14/03/2026
The wellbeing of your dog in their food bowl.
Simple addition to their diet.
Be mindful of the origin of your food for your dog : avoid the loaded food with antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, additives, preservatives, heavy metals, toxins they may accumulate in their body until health issues arise ...
☀️ Your Dog Can Sunbathe All Day…
And Still Be Vitamin D Deficient
Let me ask you a strange question.
If a dog lies in the sun for hours…
stretching out on the deck…
soaking up every ray…
Do they make vitamin D the way we do❓️
Most people assume the answer is yes.
But the biology of dogs says absolutely not.
⚛️ The Hidden Hormone Most Dog Owners Never Think About
Vitamin D isn’t just a vitamin.
It functions more like a pre-hormone, regulating the activity of over 200 genes involved in:
▪️ immune defense
▪️ cardiovascular health
▪️ bone metabolism
▪️ cellular growth and cancer protection
In humans, UV light converts compounds in our skin into vitamin D₃.
Dogs?
Their skin lacks the ability to efficiently perform this conversion.
So while humans can rely partly on sunlight…
Dogs must get nearly all of their vitamin D₃ from food.
The bowl, not the backyard, is what determines their vitamin D status.
🔍 The Quiet Problem in Many Homemade Diets
Here’s where things get interesting.
Many DIY diets rely heavily on standard muscle meats like:
✔️ beef
✔️ chicken
✔️ turkey
✔️ pork
While these foods provide excellent protein, they contain very little vitamin D₃.
Without intentional inclusion of vitamin-D-rich foods, a diet can slowly drift into deficiency territory.
And because vitamin D acts hormonally in the body, chronic shortfalls can affect far more than just bone health.
🌞 The Foods That Actually Provide Vitamin D₃
Two whole foods quietly do a lot of heavy lifting here.
🥚 Egg yolks
🐟 Oily fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, and herring
Most people add them for omega-3 fats.
But they’re also among the most concentrated natural sources of dietary vitamin D₃ available in whole foods.
Think of them as part of your dog’s nutritional hormone support system.
📌
Dogs cannot “sunbathe” their way to vitamin D sufficiency.
Their biology requires that this critical nutrient, this hormone precursor, comes from what we place in their bowl...
Which means thoughtful diet design matters more than most people realize.
Because sometimes the nutrients that matter most…
are the ones we can’t see working❗️
---
💬 Curious how much vitamin D dogs actually need vs. what food provides?
That number surprises most people....👇
According to the National Research Council (NRC) nutrient guidelines:
Recommended Allowance (RA):
▪️13.8 IU of Vitamin D per kg of body weight per day
👉 Expressed per energy intake:
Approx. 125 IU per 1,000 kcal of food
— The Holistic Canine 🐾💚 theholisticcanine.us
Board-Certified Nutrition Practitioner | PhD
Certified Canine & Feline Clinical Nutritionist (AAVSB approved)
NPI Registered Provider