Talk to your vet.

For vitamins I use a multivitamin for dogs. My dog also has stomach problems and I find that he has more episodes when I feed chicken. He's now on Simply Nourish Duck formula and also the Lamb formula and his episodes are few and far between. But, I still have to give him his daily pepcid for reflux.

For a senior dog I wouldn't try to cover all his nutritional by adding different foods here and there. A quality dog food and supplements would be my suggestion. But, remember that some dogs may even react to a vitamin supplement so that would be all the more reason to use a quality food.

I balance my raw fed dogs' diets with a multi vitamin and mineral supplement, one meant for humans. The dog ones are likely meant to be used with an already complete diet. I give my 13 pound dogs 1/2 tablet a day, ground and mixed with breakfast and my 40 pound dogs got a whole one.

Calcium. Dogs need a lot of it. My 35 pound dog needed as much calcium as an adult human! Easiest is to save egg shell and grind up fine. They grind better if baked until crispy dry. 1/2 tsp per 40 pounds of dog a day, mix into the food.

Salmon is good, about 1 ounce per 40 pounds of dog per day.

Beef liver is good if she can handle it. About 1/2 ounce a day.

Dr Strombeck kindly put up all his recipes online. They are easy to make up and feed. When Sassy got sick my vet gave me some of his recipes but do ask your vet to look them over if you aren't sure.

My senior dogs got dicey guts too. Be sure to make any changes slowly.

my 9 year old mastiff . cannot eat beef, gives her loose stool , she can only eat chicken, rice, pumpkin, sweet potatoes and salmon. she was eating wilderness senior chicken kibble but got diarrhea recently every time we gave her kibble so i make her food

I gave the precise amount of calcium needed. I detest statements like the one you seem to think I wrote, I want numbers too. 1/2 tsp of powdered eggshell contains 900mg of calcium. That's how much my 35 pound dog needed daily. The diet contains close to the amount of phosphorus required. Really.

Use a website like nutritiondata.com which takes its information from USDA's data to make up recipes and it's perfectly easy to calculate what you are eating yourself and what you are giving your dog. If you are up to the task you can use the PDF posted to fill in 'My Preferences' in ND then when you put your recipe in 'Tracking' you can see where the diet needs improvement. I do that. Used to be weekly when I cooked for my elderly sick dog, only occasionally now with my healthy young dogs. When I use it for my recipes I see interesting things. Macaroni and cheese isn't as horrible as one thinks especially when paired with lots of veggies, beans and greens are a really really good thing where my beloved fruit and yogurt smoothies were not great.

I made sure my elderly dog got enough water by adding it to her food. She did not drink plain water at all but would slurp up chicken and rice soup.

Wow. Believe in AAFCO? They are a bunch of dog food companies trying to establish guidelines from actual research done by NRC. Look at the back of any number of kibble bags. If the number is so precise why do the numbers on the bags vary so much? For the 600 calories a day I fed the one dog I could give him from 900 to 2700mg of calcium back in 2007 when I started feeding fresh food. Fortunately it's tightened up these days and usually it's only up to 1800mg per 600 calories at the worst. ProPlan Salmon is .9g per 100grams and 500 calories per 100 grams. He would be getting 1100mg of calcium. Hill's Science Diet 1% calcium and 366 calories per 100 grams so getting a bout 150% his calcium requirement in something less than 150 grams for his 600 calories. Got any kibbles you would like me to look at? These are random selections.

Get the NRC book. There's the actual data. AAFCO cannot formulate kibble correctly for all dogs as the relative requirements of dog varies by weight. I feed by NRC and I trust the USDA numbers.

Or get one of Monica Segal's books. She has permission to give the numbers needed to calculate NRC numbers so you can see for yourself.

Read up on feeding fresh food to your dog. UCD offers a supplement and diets through BalanceIT. A vet school good enough for you?

Use a scale to weigh foods. It works fine.

"ProPlan Salmon is .9g per 100grams and 500 calories per 100 grams."

No, that's about 417 calories (kcal) per 100 grams.

The calcium indicated is a % based on dry weight - it is not based on Caloric Density. The stressed importance is of the amount of calcium compared to the amount of phosphorous based on dry weight. It would make no sense as a % of calories provided.

You need to sharpen up your Slide Rule - or Abacus.

"Got any kibbles you would like me to look at?"

I see you have a reading comprehension problem and are one of those that believes if it's in someone's book it must be correct.

I also rely on books - such as the Merkt Veterinary Manual, UC Davis Book of Dogs, etc..

As an example, Merkt has lots of info on calcium and other components of a balanced canine diet - which, by the way, line up with AAFCO guidence.

Specifically, Merkt says, " Supplementation of calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D beyond amounts
present in complete and balanced diets designed for growth and
reproduction is rarely necessary and may be contraindicated."

I'll move on. Hope you do not cause harm to anyone's dog should they decide to follow your "posts."

Please take care of your dog.

Both my rescue dogs have GI issues. It took a few years to find a good prescription diet but it has been a godsend. Please talk to your vet.

Oops, 500 calories per 100g was a misread or maybe a mistype all right. That makes it worse. The premium kibbles that market to those trying to avoid corn, soy and all that are much worse, one reason I posted this two. The % of minerals is also not static, unless the .9% calcium could be much higher. Not a good thing.

The 10% water weight is only important when you must be precise as is when I was calculating phosphorus mg for my kidney dog. Not interested in firing up the calculator at the moment, rough estimates are just fine.

jn91871sf, the gist of all this is the diet isn't complete just as you feared. It's great for getting your dog's gut back on track. For right now add the calcium as I suggested or feed one of Dr. Strombeck's diets. Then work on getting her back on kibble or if you want to continue feeding fresh food the easiest way to go is to use BalanceIT.

i will be introducing a couple of ounces of freshly cooked plain wild salmon to her diet. it will be her treat, she loves salmon, i am trying to get her to gain back weight she lost from a long bout of loose stool, she has firmed up for 4 days now .

It seems if she's having bouts of loose stool, you should look at cutting back, or out, the sweet potatoes and/or pumpkin. Nothing upsets my dogs stomach like those 2 items do.

natural balance venison and sweet potato limited ingredient kibble, started about a handful, now up to 1/3 cup at each meal, i add this to her chicken,rice and fresh sweet potato (2 Tablespoon and boiled carrots) soon will be adding green string beans, so far she is doing very well, soon i will transition to a little more kibble. her vet suggested to introduce the kibble slowly, i hope to have her on less homefood and more kibble for the nutrients.

Wonderful news! Thanks for the update.

Does the natural balance have preservitives in it? I have a yorkie/chi with gastro issues and the Vet told me absolutly no preservitives.

there's natural preservatives but no chemical, i feel that the only preservative free food would be to make your own, commercially it would be difficult to have some sort of shelf life without some kind of preservative preferably natural and not chemical. i may be wrong

Wouldn't canned food be free of any preservatives?

Jn thank you.