You live with a predator.

He is not human.

He is armed with fangs for slashing flesh and molars for crushing bone. His jaw may exert nine hundred pounds per square inch of pressure. He has forty-two teeth in all.

His sense of smell is so powerful that we, with our human limitations, can barely comprehend. Our olfactory sense does not detect odors unless they are painfully obvious. The nose of this more efficient hunter collects and concentrates minute traces of scent until they create a mental picture more detailed than a visual image. When he smells the ground, he knows every thing that has passed within many, many hours, days even.

While our human eyes process a wealth of colorful detail, his eyes are specialized organs tuned to detect movement above all.

Aligned above his eyes and nose, aimed forward, preternatural ears detect frequencies and sound which easily escape us. Noises such as the softest rodent squeak beneath a thick blanket of snow do not evade him. The footfall of a stranger on an outside porch step does not escape his attention. He hears the breath of large prey even from a distance.

He is swift. The fastest of his kind can sprint at forty miles per hour, covering ten feet in a single bound.

He is agile and he is strong. He can crawl. He can jump. He has a high ratio of muscle to fat. He is an efficient predator. A carnivore designed to detect prey, catch it, to kill, to eat, to reproduce.

He is a social animal. Left to his own kind, he will live in a clearly organized pack led by a dominant male and a dominant female. Serious challenges to the social structure will be met swiftly and violently. Yet a strong survival and social instinct inhibits this killer from harming his own kind unless necessary to maintain order. Thus, he speaks a complex and rich language with which he can advertise his intentions. He assures his pack mates that he means no harm, but that he will defend his rank within the pack.

During the last few decades many people have, justifiably,, decided to remove meat and dairy products from their diets. Whether they determine to become a vegan or a vegetarian, most feel their decision has improved their physical and spiritual well-being.

Many of these people also own one or more dogs. Because of their personal philosophies and their own satisfactory dietary experiences, many then decide to feed their dogs a diet derived exclusively from sources that exclude meat and dairy products.

But is this decision a good one, from their pet's perspective?

Humans are omnivores. We are provided with saliva that contains various enzymes to predigest the starches in our diet, specific teeth to grind and breakdown the plant fibers we eat and a digestive tract of medium length. In addition, our jaws work in a manner that allows them to move not only in an up and down direction, but also from side to side, so we can easily eat foods derived from both plant and animal origins.