I have recently been researching the forum regarding fish oil supplements, and was intrigued to find that most are saying it is necessary to supplement Vitamin E to help prevent the dog from depleting its own supply of E to process the oil. I work in a health food store, and was surprised that none of the reps have mentioned this, or have a product with "extra" Vit E to account for that. Also, I was concerned that my pup could be rendered E deficient if I didn't supplement properly.

So, I called Nordic Naturals to ask about it. (This is the brand I purchased.) I spoke with Erin Hay, who is the contact for Pet Food retailers, and she enlightened me a bit on the subject.

In a nutshell, Erin told me that I didn't need to supplement E with their product, as the dog would only draw from their own supply of E if the fish oil was not fresh enough. Nordic recently had a presentation at our store about Omega 3's, and one of the charts the speaker had was a comparison of Nordic vs. other companies, with Nordic being a leader in all categories (i.e. lowest oxidation, lowest levels of contaminants, most sustainable practices).

I just wanted to pass this info along, and perhaps get some feedback from some of the more knowledgeable folks here on the forum. I feel very confident in this brand, and have always recommended it to our (human) customers, so I thought it would be surprising if they would have missed such a glaring issue like a need to supplement E with their product. Also, it would be cheaper to use the higher quality oil, as you don't have to add in the cost of Vit E. Any input would be greatly appriciated!

A LOT of people use other brands, including the brand Leerburg sells (Grizzly).

And while I think Nordic is a fine product, I disagree that they can state that no dog will deplete stores of E when processing oil supplements, regardless of whether it's Nordic.

A young healthy dog receiving a low to medium amount of fish oil probably does not need additional E. But remember that we are often (even usually) discussing therapeutic amounts of fish oil, and often the discussion revolves around an atopic dog (or perhaps pruritic from another trigger), or a dog with joint damage, and often it's an aging dog as well as a dog who is not in top health.

If there was a concern about the E (such as there is, for me, about dl-alpha), then I'd be much less blase about recommending that E be added. But no OD amount of d-alpha with mixed tocopherols (which is my recommendation) has been demonstrated even in wildly high lab amounts. (This is dogs, remember .... not humans. Please don't anyone extrapolate any of this to be applicable to humans.) So I'm sticking with my recommendation to add natural E when giving oil supplements in therapeutic dosage amounts.