Website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -fish.htmlMeet Dante Britain's first vegetarian cat who refuses to eat meat or fish
When he was found starving in an alleyway, the abandoned kitten clearly needed a good meal.
His rescuer Becky Page took him home and gave him bowls of chicken and fish, but the little black and white cat she named Dante turned his whiskers up at all such traditional feline food.
His appetite returned, however, when he padded over to a plate of leftover vegetables by the kitchen bin.
He 'wolfed' them down, says Miss Page - and ever since he has stubbornly stuck to a vegetarian diet.
Now aged two, he continues to refuse to eat tinned cat food, and could even be the world's first vegetarian cat.
Instead of meat, he happily feasts on the fruit and vegetables his owner grows, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts and rhubarb, and also has a penchant for melon, asparagus and uncooked potatoes. He will even raid the fruit bowl for bananas if he's feeling peckish.
Dante's curious eating habits have baffled experts because cats are natural carnivores and are unlikely to willingly forego meat from their diet.
And unlike humans and dogs, they can only derive certain vital nutrients in sufficient quantities from meat.
These include taurine, an amino acid essential for cats but not for other mammals. In the prolonged absence of taurine, a cat's retina slowly degenerates and the cat can become irreversibly blind.
Others are arachidonic acid - a fatty acid without which cats can develop a lustreless coat and have problems healing wounds - vitamin A and vitamin B12.
But Dante has remained as fit as any puss his age.
Miss Page, 21, a child minder, said: 'Since he had that first plate of veg, he won't go near anything fatty and prefers the things I grow in the garden.'
Maggie Roberts, director of veterinary services at the animal charity Cats Protection, said: 'This is extremely rare, I have never before heard of a cat that will not eat meat. We advise that cats be fed a complete cat food, which provides all of the necessary nutrients in the right balance.'
Miss Page is convinced Dante does not supplement his diet by hunting for wild prey.
'He doesn't really like going outside much, he finds it all a bit too scary,' she said. 'I've never seen him chase any birds or small animals. He hunts bits of string around the house instead to fulfil his predatory instincts.
'I have to smuggle bits of meat in among the veggies because I want him to get all the nutrients he needs. But sometimes he spots the meat and will just leave it.'
Miss Page, who lives with her partner Adam Carpenter, 26, also keeps three chickens, a rabbit, two guinea pigs, a rat, a hamster and fish at her home in Tasburgh, near Norwich, but Dante has not been tempted to try to catch any of them either.
'Dante is part of our family and although we have lots of other animals he is more human than any of them,' she said. 'He loves attention and loves being with us so the least I can do is let him have his favourite foods. I admit he has a very, very unique appetite, but he's certainly healthy.'
Sarah Medway, who runs http://www.craftycat.co.uk, a web site dedicated to cat behaviour, said: 'I have never heard of a purely vegetarian cat.
'Nutritionally cats need to eat meat to survive. There are certain nutrients that a cat needs that can't be obtained from plant foods.'
A Vegetarian Society spokesman said: 'Although it is possible to keep dogs on a vegetarian diet satisfactorily, cats are more specialised.'
Some vegetarian cat foods are available which include sythensised forms of the nutruents they need from meat.
Isn't that animal cruelty? To not allow animals to eat meat.
