HOW AND WHY TO FEED AUSTRALIAN FORMULA

For many months now, we have been inundated by requests for information from an ever growing group of owners and trainers people who have switched to feeding Australian Formula and want to know how to correctly use it. To help people who are new to the product we have produced a guide to using the food. The information is accurate and will work well with practically all dogs. Obviously though it is important to remember that dogs are all individuals and require slightly different approaches.

CHANGING ONTO AUSTRALIAN FROM ANOTHER FEED:

Australian is so well suited to the needs of a greyhound and is so easily digested that unlike other feeds you can change onto Australian in one day and enjoy immediately the many benefits of the product such as small amounts of easily scooped stools and a hassle free feeding regime for the trainer.

HOW MUCH TO FEED:

The following table is a rough guide to the amount of Australian Formula that should be fed. This assumes that a dog is given a breakfast consisting of 2 Weetabix or two small slices of brown bread with milk or other liquid.

AUSTRALIAN FORMULA FEEDING TABLE

These feed guidelines apply to dogs kennelled at 12 degrees centigrade or above.

In colder conditions with unheated kennels feed amounts must be increased.

Beware – many trainers report weight gain in their greyhounds if feeding Australian Formula in the same quantities as other feeds.

SOUP:

Some trainers like to make a soup to add to the main meal. From a nutritional point of view this is not needed with Australian Formula. For the rare very poor eater it may be a help however. In this case we recommend making a fresh chicken soup because stock cubes and commercial soup powders usually contain large amounts of salt that is especially unsuitable for dogs as it is the wrong type of salt.

MEAT:

This is the big psychological hurdle that trainers have to overcome. For many years people have been used to complete dog foods or traditional home made diets that require the addition of large amounts of meat before they are able to function as fuel for racing dogs. With Australian Formula this is no longer the case. Our food is so well formulated and balanced that the addition of meat will not improve it all. In fact, once you go past a couple of ounces of meat you start to reach a situation where imbalance occurs that will have an unwanted effect upon performance.

The reason that we recommend not adding much in the way of meat to our formula is simply because it interferes with the critically balanced product we have made. The right type of meat is a good quality source of many of the nutrients that dogs need. Unfortunately, feeding meat also changes critical mineral balances in Australian Formula. It also reduces the fat level of the diet; which is not good for performance, and it is deficient in many vitamins. The risk of bacterial contamination is also hugely increased when you add meat to what otherwise is quite a sterile and risk free diet.

Research has shown that greyhounds perform better when fat is increased above that traditionally given and perform worse when protein is increased above this level. Australian Formula’s groundbreaking success has basically been all about turning conventional thinking on its head and greatly increasing fat levels in the diet. Dogs have a vastly superior ability to digest and utilise fat than do humans. The correctly high fat levels are diluted by the addition of lean meat and you are basically arriving back at the protein to fat ratio of one of the traditional complete greyhound feeds that we have replaced.

Our advice on meat is simple. Do not add it to Australian Formula. if you insist on doing so try to add less than 2 ounces per day.

WATER:

We consider hydration or getting enough water into the dog to be a very important issue – vital in fact if top athletic performance is required. The adding of an equal weight or volume of water and or soup to the dry food given and by adding milk or an other liquid to the breakfast is a major step towards achieving correct hydration. Fresh water should always be available as well.

NERVOUS, BARKERS, HYPERACTIVE DOGS:

For hyperactive dogs add about 3 ounces of food to the main meal per day above the recommendations set out in the feeding guidelines above.

TO ADJUST A DOG’S WEIGHT:

To take off or add one pound weight to a dog, add or subtract two ounces of food per day for one week. Weight variation (or hopefully the lack of it) is very important. Dogs weight going up or down a large amount between races is a huge obstacle to peak performance. Use Australian Formula accurately and this is very unlikely to happen. A dog changing its weight by three pounds is equivalent to a human athlete changing weight by about half a stone between races. No serious human athlete would allow this to happen.

DO NOT!:

RACE DAY:

Many people have asked us for advice on what to feed on a race day. Our advice is simple; give breakfast as usual and then a light race feed at the usual time. Ideally, dogs run faster when they are not burdened with food in their stomach. However, greyhounds are creatures of habit and even the least intelligent hound soon learns to associate lack of food at the usual time with a night’s racing.

Ideally, feed no more than than six ounces of food but be prepared that you might have to increase that to fool the shrewder racer, particularly the hyperactive dog who can fret badly, using huge amounts of nervous energy and occasionally dehydrating before he has even raced!

In our research, we discovered a small number of cases whereby the greyhound had to be given virtually a full feed some six to eight hours before racing in order to stem his anxiety

We should stress though, this is far from ideal, and only considered necessary with a very small group of dogs. It is certainly not necessary from an’energy requirement’ perspective.

Remember, a race only takes half a minute or so, the energy for the race comes from nutrients, which are supplied, on a cellular level – not from food swilling around in the stomach.

When the dog returns home after racing it will greatly benefit from the usual meal of Australian Formula, which will restore depleted energy, proteins, salts etc.