Diet

Hi John,

As always the ideal diet for the current stage of the dogs life depends entirely on its current physical condition and on whatever the workload happens to be.

In the main a diet still has to balance the protein / carbohydrates / fats content.

An increase in protein if the dog needs to build additional muscle tissue.
An increase in carbohydrates if the workload is heavy.
An increase in fat content of the diet also with a heavy workload but more importantly if dehydration, or weather extremes are a problem.

All you can do is look at the various items in the diet, and ensure that they meet the current requirements of the dogs.

Keep in mind that this site has a search function button in the top bar as a fair number of posts contain items discussing diets.

In regard to the breakfast section of the diet you quoted I would drop the tea part of that as tea contains caffeine and in most countries it would result in a positive swab on race day, and if eggs are a daily part of the diet it’s best to ensure that at least the white of the eggs is cooked enough to set.

Egg whites contain avidin which binds with biotin (B7) in the diet making it unavailable which in the long term could result in a biotin deficiency, and cooking destroys the avidin.

Regardless of all that eggs are a great source of essential proteins and should be a regular part of the diet.

Cheers,
Tom