Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The dog is unique in the way that the adult weight can vary 100 folds between the different breeds. Despite this, most of the breeds reach adult size before two years of age. For the large-breed dogs this means a very rapid growth when some of them can have a weight gain of up to 150 times their birth weight. The most rapid growth occurs when the puppies are between three to six months old and that kind of rapid growth during such a short period of time makes these large-breed puppies very sensitive to deficits and excesses of energy, nutrients and minerals. Some examples can be excess of energy, excess or deficit of minerals such as calcium and phosphorus or deficits of protein.

The rapid growth can also make the large-breed puppies predisposed to some diseases affecting the skeletal and joints. These problems can occur for different reasons whereof the factors mentioned above about feeding have been described as contributing.

This paper will present the importance of the young large-breed dogs getting fed accordingly to recommendations to make sure that they will develop into healthy adult individuals, without diseases or injuries as results of improper feeding.

For the owners however this is not always an easy task because of the amount of different canine feed available on the market. Different recommendations from for example, friends, breeders and the Internet can also occur which makes it even more difficult to choose and be sure of what is best for the dog. It gets more and more usual that owners choose alternative methods of feeding such as homemade diets or adding some extra supplements to an already balanced diet. This can sometimes have detrimental outcomes if the puppies end up with deficiencies or excesses of one or more mineral or nutrient.

In this case the veterinary nurse play an important role in giving proper advice to both the owners that want help choosing the first canine feed for their puppies, and to the owners that may need some advice because of their current choice of feeding method may not be the best for the dog during growth. Therefore it is important that the veterinary nurses are educated in this matter to make the owners feel secure when looking for advice.