Choosing food for an older dog

There is no legal definition of a senior diet. An analysis of 61 over-the-counter adult and senior dog foods found the differences between the two inconsistent: most makers raised fibre in their senior products, several raised sodium, one senior diet had less protein than the adult version, and 18 percent of all the foods failed at least one nutrient requirement for adult maintenance¹. The word senior on a label tells you little on its own.

What the evidence supports is keeping an older dog at a lean body condition and protecting muscle mass, since muscle loss is one of the changes of ageing². AAHA's nutrition guidelines recommend that every senior have an individual plan built on a diet history, a body condition score and a muscle condition score, revisited at each visit³. WSAVA's toolkit supplies the forms and charts⁴.

Specific diets matter when there is a diagnosis: kidney disease, pancreatitis, diabetes and heart disease each have diets with evidence behind them, and the vet is the right person to choose one. For a healthy senior, a complete diet from a company that meets WSAVA's manufacturer questions, fed in measured amounts, is a sound default⁴.

This is general information, not a diagnosis. Your vet knows your dog.

Sources

1. Exploratory analysis of nutrient composition of adult and senior dog diets. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2025 (peer reviewed). Accessed 2026-09-22.
2. Nutrition for aging cats and dogs and the importance of body condition (Laflamme DP). Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice 35:713-742, 2005 (peer reviewed). Accessed 2026-09-22.
3. 2021 AAHA Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats (Cline MG et al.). American Animal Hospital Association, Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 57(4):153-178. Accessed 2026-09-22.
4. WSAVA Global Nutrition Guidelines and Toolkit. World Small Animal Veterinary Association. Accessed 2026-09-22.