chows, is they are a lot more susceptible to skin conditions for some reason. They have some interesting personality traits as well. I never had one, so I can't say for sure.

Interesting...I would've thought dogs needed meat in their diet.

Well......techinically dog food is not a "natural diet" either...... It is usually the sludge off the bottom of the slaughterhouse floor mixed in with a bunch of "filler" that actually makes up more of the food than the meaty sludge. Dogs never naturally eat corn....yet it is in (and constitutes a large portion of) most dog foods. I do feed my dog meat, but I do not rely on the natural food argument because there is nothing "natural" about a house dog's life from their food to their environment to their medical care.