# At what age should you start to feed your dog a senior food?



## phunkyphat (Nov 4, 2008)

I have a 8 year old Pomeranian and hes been on Orijen Adult & Orijen Fresh 6 Fish (will rotate Orijen Red Meat to his diet once its available) for about 6 months and hes doing really well on it. I compared the Orijen Adult and Orijen Senior and their ingredients are very similar. I also mix in Merrick can food to his diet once every other day. So my question is at what age should I start to feed him a senior dog food? At 10 years old? 12 years old? I know a lot people on this website know what their taking about so I need you opinions please. Thanks


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

phunkyphat said:


> So my question is at what age should I start to feed him a senior dog food?


It doesn't matter. There is virtually no difference between the different life stage foods. It is a marketing gimmick. They want you to think they have specially formulated a dog food specifically for your dog and it just isn't so.


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## bulldog (Jul 11, 2009)

Agreed, senior foods are a marketing ploy. Why would you want to feed your senior dog less protein and more carbs, now your undernourishing your dog and contributing to obeisity. If the dog is healthy just reduce the amount of adult food you are feeding and maybe add some green beans.


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## StellaLucyDesi (Oct 29, 2008)

I don't know if the poster is having any weight gain problems with Orijen, so I'm not sure if they need to reduce their dog's portions or add green beans. Wouldn't hurt to add the green beans for a treat, tho'. Anyway, I agree with everyone that Senior foods are not needed for a healthy senior dog. They are usually low in protein, fat, and high in carbs. I do like a few senior foods. My dogs eat Orijen Sr and I also top with Merrick's can food (as well as some others I like). (I like the protein/fat percentages in Orijen Sr.), and I also like Innova Sr. Plus (24 protein/10 fat/5.5 fiber), Eagle Pack Holistic Select Senior (26 protein/10 fat/3.5 fiber, and Chicken Soup Sr. doesn't look bad either. Their protein content isn't bad and my dogs tend to put on weight easily, so I like the lower fat content. The only reason I'd use most of the Senior or Low-fat diets would be if my dog had an issue like pancreatits that might need low-fat. But really my favorite food for my dog that had pancreatitis is Wellness Core Reduced-fat (33 protein/9-10 fat/8.5 fiber).


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