Animal farts - Is my dog too windy?

Anyone who’s ever owned a dog or cat will know that as well as being loving friends they are also walking fart machines. This page contains astounding animal fart facts. How astounding? Here’s a cat reading the page, so judge for yourself:

Dogs and cats

Almost all mammals fart, but dogs and cats can produce some real stinkers. How is it possible that such cute, and often small, furry friends can produced gas that can strip wallpaper? To a great extent this depends on what they eat. Dogs and cats are actually omnivores rather than carnivores as they are often thought to be, but have a clear preference for meat if it’s available. All good and well, but meat is rich in protein, and protein is rich in sulfur. Eggs are also protein-rich and it’s the sulfur in the protein that makes farts smell so bad. In addition, many pet foods are soy-based, which means that they not only contain essential proteins and amino acids, but also contain the same sugars found in beans, and beans means fartz, in humans as well as many other animals. This is because some of the sugars, such as raffinose, are difficult to digest and produce large quantities of gas as part of the process. Another factor is that, for similar reasons to the above, dogs and cats have difficulty breaking down vegetables, especially greens such as peas, broccoli and sprouts. If your dog or cat munches on greens it will be especially gassy. You have been warned… If your dog or cat seems to fart too much you could try varying its diet. If it really does seem excessive it could be a sign that something isn’t right and you should speak to a vet.

Horses, cows and sheep

Unlike dogs and cats, horses, cows and sheep are herbivores, in other words they feed on plants. They have specially adapted guts that can break down and make use of the chemicals found in plants that dogs and cats can’t, and humans can only do sometimes (we can and should eat vegetables, but we derive virtually nothing useful from eating grass, which could even be dangerous). Cows in particular are known for their long, loud and proud farts. This is because they need to swallow large quantities of air in order to aid the digestion carried out by internal protozoa -- single-celled organisms that feed on organic matter. A by-product of cow digestion is the large quantities of methane that they expel, although most of this is actually from burps, and not farts as most people think. Methane in itself doesn’t smell (domestic and industrial gas companies add chemicals to it so you will know if there’s a gas leak), but other chemicals in the cow’s gut add small quantities of chemicals that do. Even so, cow and other herbivore farts aren’t usually all that smelly, especially given the volume produced, both in terms of amount and loudness. (Dogs and cats, though, are masters of the SBD.) A final point is that the amount of methane, a greenhouse gas, produced by cows often comes up in environmental discussions. However, although the agriculture industry accounts for around 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, not all of those emissions come from the cows themselves. Soil, land, feed, and manure management are also contributors and so the picture is quite complex.