You can't get love, joy, companionship from those pieces of cumbersome tin. 80 % of the people who own a SUV have to pay to put mud on the side in their fancy suburbs - they have NO need for the cars. We have raised at least threes vegetarian dogs. This article is clearly written by people who don't have an animal - they admit that - as most informed dog owners know there is no requirement to feed a healthy dog the kind of food that was used to calculate this sensationalist rubbish.

Furthermore the article is written from the most arrogant imaginable point of view - that degrades animals, sentient creatures, to a par with yet another toy for human whimsy, interchangeable depending on the day of the week. As for the repulsive suggestion that one eat your pet - again clearly these people have never formed a relationship with other living creatures. My gran had a pet lamb that was slaughtered - it was something that traumatised her as a child so much that even literally lying in frail care, days before she died, she talked about it.

Stop eating meat and see how the carbon footprint changes; 1.5 billion Indians can't be wrong.

Otherwise perhaps the authors should recommend we eat the humans we currently dislike. It would save on the carbon footprint of prison populations.

I think people need to be more rational and less emotional about this topic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that dogs in the first world live better (and eat better) than our fellow human beings in the developing world. There is seriously something wrong with that picture. Common sense tells us that there are finite amount of resources and land therefore only certain amount of resources/food can be circulated per person. However this is not reality. Nor is it balanced or fair. In fact many of these resources are going to pets (esp. Dogs which consumes a lot) and this is really a testement of our indulgences. The Vale's aren't telling you to literally eat your dog, but think about the choices you make and how it can impact the planet and hence everyone living within. If you want to keep your dog for sentimental reasons, then consider changing your resource hungry habits by becoming a vegetarian and not throwing away food.

I have issue with this study, too. It starts out trying to be really specific when measuring the dog's eco-footprint. They measure how much land it takes to produce the food the dog will eat in a year, and give the seemingly precise measurements of animal and plant products they used to determine the square acreage. But then the SUV gets away with the very vague "One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year," and that's it? That's the evidence we get to compare to how much energy it takes to feed a dog? HOW is the land producing that energy? Fossil fuels? Hydro-electricity? Where is the metal and rubber and plastic coming from to build the SUV? So yeah, I agree with those that are calling shame on this study. Shame!

Do they mention that dog food is made up of meat from “Rendering Plants” (food processing)? Humans won't eat this meat in the U.S. (and the government says that’s it’s not fit for human consumption). Meat from rendering plants is all waste, essentially animal by-products that would be thrown away. Also when cows, chicken and swine eat, they process corn and wheat that humans cannot eat (I do know that corn is not their natural food). Not to mention making a car requires the use of animal by-products (the factory machinery needs lubricants from animal by-products, not to mention industrial chemicals using the same by-products). I think the authors have no idea how consumer products are manufactured (food is a consumer product).

Also I wonder if I feed my dog all table scraps or my local butchers surplus meat and not dog food is the impact the same? It is certainly less than a human baby or an inmate in a prison.

What's wrong with today's people? If getting rid of a pets frees up food for people that are starving I'm all for it. Stop trying to make animals equal to humans!

My question is, how do Mr and Mrs. Vale type their manuscripts with their heads so far up their asses?

Instead of wasting time targeting pet owners, why don't we worry first about major sources of "carbon footprint" such as industrial emissions and other harms? Owning a pet doesn't make you responsible for the damage done by pet food companies.

And by the way, it's wrong to eat a dog because they've been bred for thousands of years as companion/working animals that crave human love and companionship. Cows are bred to be stupid livestock.

Some of you guys need to calm down and stop reacting so fast... Eating a dog is sick (they do it in China & Korea by the way...) and yet eating a cow isn't? Besides, the point here isn't to eat your dog...it's a marketing scheme to catch attention. This is just food for thought that domestic dogs have a significant eco footprint. Not nearly as much as a single human, but comparable to...a car. Some people who need company will still want a loyal dog, just as some(most) people need cars for traveling. For those who don't "need" a dog's company, maybe they'll give up having one because of this.

Such a sick idea, Robert vale, you better start eating brenda, and brenda, even that helps to reduce the so called foot print. I agree with a previous comment, such sick people gets even the good-willed environmentalists a bad name.

How much does a kid consume? And what about a grown-up? By comparing we could determine which specie to destroy.

I too strongly disagree with that "study".

One of the big things that get folks into trouble is selective disclosure of information. Once it's inevitably discovered that the methods are politically vs scientifically motivated it brings the entire house of cards down. Witness the recent uncovering of this very thing by those who call themselves scientists in what's referred to as "Climategate." I think this pet vs auto study helps to show just how foolish much of the selectively released global warming scare information has been over the last several years. To blatantly state that one thing counts towards a carbon footprint (which is bad..right?) and another does not for some foolish reason only invalidates the work and makes those who blather so appear as foolish as they are.