There are so large animals than ever before. Unfortunately, this is not to the animals’ advantage, as most of them live under extremely questionable conditions and are used for meat production. There are 40,000 lions in Africa. At the same time, there are 1 billion pigs kept by humans. There are 1.6 billion wild birds in Europe and nearly twice as many captive chickens. In conventional barn systems, up to 6,000 animals are kept in a barn, 9 animals per square meter, which is the space of 1.5 sheets of A4 paper per animal. For the chickens, this means one thing above all else: stress. They cannot pursue their natural “hobbies”; they cannot forage, scratch, or peck. Why? Because they have neither access to the outdoors, meaning they never see the sun , nor bedding to grow up with a modicum of dignity. Cannibalism and feather pecking are usually the result of this lack of activity. The chickens often fall ill quickly. It only takes one sick animal for 5,999 others to be mandatorily given prophylactic antibiotics. Animal transport are not subject to time limits—a truck carrying live animals can legally travel from Moscow to Madrid for 60 hours.

In addition, the problem of conventional factory farming goes far beyond the ethical dilemma . For factory farming fuels our ecological catastrophe. And it’s not just about farting cattle. Manure seeps through the pasture into our groundwater, from there into the rivers, and eventually into the sea, where it destroys vast biotopes. In the 5 minutes since you started reading this blog, an area of rainforest the size of 210 soccer fields has been cleared, much of it to create farmland for cattle or for soy production to feed them. Factory farming accounts for a far greater share of global CO2 emissions than flying did before the pandemic.

So we love our dogs, yet at the same time, other animals are being mistreated and climate change is being exacerbated. How can we resolve this paradox?

The first and easiest solution: I’ll get rid of my dogs. It’s been nice having you around, but I don’t want to cause suffering to other animals because of you. That this is only a theoretical possibility is, at the very least, quite clear to all dog owners. All I have to do is look my dogs in the eyes—or worse yet: try to explain to my children that their best friends are being taken away.

The second option: I feed my dogs no meat anymore. This option divides many dog owners. Just recently, I had a long conversation with a canine nutritionist who told me that there is no vegan food on the market that meets 100% of a dog’s nutritional needs. It seems the time isn’t quite right yet, and more research and development are needed. Vegetarian foods are available here and there, yet many still struggle to completely eliminate meat from their dogs’ diets. Until a few years ago, it was considered proven that dogs carnivores, i.e., meat-eaters. Meanwhile, many scientists assume that dogs—just like us humans—are omnivores , meaning they eat both meat and plants. According to current research, the ideal meat content in dog food is 30–50% of the food.

The third option is one that we should all can implement , right here and now. Because there is meat for which the animals can live , and unlike the chickens just described litter , 4 m² of outdoor space per chicken and can lead a much better life than in conventional farming. We’re talking about organic meat.