Dogs are an amazing health benefit, not only getting their owner to take long walks every day, but brilliant for mental health too.

Dogs are not only part of a larger family of animals including bears and raccoons that are omnivores, dogs too are omnivores.

In the wild they are opportunistic scavengers of many things, always ready to try something different. They have molars at the back of the jaw, able to grind up vegetable matter.

Wolves in the wild have been known to eat grasses, fruit and nuts. So a completely meat diet is not entirely natural.

There was some ethical doubt on giving a dog vegetarian food. The ethical view of dog care is actually focused on the dog.

Is it healthy? Is it enjoying the food? And is it getting all its necessary nutrients? If the answer to all three is yes, then the dog is eating the right food.

READ MORE: People should only shop once a week, says Government Minister

The nutrients are key, as there are several nutrients which they need – a different mix to us, of course, but they can get them without meat, just as we can.

You have to cover the whole variety or your dog could get ill. Pet food regulations are not as strict as ours so you have to be careful.

Why go to this bother at all? The meat in pet food comes from animals which need feeding from grain frequently grown on land recently cleared from rainforest. An average UK dog has a land footprint of about small football pitch.

There are roughly eight million dogs in the UK, so that’s a lot of dog food. Switching to dog food without meat cuts this drastically.