According to their figures, feeding a medium-sized dog for a year has twice the environmental impact of driving a luxury SUV for 10,000 kilometres.
The Vales based their calculations on the amount of acreage needed to sustain the dog's diet of 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals in a year - both figures measuring food weight before it is dried and processed into kibbles.
Pets are not something we usually think of in terms of having an environmental impact, but they must.