Vitamin E is the most commonly used antioxidant, essentially the body’s own preservative. It is not a vitamin whose benefits should be visibly noticeable in a dog, but rather it is intended to extend the lifespan.
If a dog’s paws or coat improve with just vitamin E, then the dog has been in severe deficiency for a long time. Often, many other aspects of nutrition are also lacking. A low dose or even absence of vitamin E in food does not show in the dog’s appearance or energy levels.
If a dog eats fattier food, more vitamin E is needed. This is because the use of fat generates harmful oxygen radicals in the body. Antioxidants are needed to eliminate them.
A common analogy is to compare it to a car and rust. In this analogy, oxygen radicals are what cause rust, and antioxidants like vitamin E are the rust protection or undercoating. Rust itself represents the worst-case scenario that one doesn’t want to think about: cancer. That’s why it’s said that vitamin E is given in hopes that the dog will live a little longer.
Similarly, if a dog is active, whether a joyful bundle of energy or a high-level athlete, more vitamin E is needed. The reason is essentially the same as with dietary fat. When energy is produced, especially from fat, all sorts of waste are generated, against which vitamin E provides protection.
Vitamin E has other roles in the body, but its antioxidant function is among the most important.
Oils
People often prefer to use vegetable oils, such as sunflower oil or flaxseed oil, instead of vitamin E. While these do contain vitamin E in varying amounts, much of the vitamin E content is used up by the oil itself, not the dog’s needs.
It’s practically impossible to give oils in such large quantities that they would be of significant benefit to the dog. Their use is based on the belief that everything should come from food, and oil plants, which are not a natural part of the canine diet, suddenly become natural just because they are pressed, processed, and bottled in a factory.
Diseases
Vitamin E is used as supportive treatment in many diseases. Often unnecessarily, but because the general belief is that diseases increase the need for antioxidants, it doesn’t hurt. Additionally, vitamin E indirectly participates in the production of inflammatory mediators through a couple of steps.
Skin and coat symptoms are often conditions for which vitamin E is willingly used. Sometimes it is justified, sometimes not.
The doses used in supportive treatments depend on the person prescribing them, and there are no rules or guidelines. But usually, the dose is significantly higher than what the normal need would be.
Need
The minimum need for vitamin E is 1 mg/kg of metabolic body weight (MBW), but quite commonly, the lowest need is considered to be double that: 2 mg/kg MBW. Generally, ensuring at least 2 mg/kg MBW intake is sufficient. However, if you want to be more precise, the dosage could be:
- Lazy dogs and those whose food contains less than 15% fat: 2 mg/kg
- Ordinary pet dogs that are still active or if the food contains 15 – 20% fat: 4 mg/kg
- Highly active dogs, competition dogs, sick, nursing/pregnant dogs, or if the food’s fat content is over 20%: 6 – 8 mg/kg
However, there’s a catch. These amounts apply if it’s so-called natural vitamin E. Natural vitamin E is expensive, and most on the market is synthetic, which I prefer to call manufactured—synthetic gives the wrong impression.
The difference between natural and manufactured is that:
- In natural vitamin E, the entire stated amount functions as vitamin E in the body
- In manufactured vitamin E, half of the stated amount functions as vitamin E in the body, and the other half acts as a preservative in the food; it’s not toxic or harmful
Natural vitamin E is easily distinguished from manufactured because the packaging will always prominently state “natural.” But the difference can also be found in the product description:
- Natural is listed as D-alpha-tocopherol or rrr-alpha-tocopherol
- Manufactured is listed as DL-alpha-tocopherol or all-rac-alpha-tocopherol
This means that the dosage must always be doubled for manufactured vitamin E from what the need calculation would suggest. But let’s make it easier. The above needs were for natural vitamin E, so when using manufactured, the need is:
- Lazy dogs and those whose food contains less than 15% fat: 4 mg/kg
- Ordinary pet dogs that are still active or if the food contains 15 – 20% fat: 8 mg/kg
- Highly active dogs, competition dogs, sick, nursing/pregnant dogs, or if the food’s fat content is over 20%: 12 – 16 mg/kg
IU and IU
IU and IU stand for international unit. It’s used because many substances commonly referred to as vitamin E have different vitamin activity levels. IU/IU indicates the active amount, and to convert it to milligrams, a conversion calculation is needed. For vitamin E, the conversion from IU to milligrams is simple. 1 IU is the same as 1 mg (in reality, it’s a bit more complicated, but that’s a sufficient rule of thumb).
Calculating the Dose
Calculating the needed dose is easy if you know multiplication, and since everyone uses a calculator, you don’t even need to do it in your head.
We have manufactured vitamin E, so we’ll use the higher dosage.
- The dog is a Jack Russell who only knows how to run and is on a raw diet. It’s decided that it should get 12 mg/kg. The dog weighs 7 kg, so 12 mg x 7 kg = 84 mg of vitamin E is needed.
- A lazy 70 kg giant that eats light food might need 4 mg/kg. So, 4 mg x 70 kg = 280 mg of vitamin E would be given.
Now, check the product label to see how much vitamin E is in the product.
The label indicates that dl-alpha-tocopherol (manufactured vitamin E) is 30 mg/ml—which is quite typical for horse vitamin E liquids. Then, the need is divided by 30, so for the example dogs:
- For the Jack Russell: 84 mg / 30 mg = 2.8 ml = 3 ml
- For the giant: 280 mg / 30 mg = 9.3 ml = 10 ml
A milliliter measure isn’t needed when you consider that one milliliter weighs one gram. Then, the practical daily dose would be:
- For the Jack Russell: 1 teaspoon (since a teaspoon is about 4 grams)
- For the giant: 1 tablespoon (since a tablespoon is about 12 grams)
If you’ve bought natural vitamin E, the dosage is then half.
Remember that vitamin E should be given daily because it is not stored in the body.
The Easiest Dosage
There’s an even easier formula when using horse vitamin E liquid (often, it’s better to buy BE liquid).
- Small dogs: 1/3 bottle cap
- Medium-sized dogs: 1/2 bottle cap
- Large dogs: 1 bottle cap
- More for active dogs
You can use the cap as a measure once or twice. After that, you need to know the necessary wrist movement—dosing vitamin E isn’t that precise.
Why Horse Vitamin E?
Horse vitamin E is used because of the price. A liter bottle costs about 20 euros. Then, according to the above calculations, the supply would last:
- For the Jack Russell: about 11 months
- For the giant: about 3 months
Vitamin E Upsets the Dog’s Stomach
The dog is genuinely upset by the oil supplement used as an extender. In that case, you can try to find an alternative.
Often, the dose is first halved to see if it still causes upset. If not, everything is fine. If there’s still upset, halve it again.
The idea is to find the lowest dose the dog can tolerate. If the dog simply cannot tolerate vitamin E supplements, then it is not given, and the issue is forgotten.
