How To Feed A Guard Dog

Guard dogs have extremely important jobs and they can end up serving on patrol duty, in riot control, shore watch, sentry duty and warehouse duty to name but a few. They need to be trained to a high standard and they need to have a lot of stamina too. This means that a good diet is needed to keep their energy levels up.

What You Should Feed a Guard Dog

All guide dogs need a high level of energy to do their jobs properly. They tend to be on duty for quite a long time and that means that there is no room for a lack of energy. Anything could happen and the dog would need to be able to jump in at any time when needed. Also, they are always under some form of stress, especially in riot situations.

You would think that a guard dog would be better suited to high caloric foods which have 1500 to 1600 calories per pound, but unfortunately not even these foods are good enough. Usually guard dogs are only fed once a day and that means that they need to eat a small amount in that sitting and it has to have an extremely high caloric intake to be sufficient enough to carry them through the day. This means that the food has to have the right nutrients as well as high energy levels too.

One thing which many people do not like about patrol guard dogs is the fact that they tend to leave their stools everywhere and due to the food that they eat, it can be quite smelly as well as look a mess! Workers do not like to have their dinner or morning coffee having to smell the remains of dog stools! There is a way in which this problem can be controlled however and that is to stick to a food which is high in energy but low in dry food. It is the indigestible dry matter which causes the problem and if you reduce that then you should be OK. The stools will become less frequent and they will also not smell as badly as they did before.

Overall guard dogs need high energy food which does not have much dry matter. The food should exceed 1600 calories per pound and they should be fed one meal per day. This way they will keep their maximum performance and their energy levels will be up all day.

One last tip is to feed a guard dog out of raised dog bowls. This will reduce the amount of air ingested during feeding, which makes digestion more efficient and creates less gas.