[Christine B]

I am new to this site and I am not sure if this is the correct topic area, but I am hoping so. My girlfriend almost hit a dog on a road just before Christmas ’13 and picked her up and brought her home, after trying to locate an owner, I volunteered to take her and picked her up on Christmas Day. She was boney, dirty and full of flea’s. After cleaning her up, and doing some bonding and behavior correction (she was tearing my kitchen garbage up like crazy, poor thing), I took her to the Vet. The Vet approx., her age at 13 yrs old, deaf as a doorknob, cloudy older dog eyes and one ear is malformed, she has very few teeth. The latter is why I am here. She CANNOT eat hard/semi hard food, she refuses to eat the canned food and I have tried so many different brand’s I could donate to a pet shelter! I have left food in the bowl for an entire day and she still refuses it. I have been cutting up lunch meat, boiled eggs and small bits of chicken, pork chops, ground beef. I have come across something she seems to enjoy, Royal Canine Starter Mousse for mother an baby dogs. I’ve searched the web for a senior mousse to no avail. Anyone know whether any pet food manufacturer produces a mousse for senior canines?

• This topic was modified 11 years, 8 months ago by Christine B.

[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Christine –

I’m fairly certain that Royal Canin only makes the canned mousse for puppies. There’s no reason you can’t feed this to a senior dog. In general, most foods labeled for “seniors” are a marketing ploy and nothing more. Seniors don’t need a special food, a quality all life stages food works great and in fact better than most senior foods. Many companies, unfortunately, get it wrong when it comes to senior food formulation and reduce the protein levels when it’s well known that seniors actually require more protein than adults.

With this said, you definitely could find a better product than Royal Canin – imo. My recommendation would be to try a quality 4 or 5 star canned food and mix in a spoonful or two of Tripett (canned tripe). If this doesn’t work you could look into some other moist options such as a dehydrated or freeze-dried food (re-hydrate to canned food consistency) or Fresh Pet (refrigerated). If she seems to like “human” food you could also look into making a homemade diet if you think that’s something you could afford and have the time to do. If you want to make food completely from scratch I’d recommend checking out “Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet” by Steve Brown and/or “Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats” by Dr. Karen Becker. There are also numerous pre-mixes available for making homemade diets. Generally, with pre-mixes you only need to add fresh meat and, if you want, other extras such as eggs, yogurt, etc. The mix will usually contain vegetables, fruits and vitamins/minerals. My favorite pre-mix is See Spot Live Longer Dinner Mix, I also like Urban Wolf. There are several out there though.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 8 months ago by Hound Dog Mom.

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