History of gorgeous boy Nelson and his owner Tessa, founder of VEGDOG
I feel so fortunate to have met the lovely Tessa founder of VegDog.de at an event in London in 2019. She told me all about her first dog Nelson. He was a white rescue German Shepherd cross from France. In the UK, we rescue our dogs from Romania and Greece, but in Germany they tend to rescue dogs from as far away as Costa Rica and Mexico.
He was 8 years old when she had him and he suffered from such severe inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or colitis, and intense itching. She told me how he just used to strain constantly with bloody, regular diarrhoea and she felt so upset by this as he was her first dog, had the gentlest nature, and she just wanted to do the best for him. She was not vegan at the time and knew nothing about plant-based nutrition.
Her words are used below translated from the VegDog.de site –
“Crossbreed Nelson who died at the good age of 15 years, was a vegan for 7 years as he suffered from an intolerance to animal protein. We had Nelson as an adult rescue and when we first had him, we made numerous trips to the vets.
The vets were baffled and we tried everything that the market had to offer – hypoallergenic dry and wet foods as well as the recommended full range of exotic meats such as kangaroo meat or ostrich meat with potatoes. Nothing seemed to help him. The itching and digestive problems did not improve. Eventually Nelson’s vet advised us to refrain from any animal protein.
Vegan for dogs? I thought it was a joke. “How is this going to work?” “Is it even suitable?” These were only a few of the many questions I had.
My vet was so supportive and gave me a comprehensive balanced homemade recipe to try on Nelson. After 4 weeks, he was symptom free and he remained so for 7 years on his vegan diet!
Together with a professional vet specialising in animal nutrition, we developed our first vegan, grain-free and 100% complete food for dogs.
VEGDOG was born!”
We were so taken with a video of Nelson eating VegDog Senior No 1 tinned food shown below, that we now import and sell it in the UK for all our own ‘Golden Oldies’ like Nelson who was lucky enough to live for another 7 healthy years had it not been for a vegan diet!
Watch the video of these happy rescue vegan dogs below – you will be amazed just as we were!
April just loves Give A Dog A Bean!
I have never seen such a manic reaction from two lazy dogs, they scoffed Give A Dog A Bean as if this was the first meal they’ve had in a long time
Beautiful Loki the Vizsla loves Give A Dog A Bean
He’s on Solo Vegetal, as I’ve always been a dry food feeder for convenience, but he goes absolutely nuts for your Give A Dog A Bean!
Arthur the Diabetic Labrador thrives on his plant-based diet
Just as in humans, the best diet when suffering from diabetes, is a balanced fibre rich, plant-based diet