Professor Andrew Knight (vegan), Part 4 of 4 - The Plant-Based, Healthiest Diet for Our Animal Companions

“Using this gradual transition and patience and persistence, the most stubborn of animals have been mostly or fully transitioned onto a plant-based diet successfully.” We know from all Supreme Master Ching Hai’s many lectures that a dog or a cat can easily be vegan. She shared a story about Her animal visitor during one of Her retreats, to let us know that all animals, in their hearts, want to change for the better and long for compassionate lives. “We are having a human body now. We can do many things. Butonce you lose a human body, it’s difficult. But animals, they know all this. They know more than humans. I don’t mean all animals know or care about enlightenment, but many of them do. They understand. It’s just they don’t have a choice. All the spiders that I have encountered, they said they listen to my teaching. They don’t eat live insects anymore. And the skunk’s also like that. He doesn’t want to eat any more of the live things, like live insects or live animals, all that in the garden. That’s why he asked my dog how to find other food.”

“And then I said, ‘Is there anything else I can give you, because I am not a skunk, I don’t know what you like?’ He said, ‘It’s OK already, that’s very good. (Vegan) dog food is good.’ And then I asked him, ‘But how did you know about the dog’s food? Because the skunks, they don’t know anything about this dog food, how would you come and eat the (vegan) dog food, as if you’re my dog?’ He said, ‘Sozy told me that You will feed me.’” “I said, ‘Of course, I would feed you. I did not know before, I thought it’s better to leave you alone. Because I never knew how to feed a skunk before. And I thought a natural life is better for you.’ But he doesn’t like to eat those snails and frogs and stuff. So, Sozy was hanging around some time before, and so she told him that, ‘You come and talk to Master, She will feed you.’ Because they talk to each other, you know?” “So, one day, I think, maybe he’s very small. He’s only six or seven months old. So maybe he likes soft food. So I told the person who takes care, ‘Put hot water to soak it first; he likes it better.’ He went around and said, ‘Thank You. Thank You.’ He turned around, around and said, ‘Thank You.’ Just like dogs when they chase their tails. Maybe he learned it from Sozy, I don’t know, my dog.”