What are the best eye & heart supplements for my 9-year-old dog?

A good quality essential fatty acid supplement, such as DermCaps or EicosaCaps, will promote healthy skin and coat. A quality multi-vitamin such as Pet Tabs, VetriScience tabs or NuPro can be added to a quality diet. Recommended joint supplements include Welactin, Dasuquin or Cosequin. The most important factor is to keep Mila lean and active. Obesity and inactivity will negatively impact her life and may shorten it. Regular veterinary care, especially echocardiograms when she is older, may identify any conditions early.

Omega 3 fatty acids for pets can help with heart health. Royal Canin makes a diet for dogs with heart disease. Lastly, it is not fully understood, but there appears to be a link between grain free dog food and heart enlargement. If you are feeding a grain free diet, you may talk with your veterinarian about a diet change. I hope this helps.

Supplements are usually unnecessary as long as you are feeding a formulated dog food. There are various supplements that have shown mixed results about preventing certain diseases and helping with treatment with certain diseases, but the scientific evidence is not enough (despite a great deal of research with some supplements) for me to recommend an owner to give supplements to a healthy dog. The CoQ10 is a more recently studied supplement that does show promise for certain conditions, but again, the evidence is lacking enough that I wouldn't recommend it be given regularly to prevent certain conditions. The CoQ10 supplements and other ones are usually rather safe though, so I can't say it will hurt to give them. I would recommend consulting with your vet before you do in case Gerald has any conditions that would contraindicate their use and so you can get a precise dose for Gerald. I hope that helps and all is well with Gerald.

Hello. Thank you for using PetCoach. Peanut is very handsome! The most common thing that happens as large breed dogs age is arthritis so I would just put him on a good all around supplement that contains joint supplements in it. I love this supplement by Missing Link. http://www.allivet.com/p-1647-missing-link-vet-canine-plus.aspx Some signs he may have arthritis are: * having a hard time getting up from a down position * not jumping up on the couch, bed, etc like he normally does (if he does that) * slowing down on walks (like he doesn't seem like he can go as far as he used to) Even if he is not showing signs of arthritis I would put him on a joint supplement. The other thing I would recommend is yearly blood testing with your vet to check his organ function. Declining organ function is not something you can see from the outside just by looking at your dog. Usually by the time you do see something abnormal it is often too late to do anything about it. It is better to test yearly so you can catch things early. Peanut looks to be in great shape! You are doing a great job! Hope this answers your questions. Please post again if you have more question. Best wishes.

If you are giving Motis a dog food formulated for senior dogs, she will be getting all the vitamins and minerals she needs to be healthy. You can give her a glucosamine supplemental which will help with her joint health, but otherwise no other supplements are needed. Too many vitamins and minerals can be detrimental to her health, so you want to avoid overdosing her on those. I recommend feeding a high quality senior dog food food such as Royal Canin, Hills Science Diet, Purina ProPlan, or Iams. Best of luck.

A heart supplement wouldn’t hurt but she probably doesn’t necessarily need one, particularly if she does not have documented heart disease. If you choose to use a supplement I would recommend VetriScience Cardio. You should always check with your vet before starting any supplement.

I'd recommend Dasuquin or Cosequin, which are excellent joint supplements. You can also give Peluche fish oil supplements, which help with fur and eyes. For every 30 pounds of body weight, give him 1,000 mg fish oil containing 300 mg of EPA/DHA combined. Best of luck.