the dose I have been told repeatedly by several sources is 1000 mg fish oil per 10 lbs. dog per day. I’m not sure where that number came from. You can try it, or:
See studies below, they seem to suggest you should aim for approximately 3 to 4% of the diet to be fish oil.
So if you feed your dog 4 g of fish oil for every 96 g of kibble, you’d hit 4% (you will need a kitchen scale to see how much your kibble weighs). If you’re using EVO weight management as your kibble, at 15% fat, and you add that much fish oil, you’ll end up at a comfortable 18.5% fat in the diet. That will obviously increase the kcals your dog gets vs. kibble alone, so you’ll have to take that into account in your quest to keep the dog skinny, which is probably more important than feeding fish oil.
There are other studies I haven’t posted showed that if you decrease the amount of omega-6 fatty acids while simultaneously increasing the omega-3 fatty acids (adding fish oil) you get a better clinical effect- in kibble, simply avoiding kibbles with grains will reduce the omega-6 content dramatically.
J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2010 Jan 1;236(1):67-73.
Evaluation of the effects of dietary supplementation with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids on weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis.
Roush JK, Cross AR, Renberg WC, Dodd CE, Sixby KA, Fritsch DA, Allen TA, Jewell DE, Richardson DC, Leventhal PS, Hahn KA.
Source
Department of Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To evaluate the effects of a food supplemented with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids on weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis.
DESIGN:
Randomized, double-blinded, controlled clinical trial.
ANIMALS:
38 client-owned dogs with osteoarthritis examined at 2 university veterinary clinics.
PROCEDURES:
Dogs were randomly assigned to receive a typical commercial food (n = 16) or a test food (22) containing 3.5% fish oil omega-3 fatty acids. On day 0 (before the trial began) and days 45 and 90 after the trial began, investigators conducted orthopedic evaluations and force-plate analyses of the most severely affected limb of each dog, and owners completed questionnaires to characterize their dogs’ arthritis signs.
RESULTS:
The change in mean peak vertical force between days 90 and 0 was significant for the test-food group (5.6%) but not for the control-food group (0.4%). Improvement in peak vertical force values was evident in 82% of the dogs in the test-food group, compared with 38% of the dogs in the control-food group. In addition, according to investigators’ subjective evaluations, dogs fed the test food had significant improvements in lameness and weight bearing on day 90, compared with measurements obtained on day 0.
CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE:
At least in the short term, dietary supplementation with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids resulted in an improvement in weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis.
PMID: 20043801 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
J Vet Intern Med. 2010 Sep-Oct;24(5):1020-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-1676.2010.0572.x. Epub 2010 Aug 12.
Dose-titration effects of fish oil in osteoarthritic dogs.
Fritsch D, Allen TA, Dodd CE, Jewell DE, Sixby KA, Leventhal PS, Hahn KA.
Source
Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc, Topeka, KS 4Clinics, Paris, France. dale_fritsch@hills.pet.com
Erratum in
J Vet Intern Med. 2011 Jan-Feb;25(1):167.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Food supplemented with fish oil improves clinical signs and weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis (OA).
OBJECTIVE:
Determine whether increasing the amount of fish oil in food provides additional symptomatic improvements in OA.
ANIMALS:
One hundred and seventy-seven client-owned dogs with stable chronic OA of the hip or stifle.
METHODS:
Prospective, randomized clinical trial using pet dogs. Dogs were randomly assigned to receive the baseline therapeutic food (0.8% eicosopentanoic acid [EPA] + docosahexaenoic acid [DHA]) or experimental foods containing approximately 2- and 3-fold higher EPA+DHA concentrations. Both veterinarians and owners were blinded as to which food the dog received. On days 0, 21, 45, and 90, serum fatty acid concentrations were measured and veterinarians assessed the severity of 5 clinical signs of OA. At the end of the study (day 90), veterinarians scored overall arthritic condition and progression of arthritis based on their clinical signs and an owner interview.
RESULTS:
Serum concentrations of EPA and DHA rose in parallel with food concentrations. For 2 of 5 clinical signs (lameness and weight bearing) and for overall arthritic condition and progression of arthritis, there was a significant improvement between the baseline and 3X EPA+DHA foods (P=.04, .03, .001, .0008, respectively) but not between the baseline and the 2X EPA+DHA foods.
CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE:
Increasing the amount of fish oil beyond that in the baseline food results in dose-dependent increases in serum EPA and DHA concentrations and modest improvements in the clinical signs of OA in pet dogs.
Copyright © 2010 by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.
PMID: 20707845 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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