Supplements?

[Oscar's Mom]

Does anyone give supplements? I add missing link to his food and he gets one doggy vitamin C a day. The missing link has omega fatty acids & fiber and I've read that vitamin C can help keep their bones strong.

[dutchman]

I've just started mixing Avo-Active Care with the boys Avo-Derm. It's their new line of food and the following is a quote from their web site www.avoderm.com (http://www.avoderm.com)

"Bovine cartilage is not a cure for arthritis, but contains chondroitin sulfate, which is a glycosaminoglycan (GAG) that plays a major structural role in cartilage, tendons and bones. The chondroitin sulfates are composed of glucosamine, galactosamineand glucuronic acid (1). "

Note their target market is for arthritic dogs but I figure it should be good for their backs.

When I had Aggie I was giving a vitamin capsule each day for her skin and coat problems. I believe the vitamins were "Derm Caps". I got them from my vet and have never seen them in any of the general pet stores. I was always going to vitamins weaning her off of the vitamins and see if the Avo-Derm alone would take care of her problems but we never got to that point.

A friend who shows labs uses the Missing Link for one of her dogs who has some coat problems. She says it realy helps when he is experiencing problems but due to the cost she dosen't keep him on it full time.

I really like the Avo-Derm food and I guess that is why I'm trying to add in or possibly move to their Active Care. My new guy Tanner had a rather rough texture to his coat (longhair) when I got him five weeks ago, he'd been getting one of the Nutro(SP) foods in foster care, before that who knows. I put him on the Derm and his coat is really smoothing out. A friend who's just seen him twice, once the first week and again last weekend mentioned how much better his coat seemed. You do need to be aware that the Derm is rather high calorie and you will most likely have to feed less to keep your little friends from gaining too much weight.

Tom, Frank, and Tanner