Senior Dog Food question?

[Mutt_Lady]

Kyra is a Labrador Retriever mix (possible purebred though) who is going on 8 years old in the early New Year. I was wondering at what age do you put your pooch on a Senior Dog Food? I'm pretty clueless about this. But K has slowed down and she's definitely becoming more of an "older gal". Is there a specific way you guys knew when to put your dog on the Sr. Food?

Also, what is the main purpose of Sr. Food? What does it do for an older dog?

[ObedienceGrrl]

A lot of the senior foods have a lower fat content. Some are easier to chew as well.

The time varies for each breed. Usually around 7-8. But for giant breeds, 4-5 and for toy breeds sometimes as late as 9.

[gooeydog]

Most senior foods put grain higher in the ingredient list than the meat ingredients, so the protein/fat in the food is lower, which is thought to be better for senior dogs. In most cases, a senior dog will do just as well (if not better, since most will do better with more meat in their food than grains) on a lower protein dog food suitable for adult dogs (some foods have a type suitable for "all ages", these are fine as well). Lamb formulas of foods are generally lower in protein/fat than chicken or beef formulas, if it helps in case you decide to just find a lower protein adult food.

There has also been some debate on whether senior dogs really need a lower protein ratio, or whether they should still get the same amount, maybe even higher. The argument for this is that since their organs aren't running quite as effeciently as in the past, they need a little more nutrient input than a younger dog would, simply because they don't get as much nutrition out of the same amount of nutrients as they would have in their younger years.

My senior dog is sensitive to many types of grains, so I didn't want to switch her to a food with more of them in it if I could help it at all. Instead, I switched to a dry food with a fairly low protein/fat (23%/13%, respectively), and lamb based canned food (she always been fed canned food, so I didn't want to eliminate it from her diet completely also with a slightly lower protein than other varieties of the same food). I change her feeding amounts based on how she looks, and what she's been doing, lucky for me, she's an easy dog to guage by that, and her weight's been steady for the past 6 months or so. SHe usually gets around 1.5 cups, 1/2 can every night. To fill her up more, I add water into her dry food a bit before she eats it and let it soak briefly before adding in the canned food and feeding her.

Does your girl have weight problems? Or just starting to show signs of aging? If she's doing well on her current food, I'd just keep her on it until she shows otherwise.

[imported_Matty]

[url]http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1659&articleid=698[/url]

[ObedienceGrrl]

Gooeydog makes a good point about lamb. We had to go VERY low protein with our Beardie mix as she was getting older due to failing kidneys. All beef was eliminated from her diet for her last 3-4 years. In her final few weeks, she got anything she wanted just so she would eat. But that is a different story! When a 17 year old on her way out won't eat anything but a McDonald's hamburger, you can bet your A** she got that hamburger.

[TDG]

obediencegrrl, have you been following up on kidney disease research? it is actually believed now that protein itself is not the culprit as much as [b]poor quality, difficult to digest[/b] protein.

for anyone who is interested, there's a really good yahoo group on the topic, i think it's called k9kidneys.

i do [b]not[/b] like 95% of the "senior" food products on the market for the simpel fact that they are even higher in grains (which means carbs) than the regular adult foods. grains only supply energy to the dog, nothing else, while both protein and fat are essential for the maintenance of body cells, metabolic functions and other vital processes in the body while they are [b]also[/b] used as an energy supply (especially fat).

older dogs with aging bodies have a harder time digesting food and keeping up maintenance and repair of body cells - that's just the natural aging process.

why would anyone in their right mind want to speed up this process even more? if anything, senior foods should be more digestible, less fattening and have a higher concentration of certain nutrients than adult foods in order to slow it down.

don't walk - [b]run[/b] away from any senior food that has carb sources instead of protein sources as first 1-2 ingredients. pick a product that has a low ash and phosphorus content to take stress off the kidneys. if your dog is inactive and prone to gain weight, feed less and if you absolutely think you [b]must[/b] switch to a senior food, pick one that has a lower fat percentage but doesn't sacrifice protein content right along with the fat.

overall, different lifestages foods are about as necessary for dogs as a bicycle for a fish - it's all just marketing strategy. under natural circumstances, once a puppy is weaned it doesn't eat anything different than the other members of the pack, and neither do the older ones. differing nutrient requirements are met by the larger or smaller amounts of food a dog eats per pound of body weight.

the only situations where specialized formulas are of use are acute health concerns that canb only be managed through diet.

[ObedienceGrrl]

TDG,

I thought good quality protien came from good quality foods.

She was on Innova.

So if she was getting poor quality protien, is that a bad food now?

I was always told that was a good food to go with.

[TDG]

innova is an excellent food. my comment was just a general statement that eliminating protein almost entirely from the diet of a dog with failing kidneys isn't necessary.

[ObedienceGrrl]

TDG...

Ahhh....got ya! :D

[AllAmericanPUP]

i feed my senior lab Chicken soup for the dog lovers soul senior formula

Ingredients:
Chicken, turkey, oatmeal, whole grain brown rice, chicken meal, turkey meal, whole grain white rice, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), potatoes, cracked pearled barley, millet, duck, salmon, egg product, flaxseed, natural chicken flavor, kelp, potassium chloride, salt, choline chloride, glucosamine hydrochloride, chicory root extract, carrots, peas, apples, dried skim milk, cranberry powder, rosemary extract, parsley flake. Vitamins and minerals.


Guaranteed Analysis:
Crude Protein 22%
Crude Fat 12%
Moisture 10%
Crude Fiber 3%
Omega-6 Fatty Acids (min) 2.2%
Sodium 0.3%
Omega-3 Fatty Acids (min) 0.3%