Greyhound Food – A Change for the Better

I’ve always got my pets from a rescue centre. I think it’s a really worthwhile thing to do, so when I was looking for a dog, again I visited a local rescue centre. I fell in love with a gorgeous greyhound called Norman. He was so friendly, he seemed to take to me immediately. He looked fit and healthy and as I love to walk I knew he’d be my ideal companion.

When I got Norman home, we got on famously. He loved to sleep next to me on the sofa, and he thoroughly enjoyed our walks together. I loved letting him off the lead to see him run at full pelt around the local park, he’s so fast it’s an impressive sight. However he did have some rather unpleasant issues. He suffered rather terribly from flatulence and diarrhoea! It was distressing for both him and me, and so I did some research on the Internet. It turned out that stomach ailments are quite common with greyhounds. It was a breed I’d never owned before and so I was unaware of these potential issues. I read that the owners of racing greyhounds make their own food for their dogs and so they become used to it. I decided that to solve these problems that were becoming rather a worry, I should do the same and make Norman’s food myself. I downloaded a recipe and got on with the task of making dog food. Well it was very time consuming, and rather expensive, but it did solve the problems. Norman was a changed dog, his digestive system sorted itself out and we had no further problems.

A few months later I got a promotion at work; this meant that I’d be spending many more hours in the office. I didn’t want Norman to miss out, so I always made sure he still got his walks and his quality time on the sofa with me, but it didn’t leave me much time to prepare his special diet. It has always been a chore, but now it was a real hindrance. I really didn’t want to be doing this for years on end, so I started looking for an alternative. Another search online and I came up with a site that sold pet food that had been developed just for the needs of greyhounds and their delicate constitutions. This seemed like the perfect solution so I ordered some straight away. Being a pet owner for many years I knew it was unwise to change his pet food over completely in one go, so I started to introduce the new food into his old food slowly over time. Amazingly we had no issues with the transition. He loved the new food, really seeming to enjoy the taste of it, and his digestive issues remained at bay. He even looked to have a glossier coat so I knew I’d made the right choice for my Norman.

Re-homing a Rescue Greyhound

Greyhounds really do make fabulous pets. Despite the impression of being fast, lean running machines, they are in actual fact pretty lazy. Taking on a retired racing greyhound won’t be exhausting; they’re unlikely to be hyperactive and won’t go stir crazy if they don’t get several walks a day. Greyhounds are fast yes, but they run in short bursts. The rest of the time they love to relax and snooze all day with you and your family.

There are a few things you need to know about racing greyhounds though before you start to take care of one…

Their diet as a racing dog is very different from the standard food most people feed to their dogs. Their diet will have been high in calories, low in additives and will most likely have been a soft food. Unfortunately a soft diet is not good for a greyhound’s teeth. Your dog may come to you with dental problems so it’s best to get him checked over by a vet if he hasn’t been already. Your vet will clean his teeth for you, but as a greyhound owner you should learn to clean your dog’s teeth yourself as this should be done on a very regular basis. Every other day is best to keep his teeth healthy and his breath fresh. Switching to a diet of dry kibbles, such as Supadog Greyhound Food will help to improve your greyhound’s teeth, making them stronger and helping to keep them clean, reducing any further erosion of his tooth enamel.

When you change a dog’s food though, you must do it gradually. A sudden change in diet can cause stress to the digestive system and you could end up with a dog with digestive troubles. Mix their new food with their old food in increasingly large amounts over a few weeks and the transition should be much easier for the greyhound’s sensitive stomach to deal with.

Greyhounds can be nervous, especially when they move to a new home and have to adjust to living with a family. This nervousness can manifest itself in stomach complaints such as diarrhoea. A diet low in fat and high in fibre should help to settle the stomach of a nervous greyhound.

As a racing greyhound’s diet has been specially created for them, it will usually not contain any additives. Because of this, greyhounds don’t build up the immunity to additives that most other dogs do when they are young. This can cause sensitivity issues and they can be allergic to the additives in many standard foods. If think that your dog may be having problems due to additives in his food, you should choose a food specially formulated for greyhounds. The experts that create this type of special diet for a particular breed know a lot about greyhounds and how their racing diet can affect their future life. A greyhound diet food will be very low in additives and contain all the vitamins and minerals to keep your greyhound healthy and content.