Nutrition... Akela's Den!

Sled Dog Nutrition Tips:

Water is the most important and often ignored and cheapest element of diet. Ideal diet (working dog):
  • 30 to 40% protein

  • 30 to 60% fat

  • 15 to 30% carbohydrates - 30% too much for heavy work
        (closer to 15% advised. Be cautious with the ingredients)


    • Dogs daily requirement (approximate)- 1500 calories approx. at home; 2,500 to 5,000 when training; 6,500 to 9,000 for distance racing. The breakdown of calories are: protein – 1,600 calories per pound; fat – 4,000 calories per pound; carbohydrates – 1,600 calories per pound.

    A test was done at Cornell University feeding the following diets:
  • 16%, 24%, 32%, and 40% protein diet for a full season

  • 16 % at least ­ each dog got at least one injury during season

  • 24% - 2 injured dogs per team

  • 32 to 40% - no injuries reported


    • Nutrient breakdown of some common feed ingredients:

      dry matter Protein Fat Carbohydrates
    Beef30%70%16%--
    Chicken35%44%42%9%
    Fish20%70%25%--
    Fat99%--99%--
    Corn90%10%90%80%
    Eggs40%20%15%50%


    Your dogs need Omega 3 -- ­ fish oil, canola oil, or flax oil are the best sources. Raw meat supplies Creatine -- 1 lb meat gives 2 to 3 gm of Creatine. 30 gm Creatine is a loading dose for dogs. 3 gm is a maintenance dose. Creatine is natural part of dogs diet and is not doping, as it could be in most other athletes. Creatine promotes muscle growth. Many athletes that use it claim that when they quit they are often fatigued easily.

    --> fish is good for dog diet but must be cooked (kills tape worm)
    --> know what you are feeding:
  • Oats with out hulls (especially precooked) -- best ­ expensive
  • Barley with out hulls (precooked) -- good
  • Canned food is 70% water and lots of sugar
  • Most dried foods have 10% water
  • Chicken meal ­ meat meal ­ fish meal ­ (not by-products) are excellent
  • Eggs are excellent supplement.
        Lots of moisture and are very nutritious but cook them before feeding them
  • You can feed very high fat 80 to 90% during the race
        Need to be on a high fat diet (30%) 2 to 3 months before racing
  • You need to feed good ration all the time ­ takes 2 to 3 months to get benefit
  • When you add anything to dog food it changes the overall ration
  • Feeding dry, with water separate, is best for dog's digestibility.
        If feeding wet add no more water than to get a peanut butter consistency.
        Feeding watery ration can cause diarrhea and dehydration
  • Too much fat in pregnant females can cause weaker pups.
        Could also result in birthing problems if mother or pups are too fat
  • Feed the best you can afford ­ expect $300/year/dog for a good race diet
  • Dogs sometimes don’t eat in race when tired.
        It teaches us to feed them what they like if we go along with this.
        Try to feed them before they are too tired. Feed small rations often
  • Prepare food that they like with the ration you need for good results



    • "Whatever’s on $ale"

    by T.J. Dunn Jr., DMV

    After five years of practical veterinary experience with pets, I am still amazed and slightly shocked on a daily basis when I ask pet owners, "What do you feed your pet?" and they reply, "Oh whatever’s on sale."

    Why is it that for so many pet owners the first place to economize is in the price they’ll pay for food? Skimp or cut corners on other nonessential things, or have fewer animals, but skimping on you animal’s daily source of sustenance is unwise.

    Let’s assess what we’re calling pet food and start to recognize how a good quality pet food will promote a good quality of life for our pets. Keep the following concepts in mind the next time you reach for your pet’s "daily bread."

    You get what you pay for. This concept is based on the inescapable fact that the higher the cost of the ingredients, the easier the food will be digested and used in biochemical processes. For example, eggs are highly digestible and have excellent nutritive value--and they are expensive, so most pet foods don’t contain eggs. Soybeans meal, on the other hand, provides only marginal nourishment for dogs and are relatively inexpensive; they are also often the foundation for many pet foods. The pet food industry is well aware of cost conscious consumers, so anything to keep that bag or can of food less expensive is very important.

    It is also true that a pet consuming a highly digestible (and more expensive) food will require less of that food than if it were consuming a less digestible food. In other words, an animal needs to eat more pounds of a cheap food than an expensive food, so the lower-priced food won’t save as much money as you might think.

    A brand of dog food you’ve "always fed" may not be so good. When recommending a better pet food to owners, I’m often hit with the statement "But, Doc, I’ve always fed XYZ Brand to my dogs, and they’ve all done just fine." This pet owner hasn’t given him or herself a chance to see that there can be a difference in how their pet looks and acts. All they see is what they have always seen and observed to be normal. I’m tempted to ask, "If you’ve always ridden a horse to get around, would you not drive a car simply because a horse has always worked okay?"

    Look at the ingredients. This is your best guide to the quality of a food. By law, every bag or can of pet food must list the ingredients in descending order according to weight. A higher quality diet will list meat, meat by-products, fish meal, or chicken first rather than a grain. Per pound of food, a pet will derive more benefit from the meat-based diet than the vegetable-based diet. Dogs and cats may be domesticated behaviorally, but we humans cannot do a quick digestive fix on creatures whose physiology and anatomy have evolved over millions of years and is based upon predator-prey food acquisition. Let’s not pretend that our pets are primarily plant eaters simply because it would be easier and less expensive for us if they were.

    "High protein" does not necessarily mean high quality. A high-protein label means nothing. What you need to know about the protein is pet food is its source. Feathers, hoofs, rawhide, hair and beaks are mostly protein, but as food sources, they are not very digestible. Meat-eaters, such as dogs, do not digest soybean meal, and other vegetable sources of protein very well, due in part to their relatively short intestinal tracts and fast transit times. In addition, the dog pancreas does not secrete any enzymes to break down plant cellulose for carbohydrate utilization.

    I am not saying that grains such as beans, rice, barley and fiber fillers like beet pulp and ground peanut hulls are bad for dogs. In the correct amounts and combinations, they play a roll in good pet nutrition. However, just because grains are cheap, easy to package, store conveniently and don’t need refrigeration, they should not be the foundation for a diet formulated for creatures that are primarily meat eaters! The table to the left will give you an idea of the relative quality of some common protein sources.

    Just because you pet loves a food doesn’t prove that it’s highly nourishing. Give most children a choice and their diet would consist of fries and chocolate malts. Give your pet a choice and its diet quality might not be optimal either. You must choose wisely and provide a diet that will promote optimal health, not just barely meet minimum or "average" requirements. Most inexpensive pet foods were formulated to meet only minimal nutritional requirements. If your pet gulps down its food ravenously, it may be doing so because it needs more than what it’s been getting; it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a great food.

    Base your pet’s health on a good quality diet. Of the hundreds of brands of pet foods available, there are only a handful that approach what I would call "good quality." These have as their foundation (first or second ingredients) meat, fish, or chicken. Meat by-products are also very beneficial. Meat by-products, according to the definition established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials, do not contain hair, horns, teeth or hoofs, but do include organ tissue such as liver, kidneys, heart and lungs. Dog foods that contain meat or fish protein as their foundation will be superior to vegetable-based feeds in their life-giving nourishment. And all you have to do is read the label.

    It is my contention that many brands of pet foods being marketed to today’s pet owners are woefully over-rated. Our pets are the innocent victims of a pet food industry that is resistant to move away from cheap products that sell. If pet health professionals would do a little better job of stressing the necessity of optimum nutrition, and if pet food purchasers would be a little less price conscious and a little more discriminating in their purchase decisions, then a multitude of minimally nourishing pet foods would no longer pollute our pets.

    A reprint from Mushing - March/April 1996

    A graduate of the University of Illinois, T.J.Dunn Jr., DVM, practices in Rhinelander in northern Wisconsin. Many of his clients are sled dog owners.


    The difference between average and good dog food

    Good Quality Dog Food Average Quality Food
    Main ingredients - fish, chicken Main ingredient - corn, wheat, rice, soy-bean meal
    Higher purchase price Lower purchase price
    Low fecal waste Inefficient digestibility
    Less required by pet to maintain health Lots of clean-up required
    Usually doesn’t have fancy names, dyes to color the feed or consumer marketing gimmicks More required to maintain health
      Often promoted as "look like" real meat or cheese; uses food dyes for interesting colors.