# Fish oil and vit. e supps



## Samwise (May 15, 2006)

For those of you that use fish oil and vit. e supps on your dogs, can you recommend a dosage for Samwise? He's 8 months old and pushing 70lbs. I just upped him to two 1000mg capsules per day along with two 400IU of vit. e. and so far so good. On the single dose, he had some dry skin on his chest from scratching and even just a week after changing the dose it has cleared up completely.

Appreciate your help. 

Christi


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

I would also suggest a biotin pill, just the kind you get for people. According to Drs. Smith & Foster, the biotin helps in the absorption of the oils. 2000 mg is what I give of the fish oil. I also give 1 tablespoon of safflower oil. I'm not sure on the vitamin E. I haven't used that. Both of mine are in the 70-75 lb range.


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## Samwise (May 15, 2006)

Excellent, thank you. I'll have to look for the biotin. I'm assuming these are probiotics to help keep the bacteria in his gut well balanced as well as helping in absorption?

Supposedly the vit. E helps the fish oil to be absorbed better, too. I was just giving the fish oil by itself but since adding the vit. E, I've noticed a big difference and his coat is AMAZING.


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

I'll have to try the Vitamin E also. I like to keep Buffy's skin/coat in good shape because I think it really helps her fight this allergy that she has developed. It's hard to watch them be frantic and miserable with itching.

I don't know anything about probiotics.


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## Wendy (Nov 10, 2006)

okay quick question...can we give the exact same kind of caps as we take...

I take Omega 3s for my heart Vit E caps and Biotin for my skin and hair...my little one is sleeping in the room right now so i wont go in to check on dosages but whats the dosage for those for dogs?

Tink has itchy skin...shes around 15-20 lbs right now....

and

Is it easier to mix it with her food (peirce the caps of oil) or just try to give it hole? Im going to ask the vet when she goes for her rabies shot and exam Dec 1st but was just wanting to find out


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

I started Buffy on the kind that you buy from Drs. Smith & Foster and discovered that it is the same as you can buy over the counter for people. So I buy from Walmart the large bottles of fish oil 1000 mg capsules and pierce them to drain the oil. Abby will eat the whole capsule mixed in her food but Buffy will occasionally spit them out. She is the one who really needs them so I went to the piercing method. They do not seem to mind the taste of any of this.

The regime I give both of mine is (2) 1000 mg fish oil capsules, 1 tablespoon of safflower oil & (1) 1000 mg biotin tablet. Someone else had posted a couple weeks ago that their vet said even more fish oil can be given, I believe it was up to 5000 mg for an adult, so probably for Tink being so small maybe 1000 mg would be good. 

It was amazing the difference it made in Buffy's itchy condition. Plus her coat is gleaming. She was always shiny til this allergy hit.


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## Oralia Schatzman (Jun 12, 2006)

I don't know if Buffy would accept this method but, when giving medication that Bentley may spit out, I gently pry his muzzle open (which he's always let me do), hold his head up and pop it down the back of his gullet. Then I hold his muzzle, stroke him and reassure him that he's a good boy. Anything that to him is icky or uncomfortable, whether meds, ear cleaning or eyedrops, is immediately followed by a treat and lots of praise. In fact, he looks around beforehand to make sure that the treat is ready!


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

Buffy is a princess. I give her biotin tablet in a tsp of peanut butter. She doesn't mind the taste of the fish oil and it's not hard to pierce the soft capsule if you do the piercing along the edge where it is sealed together. I even found if you leave the top off the bottle the capsule gets a little softer and is even easier to pierce.


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## Wendy (Nov 10, 2006)

thanks for the info and the peanut butter with the biotin in it is a great idea!!! Ill try that


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## monomer (Apr 21, 2005)

Vit E is to keep the oil from going rancid (yes, its can even oxidize in your dog's system) however, do be careful because it does raise you dog's blood pressure if the dosage is higher than s/he is accustomed to PLUS we now know from human studies that mega-doses of Vit E leads to shorter life spans... which contradicts the long held belief that it was completely safe and without side effects in very large doses.

The very best way to increase your dog's biotin intake is with yeast tabs... because yeast is not only very rich is the B-complex but also its balance. Besides it also adds zinc and high quality protein to the diet.

We give Sidney his (wild Salmon) fish oil from a squirt bottle which dispenses one tablespoon per squirt... in my experience dogs love the taste of fish and so too fish oil. You can purchase large quantities (like a gallon or more) directly from the fish processing plants in Alaska on eBay for relatively quite cheap... one gallon has lasted Sidney about a year as we keep the extra in the fridge out in the garage. You can easily tell if fish oil has gone rancid by the color, clarity and smell of it at room temperatures.

Remember, if you begin supplementing with unsaturated fats (fish and plant oils) in large quantities (say more than 3 tablespoons a day) you might want to start adding a little animal fat as well to balance it all out. However, I would not suggest adding too much fat over-all to the diet unless you are also working your dog hard... otherwise you'll end up with a fat dog and maybe a dog with ketosis or worse. So please don't get carried away, thinking if just a little is good than a whole lot ought to be even better... wrong!


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## Brandy's Mom (Oct 5, 2005)

Hey Monomer, welcome back!!!


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## Samwise (May 15, 2006)

Monomer, 

Thank you for the very detailed post. It's really helpful. Samwise (and Ruby as well) have been on yeast for a almost six months now - I use it as a natural flea repellent. I had heard of it's other benefits but hadn't really done too much more research into it. At about 70lbs, Samwise gets two 1000mg capsules of the fish oil and two 400iu if the vitamin e each day. He seems to be doing really well on this regimen. His weight looks good on his frame but I can tell I'm going to have to watch him to keep him trim. His coat is awesome and all the dry skin has completely cleared up. Ruby takes one of each per day and she looks terrific as well. I think we'll leave things as they are until I run out the fish oil capsules and then perhaps I'll look into the wild salmon oil as you suggested.

Thanks again for your help.

Christi


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## monomer (Apr 21, 2005)

Brandy's Mom said:


> Hey Monomer, welcome back!!!


Aww, thanks... its nice to be missed. I've been teaching for 20 years and have never used a seating chart. I've found that you can easily spot an 'extra' student in the class but if someone's missing, it often takes some detective work on my part to figure out who's the one missing. Funny how those things work.

Christi... have you noticed how the 1000iu and 800iu capsules that were so prominently promoted on store shelves have mostly been replaced by the 200 and 400iu capsules? That's because it was finally determine that 400iu was probably the ideal safe, health promoting 'human' daily doesage... based upon this info, I would suggest maybe reducing Samwise's daily dosage to just one cap a day. It's just a friendly suggestion. I'm glad to hear his skin problems have responded so well to the additional oils your giving him. Yeah!

EDIT: I thought I might clarify that I'm only referring to the Vitamin E capsules... your fish oil dosage is just fine. In fact we were giving Sidney 3 tablespoons of Salmon oil daily until just recently... we've cut him back to 1 or 2 tbsp in his evening meal... he also gets some safflower oil and every so often a small amount of cod liver oil. By the way, safflower oil is naturally very rich in Vitamin E.


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

Monomer: Thanks for the info on the safflower oil being rich in Vitamin E. Since I give them both a tbsp. of safflower oil a day, I won't get the Vit. E.


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## AtticusJordie (Aug 15, 2006)

We give each of our 'kids' one fish oil capsule per day. Jordie became very adept at spitting the cap out as soon as I gave it to him. Opening his mouth and dropping it down their gullet worked--but the dogs didn't seem to keen on that approach. We then found that if you put a dab of peanut butter onto the capsule--each dog will 'inhale' the capsule/peanut butter in a heartbeat. It's like a miracle!

Several people mentioned 'biotin' in their posts; biotin is supposed to help the dog digest the fish oil? 

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how much we could give our dogs--they run around 70 pounds each. ANd in what form does the biotin come in--tabs, caps; and is the yeast form the preferred way to go?

Scott J.


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

I buy 1000 mcg Biotin at Walmart for $1.38 for 90 tablets. I give one a day to Buffy in some peanut butter as her late night snack. I read in Drs. Smith & Foster about the biotin helping the Omega 3's being absorbed better with biotin and originally bought their powder form, which is fairly expensive compared to $1.38. Buffy weighs 74 lbs and is my one who exhibits allergy symptoms in the summer/fall only. But I give the supplements yearlong just to keep her skin & coat in good condition to help control the symptoms when the allergen presents itself. 

I slice the soft fish oil capsule and squeeze out the fish oil onto their food. Abby will swallow hers whole with her food but Buffy (the princess) will spit hers out.


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## Samwise (May 15, 2006)

Monomer, I ran out of the vit e so they didn't get it for about two weeks - stupid, stupid, stupid, on my part because Samwise's dry skin is back and it's worse than ever. I've had him back on it for a few weeks and it doesn't seem like it's getting better. Any suggestions? Do you think a switch to the salmon oil might help, rather than the fish oil and vit. e?

Christi


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## monomer (Apr 21, 2005)

The fish oil (also Salmon oil) is mainly for the Omega 3's and safflower oil is for the Omega 6's... its actually 3 of the Omega 6's that are truly essential to Goldens (meaning the dog's body cannot synthesize these). The fish oil is used to 'shift' the ratio of Omega 3 to 6 in the dog's diet... though your 'complete' kibble ration does have both types it is believed that commercial diets are biased much too heavily toward the Omega 6s (since these are the 'true' essential oils and are the ones mainly responsible for shiny coats and supple skin). But in the end it is the RATIO of 3 to 6 that many believe is of the most concern for health. The greater proportion of Omega 3s, among other things, tends to reduce inflammation (Omega 6's increases the body's inflammation responses) and that can help those dogs with allergies to relieve some of their symptoms. Omega 3s are also for brain function and the eyes, etc.

Dry skin can be helped by the supplimentation of these oils to the diet if its caused (at least partially) by the lack of these oils (most especially the essential oils... safflower oil is probably the best for addressing that issue, though even corn oil will work... like Mazola). But do remember dry, flaky skin can have other causes as well... an over-proliferation of certain naturally occurring yeast types on the skin surface... this can often occur because of a change in skin/coat conditions that favor its growth. You can certainly try to address this issue through diet, however that will be slow acting and in some ways could take up to 2 months to completely resolve. I might suggest you take a more direct approach and reduce the yeast numbers with an anti-dandruff shampoo bath. You may have to try 2 or 3 different ones to get the best results because different anti-dandruff shampoos have different active ingredients, which in turn target different yeast types... that's why no one anti-dandruff shampoo works for everyone (humans or dogs). I suggest using a human dandruff shampoos off-the-shelf at Wal-Mart or similar. Selsun Blue, Denorex, Head-n-Shoulders are some examples to try. Do keep in mind that these are human shampoos and are easily strong enough to strip all the oils from your dog's coat, so don't let your Golden get wet for the 3 days following this shampooing as Sam's coat will not repel water very well and will chill easily until those oils return and get spread through brushings.


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## 3 goldens (Sep 30, 2005)

Mine get one fish oil with breakfast and one with supper...except on the two days a week they canned salmon, mackeral, or fresh caught.baked fish. Then they only get one in the morning. They get one Vit. E each day at supper, and I just started them on a biotin tab each day.

I have read on several places that sprinkling garlic powder on their food and giving them a brewer's yeast tab each day helps repel fleas. I started this about 2-3 months ago and have not seen a flea on them in over two months. I have no idea if it is the garlic powder/yeast tab or just coincidence, but i do know i have not used any chemical flea repellent in about 4 months and see no fleas. Some swear this works, others say it doesn't. This jury is still out pending bad flea season.


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## Dovie Ann (Jun 7, 2007)

*verry dry skin on my baby*

I saw that vit.E and fish oil can help with the dry shin. we have tried everything to help him. he is about 45 to 50 lbs. how much should we give him and how offen. is it the same as we would take or just for animals? I will try anything he is so dry.

thank you Dovie


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## Dovie Ann (Jun 7, 2007)

how much vit.e do you give a 45lb. dog and how many times a day.


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## winstonandmaizeesmommy (Feb 8, 2007)

What about Olive Oil? Would that work in place of the safflower/fish oil?

I give the kids 2 fish oil tablets a day, splitting them up into each meal, then put 1/2tbls of olive oil in their food for each meal.

So I should add biotin to the mix for 1x day, yeast tab for 1x day and try some garlic powder too for fleas. I would give anything so I don't have to use Frontline - the kids run when they see the package.


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## Sandy's Mom (Jun 21, 2007)

*7 Fish Pills / day*

I took Sandy to the Vet in May and it seems like he may have very mild allergies and he gave me a list of things I could do to help him. Part of the things he suggested was to give him Fish Oil Capsules and the dosage he gave me was 1 for every 10 pounds to a maximun of 7 pills per day. I've been reading all the posts and it seems like this dosage is extremely high compared to what everybody else is doing. How did you decide how many pills to give a day? Was it suggested by your vet?


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