Senior Stacking Guide

The Senior formula is designed to be a foundation, not a single-target fix. It covers the big three systems that matter most as dogs age: cognition, cellular health, and mobility. You've got ginkgo and lion's mane supporting blood flow and neuroplasticity in the brain, reishi and cordyceps handling cellular energy and liver function, and green lipped mussel plus Longvida curcumin working on joints and inflammatory signaling. (If you want the full breakdown of why those systems matter and how each ingredient works, I wrote a deep dive on that.

But there's only so much you can pack into one formula. If your senior dog is doing well overall, the Senior Blend might be all they need. If they're struggling with something specific, it often works better as a base you build on.

My brother's German Shepherd is a good example. At 14, he was doing reasonably well on the Senior formula. Still engaged, eating well, enjoying his slower-paced walks. But he started having a harder time getting up in the mornings and moving more carefully on the stairs, and we knew it was time to add to the stack. We kept the Senior as his base since we still wanted to support all those aging systems, and layered in dedicated joint support to target the mobility piece more aggressively.

The Full Senior Stack

Before I get into the individual pieces, here's what my "super senior stack" looks like when a dog needs the works:

Brady's Senior Blend (oil or chew) as the daily base. Wild Ocean Omega Shield + Astaxanthin for omegas and supercharged antioxidant support. Lion's Mane Powder for an extra cognition boost. And if mobility is a significant concern, Joint Support + (our CBD-free joint formula) layered on top.

Most senior dogs won't need all of this. Some will do great on just the Senior Blend. Others might need the Senior Blend plus omegas and that's it. The point is to match the stack to YOUR dog, not to pile on products for the sake of covering every base. So let me walk through each add-on and why you'd reach for it.

Omegas + Astaxanthin: My Universal Add-On

If I had to pick one thing to add to the Senior Blend for almost any senior dog, this is it.

Wild Ocean Omega Shield +Astaxanthin combines sardine, anchovy, mackerel, and herring oils with Hawaiian astaxanthin sourced from Kona. You're getting 1,300 mg of omega-3s per teaspoon, with over 1,100 mg of that being EPA and DHA specifically, the ones that actually do the heavy lifting for inflammatory signaling, skin health, brain function, and cellular protection.

But the astaxanthin is what makes this formula different from just grabbing a fish oil off the shelf. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid that's up to 6,000x more potent than vitamin C as an antioxidant. It crosses the blood-brain barrier AND the blood-retinal barrier, which most antioxidants can't do. So you're getting antioxidant protection in places that matter enormously for aging dogs, the brain and the eyes, on top of all the omega-3 benefits.

And here's the part I love: astaxanthin also protects the omega-3s themselves from oxidation. Omega-3s are fragile. They go rancid. Having astaxanthin in the same formula means the omegas stay functional longer, both in the bottle and in your dog's body. Two ingredients that genuinely make each other better.

For senior dogs, this covers so many bases at once: skin and coat health, brain support, eye support, cellular protection, healthy inflammatory signaling. It complements pretty much everything else in the stack.

Lion's Mane: Doubling Down on Cognition

The Senior Blend chew already contains lion's mane, so why add more?

Because cognition is one of those areas where more targeted support can make a real difference, especially if you're starting to notice changes. The senior formula includes lion's mane as part of a broad-spectrum blend supporting multiple systems. Adding dedicated Lion's Mane Powder on top concentrates the cognitive support piece.

Lion's mane contains hericenones and erinacines, the compounds that stimulate nerve growth factor (NGF). I covered the mechanism in detail here, but the short version is: NGF is your body's signal to grow and maintain nerve cells. Supporting it becomes more critical as the brain ages and neuroplasticity slows down.

Our Lion's Mane Powder is a whole life-cycle powder, meaning it includes primordia, mycelium, AND fruiting body. That matters because hericenones come from the fruiting body while erinacines come from the mycelium. You need both growth stages to get the full range of neuroactive compounds. The powder is steam-activated for bioavailability without stripping the secondary metabolites like triterpenes, phenolics, and prebiotic fibers that an extract might lose.

I'd reach for this add-on if your senior dog is showing any cognitive changes: confusion, disrupted sleep patterns, that glazed-over look, less engagement with things that used to excite them. Or proactively for large breeds and dogs you know are heading into those later senior years.

Joint Support Plus: When Mobility Needs Its Own Formula

The Senior Blend Oil includes green lipped mussel and the chew version contains Glucosamine and Longvida curcumin for baseline mobility support. For a lot of senior dogs, that's enough to keep them comfortable. But if your dog is struggling, hesitating before stairs, slow to rise in the mornings, visibly stiff after naps, it's worth layering in something that hits the joint support pathways harder.

Joint Support + is our CBD-free joint formula, and it's built to target mobility from multiple angles. You're getting full-fat green lipped mussel (preserving ETA, the unique fatty acid that most defatted GLM products strip out), Longvida curcumin at 65x the bioavailability of free curcumin, glucosamine for cartilage maintenance, reishi for adaptogenic and immune support, and boswellia.

Boswellia is one of the ingredients that truly makes this formula worth stacking on top of the Senior Blend. Curcumin modulates inflammatory signaling broadly, working across multiple pathways. Boswellia specifically targets an enzyme called 5-LOX that's heavily involved in joint-specific inflammatory responses. Using both means you're addressing the problem from two different directions instead of just increasing volume on one pathway. That's better strategy than just "more of the same."

Because this formula is CBD-free, it stacks cleanly with the Senior Blend without doubling up on CBD/CBDa. You get the senior formula's broad systemic support plus concentrated, targeted joint support.

Evening Support: No More Wiggles for Restless Nights

This one's more situational, but it comes up a lot with senior dogs.

If your senior is getting restless or confused in the evenings, pacing, seeming disoriented as the day winds down, or struggling to settle into sleep, No More Wiggles Oil can help smooth that transition. It combines CBD and CBDa with valerian root, passionflower, lavender, and wild German chamomile. The CBD/CBDa support the endocannabinoid system, which plays a role in regulating sleep cycles and stress responses. Valerian and passionflower support GABA activity, the brain's main "calm down" signal. Lavender and chamomile layer on additional nervous system support.

Unless they’re dealing with daytime anxiety as well, this is best used in the evenings, either with dinner or a couple hours before the usual bedtime. It's helping the nervous system settle into a calmer state so sleep comes more easily and stays more consistent through the night.

Not every senior dog needs this. But for the ones who do, it can make a noticeable difference in their quality of rest and, honestly, in yours too.

A Note on Gut Health

One more thing worth mentioning for senior stacking: gut health. A healthy microbiome supports nutrient absorption, immune function, and even cognitive health through the gut-brain axis. If you're building out a senior stack and your dog's digestion is inconsistent, adding a quality goat's milk or natural probiotic can help make sure everything else you're giving them actually gets absorbed and used. We don't make a probiotic (yet), but it's something I recommend as part of the bigger picture.

Practical Notes

Start one thing at a time. If you're adding multiple products, introduce them a week or two apart so you can actually see what's doing what. It's tempting to throw everything at a struggling senior, but you'll learn more and troubleshoot better if you layer gradually.

More isn't always better. Stacking makes sense when there's a specific need that the foundation isn't fully addressing. If your senior is doing well on just the Senior Blend, or the Senior Blend plus omegas, there's no need to add more for the sake of adding more.

Consistency beats intensity. These compounds work through real biological mechanisms that take time. You're not looking for overnight results. Give each new addition 2-4 weeks before evaluating whether it's helping.

Twice daily dosing for most of these. Morning and evening with meals keeps levels consistent rather than spiking and dropping.

The full super senior stack is there if your dog needs it. But the best stack is the one that matches what YOUR senior dog actually needs, built from the Senior Blend foundation and customized from there.

- Lilly

Hey there, I'm Lilly!

Lilly is the Director of Education and a member of the innovation team at Austin & Kat. With a background in biology and a decade spent formulating supplements and raw diets for the dogs in her life, she's on a mission to make natural pet care less confusing for everyone. Lilly shares her Gig Harbor home with Arya, a 10-year-old pit bull mix and three-time cancer survivor, and Floki, a 120-lb Anatolian Shepherd who thinks he's a lap dog.

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