Feeding My Senior Dog, Featuring Jordan & Kai

My rescue dog Kai is a husky/malamute cross and is over 12 years old. She has never broken a bone, torn a ligament, needed an allergy pill or had a tooth extraction. She is a healthy weight, has a luxuriously thick coat, clear eyes, and at her last checkup, the vet referred to her as "an athlete."

So what do I feed my senior dog to keep her in her prime? General rule: she never eats the same thing twice in a row. That’s not because she’s picky, but rather I feed her a well-thought-out rotational raw food diet to cover all of her nutritional needs. Chicken, turkey, duck, beef, pork, rabbit, lamb, bison, venison, arctic charr, sardine, salmon…

These meats all have varying levels of important amino acids (the building blocks of protein), but also different fat and organ nutrient profiles. Red meats offer high levels of zinc and iron, whereas poultry has lower levels of phosphorus, which is easier on her kidneys, and is often lower in fat. What this means for Kai is that any deficiencies (or abundances!) from one protein will be balanced out by the others over the course of the week.

On a more basic level, my little carnivore enjoys the different textures each brand offers, ranging from finely ground to hearty chunks. Each brand will also add different additional components like Artisan Raw Signature blend’s green beef tripe (a great source of manganese, often missing from raw diets), Big Country Raw’s wheatgrass and blueberries (nutritional powerhouses), Nature’s Premium’s elk velvet antler (great for joints), or  Healthy Paws’ canine-specific probiotic blend (a healthy gut biome is a healthy immune system). Since she’s happy to eat a variety, there are no issues if a particular product is out of stock or suffers a production shortage.

Kai's food freezer is routinely filled with Canadian raw food brands such as Artisan Raw , Healthy Paws,  Big Country Raw, Bold By Nature, Back2Raw, Natural Instincts, Nature’s Premium, and Red Dog Blue Kat. I feed her twice a day, and she generally gets an evening treat of a Hero rabbit ear or a Puppy Love air-dried duck wing. Since she is a natural hunter, I often hide her meal or a frozen turkey neck in the backyard and make her sniff it out, fulfilling that instinctual desire.

All of these products are available here at Viva Pets, and help to keep my little athlete sprinting through the trees at Buena Vista dog park, just like when she was a puppy!

Much love,

Jordan and Kai

Jordan has over six years of experience in the pet nutrition retail industry and over ten years of experience with raw feeding his rescue dogs. His dogs Kai and Xaler are never happier than when they’re running in deep snow or splashing in the North Saskatchewan.