What happens when our purrsonal ethics conflict with the biological needs of an animal we chose to care for?
There are a lot of things about cat ownership that become so normal you quickly furrget how objectively weird they are. You scoop their bathroom business into a plastic bag multiple times per day, you spend money on furniture specifically designed to be destroyed, and you quickly learn the difference between their different kinds of meows. One can mean "I'm hungry" and another can mean "I saw a bug a few hours ago and you must know about it." You fellow cat pawrents know what I'm talking about.
And then there is feeding them meat. I don't think anyone likes it. All the wet foods have this weird smell that, even after 12 years of owning cats, I still can't get over. Don't even get me started on the ingredients.
Most longtime cat pawrents probably do not think very deeply about it every time they crack open a can. Cats eat meat, that is simply part of the deal. For one brand-new kitten owner, though, that realization caused something of a moral meat crisis.
They eagerly went out and bought them high-quality kitten food while focusing on giving their baby the best pawssible start. Then, as a strict vegan, they realized that every can of cat food represented an ethical equation they had spent years trying to remove themselves from. Smartly, they did want to force their beliefs onto their kitten, but they also wondered whether there was another way to make it work.
And this is where I think the story gets really interesting, because this is something a lot of vegans deal with. And, we all know that people have a lot of feelings about veganism, whether it's for or against.