Dog's eco-footprint a Hummer, study says

In "Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living," authors Robert and Brenda Vale argue that resources required to feed a dog give it about twice the eco-footprint of an SUV.
By Mark Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter

Thanks for killing the planet, dog owners.

Well, that's a rough paraphrase of a New Zealand study that claims a medium-size dog leaves a larger ecological footprint than an SUV.

In "Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living," authors Robert and Brenda Vale argue that resources required to feed a dog — including the amount of land needed to feed the animals that go into its food — give it about twice the eco-footprint of, say, building and fueling a Toyota Land Cruiser. Noting that a cat's pawprint was roughly equivalent to a Volkswagen Golf's, "New Scientist" (www.newscientist.com) asked an environmentalist at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, U.K., to independently calculate animals' environmental impact, and reported that "his figures tallied almost exactly." The study apparently didn't take into account the emissions of either the SUV or the dogs.

Because Seattle is known not only as a green city but one of the nation's top dog-loving cities, this seemed like an urgent cause. Somehow.

There are 40,906 licensed dogs in Seattle, and about 125,000 total, according to Don Jordan, director of the Seattle Animal Shelter and President of the Washington State Federation of Animal Care and Control Agencies.

"If you look at a large-size dog, they can live 10-14 years, and it certainly wouldn't surprise me," Jordan said of the study. "There's a lot that goes into manufacturing and producing food to care for dogs during the course of a life."

Short of eating the dogs, what should be done about these four-legged eco-Hummers before they kill us all?

"If, in fact, this is true, I think that given the focus particularly with the mayor's office of being the greenest city possible, I would think that pet owners would look at the manufacturing process for the items they're buying for their dogs. I've seen every year the boutique shops for dogs start to sprout up, whether it be bakers or clothing stores or treats or stuff," Jordan said.

Mayor Greg Nickels' spokesman Alex Fryer somehow appeared not to find the matter urgent. "We never answer a hypothetical," he said.

Candidate Mike McGinn didn't respond to a Seattle Times query.

Joe Mallahan's spokeswoman, Charla Neuman — who owns two St. Bernards — refused to relay questions on the topic to Mallahan.

"Thank god this wasn't paid for by taxpayer dollars," Neuman said of the New Zealand study, while spinning the matter thusly: "Take the combination of Joe having a small dog and driving a Prius, and he'll be a very green mayor."

Clark Williams-Derry, chief researcher at the Sightline Institute, a nonprofit sustainability think-tank in Seattle, scoffed at the study, which is how scientists express disdain.

"When I saw the study I ran some quick numbers," Williams-Derry said. "The average dog has to eat at least twice as much as the average person for this to be right. People are just heavier than dogs so, I just had to scratch my head at that.

"It doesn't mean dogs don't have a big impact," he noted. "But I view it with a healthy dose of skepticism."

At The Bullitt Foundation, which is devoted to environmental preservation, Steve Whitney said, "I guess in a perfect world the real cost of our consumer products would be reflected in the price we pay and our decision about our pets and health would also reflect the cost so we could make rational decisions about it. I suspect benefits derived from companionship of our animals, while difficult to quantify, would also be part of the equation."

Also scoffing to some difficult-to-quantify degree, Whitney said that if one were to really tackle the eco-footprint problem, "I don't think dog ownership would be the place to start."

Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend


BY ISABELLE TOUSSAINT, AFPDECEMBER 21, 2009


STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )



A boy has his sleigh pulled by his dog as snow covers Brussels, December 20, 2009.
Photograph by: Sebastien Pirlet, Reuters

PARIS – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.

Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

But Reha Huttin, president of France's 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.

"Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly," Huttin told AFP.

"Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don't eat meat, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?"

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.

"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.

And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo -- owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals' environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets' protein-rich meat intake.

"If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' -- or some other food made from choice cuts of meat -- then the relative impact is likely to be high," said Robert Vale.

"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."

Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.

As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.

I don't have a dog and I don't intend to have kids. My eco-work is done.

I don't have a dog and I don't intend to have kids. My eco-work is done.