Fish Oil and a Special Diet For The Dog

Having an older dog means having to watch over her and make sure you adjust.  When she's been "the same for years" it's a bit of a surprise when you have to change things.

It's just good luck that she seems to like the change.

I'm surprised since I don't like the stuff for myself.

Mrs Dog is going to be 12 in November.  I hadn't realized that it was quite "That Old" until a good friend here, Constance, reminded me that she's going through those changes near the end of her life.

In those words.  It was also a bit of a shock.

After the seizures, she's bounced back.  Those were more then a year or so ago and a year before that.  You wouldn't know she's had them.  Her slowness is just starting to show, and we've now got "Shade Walks" for the 6pm walk.  High summer will melt anyone, and in Florida, you'll see people standing in the shade of a stop light pole instead of out in the sun.  It's what we do here, and why should a dog be any different, especially a mostly black dog.

Yes, she's a solar panel and she wilts in full sun.

We've been quite lucky.  Her breed, the McNab Dog, has not been ruined by popularity, inbreeding, and "fashion".  She's been healthy for the most part, excluding those seizures.  She's eating what she had been when I found her as an adolescent almost 10 years ago, but that's about to change.

See she's "leaking" in the middle of the night and after some tests she's now on antibiotics and will be starting a special diet.  I've been told that some dogs are on a special diet since almost day one.  Most of that is fashion and "affect", but in this case it is prescribed.

Yes, prescribed food.  A "Renal Diet" which is supposedly low protein, high "energy".  I guess it's higher carbohydrate so we'll see how that goes.  She's still got her energy as long as she's not outside soaking up old Sol.

She's also taking nearly as many vitamins as I do.  One of the changes is to add Fish Oil to her diet.   Dogs should take twice as much as humans per pound.   So on top of her food, she gets one golden capsule.   The food has become a production now as well.

One cup dry food, two ounces water, microwave for 20 seconds.  Add 1/2 pill for thyroid, one Glucosamine capsule, and now the Fish Oil.  Luckily she likes all of those.  Glucosamine is sweet, the thyroid is supposed to be just neutral tasting, and the Fish oil...

Ever have a can of Tuna?  Compressed into a pill? 

Now you know why those bottles come in a "Burp Free" variety with an extra thick capsule.   Fish Oil Burps are the worst.  Like someone stuffed a trout down your throat.

Being a Dog, she doesn't find that terrible, yet.  She bites down on that pill filling the kitchen with a faint scent of the sea and chews the daylights out of it.

Mmmm Fishy!

As long as it keeps her around a couple extra years.  I don't mind the effort, and walking behind the shopping center to stay in the shade in High Summer is not terrible.  It's just a bit odd visiting the back of all the shops that people come from all over the world to visit the front of.