The importance of providing the right nutritional diet for working dogs

Providing the right diet for your working dog is essential for performance and recovery. Here, Alpha Feeds provides information and suggestions to help you get it right!

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Although quality nutrition is essential for all dogs, working dogs require elevated levels of protein and fats to correspond with their energy output demands. Moreover, regardless of your dog's breeding and training schedule, they can't give the best results if their diet lacks the nutrients required both during and for post-race recovery.

Your working dog is an athlete. Therefore, their diet should vary accordingly. The appropriate diet, depending on whether resting, competing or working, assists them in building stamina, enhancing muscle tone, aids in recovery and helps to support a healthy nervous and pulmonary system.

Choosing the right feed

With the needs of your dog in mind, Alpha foods have developed three groups within their range: Competing, Working and Resting. Feed within each group provides the appropriate protein and nutrition in correspondence to energy requirements;

Competing

Alpha High-Performance - 32% Protein

Alpha Racer - 28% Protein

Nutritionally formulated to enhance body development and optimise muscle tone and bone strength, this feed also provides boundless energy to sustain the rigours of racing. Devised by nutritionists, it's formulated to meet the requirements of dogs in training, brood bitches and pups. It also includes fishmeal and linseed for essential Omega 3 oils.

Working

Alpha Sensitive Extra - 25% Protein

Alpha Adult Maintenance Sporting Dog - 22% Protein

This complete feed contains chicken and rice along with a range of vitamins and minerals, providing the perfect diet for your working dog. Carefully cooked to ensure optimum digestion - this feed also suits owners wishing to add extra protein for harsher working or racing conditions.

Resting

Alpha Sensitive - 20% Protein

Alpha Worker Maintenance - 19% Protein

Nutritionally formulated as an energy controlled, complete diet, this feed suits less active or older dogs to help maintain a healthy weight. This feed contains freshly cooked meat with a balanced range of vitamins and minerals.

Feeding requirements and costing

Portion sizes vary depending on the breed and size of your dog, but the easiest way to determine how much to feed your dog is to adjust their food intake to maintain their optimum body weight and condition. Always refer to the recommended portion size on the back of the packet as a useful guide.

Based on a 15kg bag, you can expect the following approximate costs (these may vary, depending on the size of your dog):

Resting: average cost per day is 32p-48p; bag lasts on average 7-8 weeks

Working: average cost per day is 40p-52p; bag lasts on average 7-8 weeks

Competing: average cost per day is 36p-42p; bag lasts on average 8-10 weeks

About Alpha

Founded over a century ago, Alpha Feeds is a family business, forged on a passion for optimising the health, vitality and performance of your pet with world-class quality foods.

Located on the North Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border and firmly established within the pet food industry, The Alpha brand is a trusted and highly reputable name - one synonymous with science, nutrition, excellent service & outstanding value.

The company champions local producers and distributors, with regional farmers growing most of the natural ingredients and shipping them directly to the factory. This firsthand contact with the growers ensures 100% knowledge of each ingredient's provenance.

Moreover, not only is this brand consistently providing the market with their innovation, duty of care and flavours; they're also enormous advocators for sustainability. With an unwavering commitment to the environment; packaging materials used are sourced from sustainable forestry and are 100% recyclable. Furthermore, Alpha sticks firmly to its values as an autonomous brand and continuously supports smaller independent retailers. You won't encounter Alpha on the shelves of big-name supermarkets.

You can find out about the full rage of Alpha Dog Food on their website