From the Mailbag

Hello Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

I read your latest blog entry about your dogs. [See here.] Your dilemma cries out for an empirical approach. Feed your dogs vegan dog food for a few weeks and see what happens. Do they lose their appetite, or perhaps eat with less gusto than usual? Do they become listless and whiny? Does their fur start to fall out?

If you're not willing to conduct the experiment, I would at least be interested in hearing your thoughts about how, exactly, vegan dog food is purported to cause harm to dogs. Is the harm physical (i.e., malnutrition of some kind), psychological, or some combination of both? Surely there must be some data on this subject.

Regards,
Alex Chernavsky