[Amanda Layne]

Help If you were going to choose between Grizzly Salmon Oil and Nature's Logic North Atlantic Sardine Oil Fatty Acid Supplement for Dogs. Which would you choose?

This is the GSO
Ingredients:
Salmon Oil
Omega-3 Fatty Acids 23.3%
Omega-6 Fatty Acids 6.2%

This is the Nature's logic Sardine Oil
Ingredients:
Sardine Oil (Preserved with Natural Mixed Tocopherols), Rosemary

Guaranteed Analysis %:
Crude fat (min) 99
Omega-3 fatty acids (min) 27.5
Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) (min) 16
Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) (min) 10
Moisture (max) 1


Extra Information:
Total Omega-3 1265 mg/tsp
EPA 736 mg/tsp
DHA 460 mg/tsp

 

[Connie Sutherland]

I care most about residual mercury levels and lack of rancidity.

Sardine oil and salmon oil are pretty similar in terms of Omega 3s (and your dog gets plenty of Omega 6s elsewhere, IMO, if you feed poultry, and probably even if you do not).

You care about Omega 3 EFAs, and particularly the long-chain DHA and EPA, but fish body oil is all loaded with them. (That's what you're shelling out for with fish oil.)

Although the general idea is that larger, near-top-of-feeding-chain fish are more likely to be dangerously contaminated with mercury (albacore being a major example), salmon is one of the safer fish. The sardines and other little fish are also unlikely to be contaminated.

Rancid (carelessly-handled, perhaps heated) unsaturated oils are potentially carcinogenic. But they announce their rancidity clearly with smell if they are not encapsulated.

So I wouldn't get capsules unless the company subscribed to this monograph or had outside indendent testing:
http://www.crnusa.org/o3group.html

I get liquid. I also want it to meet one of those two requirements, but it's a lot easier to detect rancidity in a liquid.

But ... based on previous research about Grizzly, and on the size of the fish in the second one, I'd go by price as long as neither one smelled rancid.

 

[Connie Sutherland]

If you intend to ingest the same fish oil you get for your dogs, which I do*, you will probably want pharmaceutical quality so it has no fishy taste. I like fish, but fish oil is really kind of a pronounced and (to me) overwhelming taste and smell. Blech. Pharmaceutical quality (such as Nordic Naturals, and others) is odorless and not fishy tasting.

Whatever you get, you want to keep it cold after opening.





*Long-chain Omega 3s have the same benefits for humans that they have for dogs.