# canned tuna fish and salmon okay?



## hangwoon1008 (Nov 23, 2011)

So i have a lot of canned tuna fish and canned salmon that was bought in bulk and a lot is left.

I was wondering is it okay to mix this in with some of his kibbles?


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## Poly (Sep 19, 2007)

hangwoon1008 said:


> So i have a lot of canned tuna fish and canned salmon that was bought in bulk and a lot is left.
> 
> I was wondering is it okay to mix this in with some of his kibbles?


Well, it won't cause any harm if you do it from time-to-time.

These are high protein, high-calorie sources. If packed in oil, they are also a high-fat source. 

A *good* kibble is formulated to be "balanced" if fed by itself. So if you regularly add an additional high-protein/ high-fat source, you will be altering that balance. There are situations (working dogs, etc) when you want to do that. But in most pet situations you want to try to stick with the balance most of the time. 

Also, don't forget to reduce the amount of kibble to compensate for the extra calories. You don't want your dog to get fat.


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## katielou (Apr 29, 2010)

Yes every so often would be fab for your dog.

Great for coat and skin especially at this time of year here when the air is so dry.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

More protein and fat can be a really good thing for dogs. Max's fur and muscles really appreciate the high fat and protein in his raw diet. Kibbles are very low in fat. Some dogs do have bad pancreases and too much fat is dangerous for them. If such a dog is on a normal low fat kibble the humans may have no idea the pancreas is in trouble until the dog gets more fat than the pancreas can handle. Since senior citizen Max gained 15% of his weight in muscle I have trouble believing that more protein is a bad idea and Sassy stayed on her feet despite kidney disease and degenerative myelopathy because she ate 29% protein which kept her muscle mass up.

Canned fish is also high in sodium. Canned tuna is higher in mercury than you would want to feed more than once a week or so.

You can substitute up to about 25% unbalanced calorie food like the canned food for the usual food without messing up the nutritional balance too much, that would be a lot of canned fish. For Sassy, who ate 1000 calories a day, I could take away 250 calories of her usual and offer 5 ounces of tuna or salmon. To keep the sodium down I probably wouldn't offer more than 2 ounces a day though. You can try soaking and draining to remove some sodium though and I definitely would start with just a little in case all that salt is a problem.

My dogs adored tuna cookies and I always had the ingredients on hand. Mix a small can of undrained fish with a chopped garlic clove, an egg and as much flour as it takes to make a dough. I made it into a bread type dough and didn't bake long so it was doughy and easy to pinch off tiny bits for training treats but you don't have to go to all that trouble. Spread thin on a well greased or paper lined cookie sheet and bake at 350*F until firm in the middle. You can substitute an equal weight of cooked pureed veggies for the flour if you want grain free cookies.


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## hangwoon1008 (Nov 23, 2011)

AWESOME!. thanks for the inputs. You guys have made my doggies, happy! =)


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## AugiesMomn (Nov 19, 2011)

agreed with Kathyy. I wouldn't feed it too often because I worry about the mercury content and sodium, but my last dog LOVED tuna and any fish, really. She was ~80 pounds but I didn't feed very much. When I was making tuna salad (for humans) I would take some of the tuna before mixing it with other stuff,and just mix it into the dry food. Probably ~2oz. Most tuna is about 90 calories a can (5oz I think?) if it's in water, so figure that into the dog's calorie intake (I mean, depending on the amount of tuna etc). I mean, I prefer to feed fresh fish but sometimes it's not practical, and you have a bunch of canned tuna.


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