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I beg to differ....my dogs gorge themselves on apple drops every year from my orchard and get pretty hyper from it all. Poop red for months. They also fight the hens for any vegetable scraps, simply love carrot pulp and apple pulp, will sit and gnaw on and consume broccoli, etc. They are well fed, so I can only assume they eat these things for taste. The pup even dug up my potatoes and ate them, ate any and all tomatoes I gave him and even ate the grapefruit I threw out. The older dog eats apples and carrots, but she is picky about other vegetables, seems to like tomatoes, though. The pup loves fruits and vegetables! Wolves, coyotes and foxes eat berries and apples, dig up certain roots to eat, etc. I don't think they are strictly carnivores at all.
I have known lots of dogs who like cut veggies for various reasons - my dogs will steal apples from our donkeys and chew on them just because they can, but realistically you aren't telling me that given a choice between a pound of hamburger and free run of the garden they would choose the garden?
Dogs are carnivores, they have a carnivore digestive system, they can't and won't get any significant nutrient value by eating veggies because they aren't capable of making anything very useful out of it. And in order to be classified as omnivore they would have to be able to both obtain and use the nutrients in the food.
Take a cow for instance, they have a very specific digestive system, one that is especially made to create volitile fatty acids and protein out of a dried up corn stalk and dead bacteria living in their rumen. They can live all winter on a field of cut corn stalks if needed. A dog's intestinal tract doesn't even come close to a cow, or human a true omnivore, for that matter.
In college every year for nutrition we had a digestive tract lab - every species that was available at the time of the lab was dissected and the tracts were laid out flat on the floor of the stock yard. It was BLATENTLY obvious which animals were carnivores, which were omnivores, and which were herbavores. Even my son, who was 5 at the time I took him to one lab, got it right. Believe me, a dog is a carnivore, even from 15 feet away it was easy to pick out the cat and dog digestive tract by length alone. (And by the way, the most interesting species at those labs was by FAR the goose! The filled crop in a dissected goose was simply awesome!
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It isn't really up for debate I don't think - I'm not aware that they have at any time past or present been scientifically classified as omnivores.
I beg to differ....my dogs gorge themselves on apple drops every year from my orchard and get pretty hyper from it all. Poop red for months. They also fight the hens for any vegetable scraps, simply love carrot pulp and apple pulp, will sit and gnaw on and consume broccoli, etc. They are well fed, so I can only assume they eat these things for taste. The pup even dug up my potatoes and ate them, ate any and all tomatoes I gave him and even ate the grapefruit I threw out. The older dog eats apples and carrots, but she is picky about other vegetables, seems to like tomatoes, though. The pup loves fruits and vegetables! Wolves, coyotes and foxes eat berries and apples, dig up certain roots to eat, etc. I don't think they are strictly carnivores at all.
I have known lots of dogs who like cut veggies for various reasons - my dogs will steal apples from our donkeys and chew on them just because they can, but realistically you aren't telling me that given a choice between a pound of hamburger and free run of the garden they would choose the garden?
Dogs are carnivores, they have a carnivore digestive system, they can't and won't get any significant nutrient value by eating veggies because they aren't capable of making anything very useful out of it. And in order to be classified as omnivore they would have to be able to both obtain and use the nutrients in the food.
Take a cow for instance, they have a very specific digestive system, one that is especially made to create volitile fatty acids and protein out of a dried up corn stalk and dead bacteria living in their rumen. They can live all winter on a field of cut corn stalks if needed. A dog's intestinal tract doesn't even come close to a cow, or human a true omnivore, for that matter.
In college every year for nutrition we had a digestive tract lab - every species that was available at the time of the lab was dissected and the tracts were laid out flat on the floor of the stock yard. It was BLATENTLY obvious which animals were carnivores, which were omnivores, and which were herbavores. Even my son, who was 5 at the time I took him to one lab, got it right. Believe me, a dog is a carnivore, even from 15 feet away it was easy to pick out the cat and dog digestive tract by length alone. (And by the way, the most interesting species at those labs was by FAR the goose! The filled crop in a dissected goose was simply awesome!
It isn't really up for debate I don't think - I'm not aware that they have at any time past or present been scientifically classified as omnivores.
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