Sustainable Food for Pets

Should sustainable food aficionados enforce their food ethics on their pets? I've heard of people who tried to make their cats and dogs go vegetarian or vegan - or even kosher! And recently, I saw Whole Foods offering vegetarian dog treats. (I've also heard about someone who accidentally killed their cat by feeding it vegan food.)

I've got 3 cats (the pic to the right is Molly, the youngest). I'm one of the most committed vegetarian locavores you'll ever meet and yet, my cats like to eat crap. There's nothing I would love more than putting my furry little friends on a local sustainable diet, but I've had very little success. Fortunately for my kitties, I harbor no illusions that they should be vegetarians. Cats are carnivores.

I've tried giving my cats local, sustainable tuna. Tuna is like crack for cats. Or, at least, it should be. The last few times I bought it for them, they turned up their noses at it. My black kitty, Raiden, took one look at the tuna and then went back to eating her dry cat food. I've even tried buying my girls more sustainable versions of cat food, like Pet Promise wet food in the wild salmon flavor. But they just aren't interested.

I'm curious what others thing about this, because I've basically given up. I figure my girls are going to eat what they want to eat, and feeding them cat food is better than letting them out where they might take out endangered songbirds or lizards. But I wonder - what did people feed their pets before processed pet food came along? And when will local pet food start hitting farmers' markets? Or is the secret that we just need to buy the meat already sold at the market and feed that to our pets? As a vegetarian, I'm not about to bring meat into the house if I don't know my kitties will actually eat it (they've rejected Thanksgiving turkey before). The last thing I want is to be stuck with a bunch of meat that neither me nor my girls want to eat.