Sorry your information here is inacurrate.
Young mammals produce lactase to digest their mothers milk. Beyond weaning they no longer produce it. Herbivore/omnivore/carnivore doesn't come into it.

Ahhh, cheer's hun

And at the risk of picking holes. (But what they hey! )
The Lactose in the calf's stomach wouldn't be predigested since it's digestion takes place in the small intestine, not the stomach as far as I'm aware anyway.

The point I was trying to make is that it is unnatural for any mammal, us, a canid, a herbivore, to drink the milk of another species.

However, all mammals (obviously!) produce milk to feed their young, and all mammals in their infant years produce lactase, an enzyme, to digest the lactose (which is a sugar). In addition to lactose intolerance, mammals have the problem of digesting proteins in the milk of another species, such as caseine. I am very rusty here, dredging my memory for what I learned when my daughter was so sick. As a tiny wee baby, I flatly refused to give her cows milk because of the lactose, I later believed that it was proteins like caseine that could have been causing problems as well/instead of.

It is an unnatural thing to feed the milk of another species to a young mammal - I guess that is what I am saying here.

The milk topic once again...

It is my belief, from the information I have gathered thus far, that both humans and dogs stop producing lactase if the milk stops coming.
For example if a vegetarian was to be given milk, they would get a sore tummy and the squits, and the same with dogs.
I drink milk, and so do my dogs, without side effects. My logic therefore tells me that they CAN and do digest milk.

Finally there is nutrtion to be gotten from milk, esp raw, if availible. Young mammals live off it entirely. Until someone convinces me otherwise, I will continue to feed it to my dogs and myself. I feel they clearly enjoy it, as they finish it off, unlike water which is taken when needed.

So, Evie, sorry, I pressed the button by mistake on the above posting, our mammal - canid, in this case - is fed the milk of another mammalian species, the cow. Why should the lactase that the canid produces, be able to digest the lactose that the cow produces?

I'm not saying it can't, I personally think it can't, but I'm playing devil's advocate here for the sake of a good discussion !

This suggests that you feel that we are unnatural, (as humans) as I believe we have been feeding on this natural foodstuff from goats and cows since the beginning of farming...

Good point Jess. I drink skimmed milk in my tea and a small amount on cereal every morning. I don't believe I need to do this for calcium, because I eat meat and fish, and as I know to my cost, my bones and teeth are exceedingly strong - according to my orthopaedic surgeon I have the bones of a 38 year old, and I am 54 in a few days time ... wish I had the figure and looks as well !!

However, I do believe that there are many humans (and ipso facto, canids) who cannot digest milk, and it makes them very ill. My daughter is one of them, and my dog another. It is a very unnatural thing past the normal age of suckling to drink the milk of your own species, let alone another species, and I think if we feed milk, say, to our dogs, we need to watch carefully that this is an OK thing to do. Clearly in your case Jess, it is, and in my case and my husband's. However, in my daughter's, it is not.

Horses for courses again I suppose.

I totally agree. As far as all infant animals are concerned breast is always best. For human babies, have you ever looked at the list of ingrediants on the side of a pack of formula... if they need to add that much stuff to the milk to make it digestable there's def something up. (Infact mares' (horse) milk is closer in structure to human milk than cows' is.)
But we're getting into a whole other topic here!!!

I too have met dogs unable to process milk, but far more that can, and the fact that they seem to enjoy it so, and not have any adverse side effects makes me pleased.

I was affected by cows milk as a child, however I seem to have grown out of the problem, here is hoping your daughter will too (or grow to like soya milk - or whatever it is nowadays!)