Meleasa, I understand your struggle trying to figure out what’s best for your little seniors. I’ve been there myself… and I know how exhausting it is to be constantly worrying about the right choices that support our fur baby’s well-being.
Both terms “Senior” and “Small Breed” are marketing terms the pet food industry uses to sell more junk food đ My Shit-tzu looking little one is also 9.5 y/o. I stopped feeding him kibble & canned food many years ago when I learned about the dangers of these processed diets. I encourage you to watch the documentary “Pet Fooled” on Netflix to learn about the truth and how kibble is made.
Luckily, there are a few amazing holistic and integrative vets educating dog lovers online about the importance of fresh food diets and the essential nutrients dogs need. My personal favourite is Dr. Peter Dobias. He has created a free Natural Diet Course which contains videos and articles full of information on this subject;
https://peterdobias.com/pages/course-rawdiet – It’s super helpful to learn the basics!
He also has an online Recipe Maker, which will help you build healthy meals for your dogs with the ingredients you have available. It provides guidance on amounts of each ingredient and which ingredients are best;
https://recipemaker.peterdobias.com
The key is to offer a variety of both proteins and vegetables, and add essential nutrients to help fill in any deficiencies;
Dog Essentials
I’m so happy we switched from processed food to home-made. It takes some time to learn the principles but it is so worth your energy investment because you will be saving a lot of money on future vet bills. I hope these free resources will be helpful for your pups and you get to enjoy many more happy and health years together! đ
