Forget a hybrid, ditch the dog

So forget about buying that Prius, just ditch the dog... maybe not. Researchers found that keeping a relatively average-sized dog can have a similar ecological impact as driving 10,000km a year in a big SUV.

According to the book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, New Zealand-based architects Robert and Brenda Vale worked out that an average dog goes through about 164kg of meat and 95kg of cereals a year, they then applied lots of complicated methods (which we know you don't really want to read) to work out how much of an ecological footprint cats and dogs make based on the amount of land needed to grow common brands of pet food.

Apparently driving a popular SUV for a year requires around 0.41 hectares of land, at the same time growing and manufacturing a single dog's food takes about 0.84 ha, although if you own a bigger dog, say a German shepherd, it'll be around 1.1 ha.

Cat lovers don't need to rejoice, although given their smaller size the results are more favourable, an average cat's eco-footprint is still around 0.15 ha, which is just under the resources a brand new Volkswagen Golf would need during the same period.

Australians would be proud to know that the ecological footprint of an average human in a country such as hours is 6ha, whilst those in the developing world use about 1.8ha.

So the next time someone tells you to take that V8 home and think of the planet, perhaps it will be worth telling them their two poodles in the back seat use more energy resources!

Nonetheless we are still somewhat undecided as to whether the book's methods are scientifically solid.

The book description reads:

Would you ditch your dog to save the planet?