Meet Monster, a.k.a Kasey! She is one of my three dogs. She’s also vegan, but she didn’t start out that way.

Kasey is her real name and Monster is her nickname. As a puppy she ate…everything. It was like having a little monster around, hence her nickname. This habit of eating everything never quite ended, even though Monster will be four years old in August.

As a puppy Monster really liked to tear wallpaper off the walls and eat it. She also liked to dig into wall corners and gnaw her way to the drywall. Monster still enjoys feasting on sneakers, stinky socks, running shorts, underwear and my husband’s waded up napkins that he leaves laying around. Thankfully she leaves our walls alone!

Here’s a picture of when Monster decided to redecorate my roommates’ wall 3 years ago.

When Monster was one year old we found out from the vet that she had a food allergy to animal protein. Monster would bite all of the fur off of the back of her body and her sores would get infected. She even had to wear one of those Elizabethan collars. My vet recommended we switch her dog food to a prescription dog food with hydrolyzed chicken, processed in a way so that her body wouldn’t recognize the animal protein. She ate this food for two years. This food made her stool black and very difficult for her to eliminate.

I have a friend who is also a vegan. She feeds her dogs V-dog which is a vegan dog food (contains no animal products or animal byproducts). I decided to give V-dog kibble a try for Monster. V-dog food targets dogs with allergies to grains and animal protein. My vet approved this vegan dog food after she saw all of the quality ingredients it contains. I eventually started feeding V-dog to all of my dogs because it worked so well for Monster. Monster eliminates regularly and her stool has returned to a normal color.

Since I’m vegan and my husband is a vegetarian we eat a lot of the same foods. I enjoy making all sorts of smoothies for breakfast. Last Sunday I made a smoothie for us with avocado, cocoa powder, banana, dates and almond milk. I blend the ingredients with ice in my Vitamix and serve. Yum!

The smoothie I gave to Pete wound up sitting in a coaster on our end table by the couch. When we were busy in the kitchen that morning we discovered Monster decided to drink most of Pete’s chocolate smoothie. While the smoothie had no animal protein, it did contain chocolate, which is known for making dogs sick—not Monster though!

Here is a picture of Monster after she drank ¾ of the glass of Pete’s smoothie. She had chocolate all over her beard! We were laughing hysterically. Fortunately there wasn’t that much cocoa powder in the drink.

Here is the culprit with my husband trying to clean up the smoothie on Monster’s snout. I think Monster won the battle!

Monster is my favorite vegan because she started us on the path of vegan dog food. She’s also my favorite vegan because she will snuggle next to me while chopping veggies on the cutting board just letting me know she’s there!

I hope you enjoyed meeting Monster, a.k.a Kasey, and hearing her story!

Namaste,

Sara