Skip to content

On Vegan Dogs and Vegan Sea Turtles

Yesterday, while I was busy complaining about a reference to the green sea turtle as a "vegan" rather than an "herbivore," the commenter known as the bunny was busy compiling quotes from Animal Person where I refer to my Greyhounds as vegans.

Busted, indeed!

I go to my trusty Oxford English Dictionary where I learn/relearn that in 1944, Donald Watson’s November 2 issue of Vegan News states:

Vegetarian and Fruitaraian are already associated with societies that allow the ˜fruits of cows and fowls, therefore..we must make a new and appropriate word… I have used the title The Vegan News. Should we adopt this, our diet will soon become known as the vegan diet, and we should aspire to the rank of vegans.

Perhaps more important is the definition: A person who on principle abstains from all food of animal origin; a strict vegetarian.

I know, I know, veganism doesn’t equal strict vegetarianism these days, as the latter involves only food. What I’m most concerned with is "A person who on principle abstains." According to those words, a vegan must be a person. But let’s try a more liberal interpretation and say the person doesn’t have to be a human person. Now we’re left with "who on principle abstains."

The green sea turtle is an odd creature as far as sea turtles go, eating worms, jelly fish and aquatic insects as well as plant matter as a hatchling and juvenile, and transitioning to a diet of plant matter only as an adult. The green’s teeth, digestive enzymes, and length of intestines are all what tell us they’re herbivores. Just like the teeth, enzymes, and length of intestines (and jaw, etc…) tell us that dogs are in the carnivore family.

Now, what they can eat and maintain health and even thrive on, may in fact be something other than what they are.

The principle of choosing to abstain from animal products cannot be applied to dogs or cats whom we have decided will eat a plant-based diet. The dog isn’t a vegan, as that would imply her choice to abstain.

So what about all of the vegan children who eat plant-based diets because that’s what their parents choose to feed them? Are they really vegans? The physiology of the human does certainly scream "herbivore," but can you call a child a vegan when she has not made that choice for herself?

Richard Dawkins has often been said to believe that raising a child in a religion is a form of child abuse. Here’s one of his responses:

What I think may be abuse is labeling children with religious labels like Catholic child and Muslim child. I find it very odd that in our civilization we’re quite happy to speak of a Catholic child that is 4 years old or a Muslim of child that is 4, when these children are much too young to know what they think about the cosmos, life and morality. We wouldn’t dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child. And yet, for some reason we make a privileged exception of religion. And, by the way, I think it would also be abuse to talk about an atheist child.

I agree. It follows, then, that people who feed their dogs or children plant-based diets, should not be referring to their vegan children or vegan dogs. The most important concept in vegan other than animal-free, is the conscious choice. And though language certainly is like a living organism, always evolving, it would be disappointing for vegan to evolve to exclude the moral deliberation necessary to make the choice.

2 Comments Post a comment
  1. Hi,

    We have two children of 4 and 7 years old. I would agree that the 4 year only follows a vegan diet because it is the only thing on offer to her from here parents.

    The 7 year can reason and argue her vegan principles and applies them readily when not under her parents control. She reasons and argues in the same manner as she would on topics such as racism, sexism, homophobia etc.

    So when we say our children are vegan, on one hand we are using the phrase in a similar way as we would for ourselves and in another we mean it the same was as we would say she is English.

    On the other part of your article, the misuse of the word vegan when herbivore is meant is following the traditions of the misuse of the word vegetarian. Can it be stopped? I think not when popularist biologists and journalists describe elephants and even T-Rexs (http://www.humanist.veggroup.org/news/1044.html) as vegetarians.

    December 16, 2007
  2. Stephen,

    Your 7-year old almost makes me want to have kids! Good for her, and of course, kudos to you! Would you please provide a different link? That one isn't so good . . .

    Thanks, and welcome!

    December 16, 2007

Leave a Reply

You may use basic HTML in your comments. Your email address will not be published.

Subscribe to this comment feed via RSS