The Nutritional Needs For Different Types Of Dogs

Although, dogs are undoubtedly companions to us, it didn't take us long to realize the working potential of our canine friend. Dogs have always been helping man for different purposes; one of the main reasons was to hunt food. However, in the old days, hunting wasn't considered a sport, it was considered to be hard work.

Hunting whether for sport or for food is hard work on a dog, whatever the intent for hunting, the execution of work requires a dog to use up a lot of energy. This will result in needing to increase your dog's primary dietary need for energy. When you increase the dietary energy, you will also need to increase the B-complex vitamins, the minerals, and the dogs water intake.

You can usually provide a working dog the same amount of nutrients as that of a non-working dog. As working dogs eat larger quantities of dog food to get all of the energy they need, they usually eat most of the nutrients in unreasonable amounts. Consequently, they will probably eat such huge quantities that the digestibility of the nutrients is adversely impacted and a lot of the nutrients will in reality be held in poor amounts.

Most working dogs cannot, physically, consume all the food needed to produce his energy needs. This causes a dog to suffer from lack of digestible energy it needs, and will cause him to lose weight. If this condition continues, most dogs will reduce their activities, so they will reduce their caloric demands. If a dog is made to continue working, keeping the same pace, it will start to lose weight faster, and will work himself to death.

One of the least active of the working dogs is the herd dog; they are one of the more common working dogs in America. Herd Dogs wattle or protect animals and use the least amount of energy than any other working dog.

They are usually laid back, just watching over the herd, the only time they really use up a lot of energy is when they are rounding up the herd or collecting a few strays that have wondered off. Seldom are they required to use a lot of energy.