Carbohydrate and Fat as Energy Sources for Sled Dogs

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Sled dogs are trained like top athletes throughout the year, and optimal feeding and nutrition are thus essential to ensuring success. The physiology and metabolism of the dogs show that that they are long-distance runners, who mainly utilise fat and protein as energy sources, and only to a lesser degree carbohydrates. However, the dogs require glucose as an essential source of energy for muscle activity, especially at high intensities.

There are different types of sled dog races, including short and long-distance races. Carbohydrates are presumably more important as an energy source on shorter races (20-30 km) at high speeds than on the long-distance races, in which the dogs run at a moderate pace (15 km/h) for many days at low temperatures. On such long races as the Iditarod, it has been shown that high-energy food consisting only of fat and protein provides excellent results. This is an adaptation that has been developed by predators (wolves/dogs), whose natural diet mainly consists of the proteins and fats of their prey, but also includes some carbohydrates.

Dry food types dominate the dog food market, since they generally are easier to use than the wet foods. Wet foods require more space, different storage conditions and often have a lower energy concentration due to their high water content. However, for active dogs it has been shown that wet food containing a lot of fat and sufficient amounts of protein has certain benefits compared to food containing carbohydrates. There are presumably several explanations for this, but a main reason is that dogs have an exceptional ability to utilise fat as an energy source for muscle activity and that they have a well-functioning system for converting protein to glucose. The dogs' considerable glucose requirement can be satisfied by the breakdown of protein, and to a certain degree also of fat. It thus seems as if dogs running for long distances at a moderate pace (aerobic respiration) run on a "diesel engine" and prefer a lot of fat as an energy source. On short, high-speed races, however, the dogs have to occasionally make use of their "gasoline engine", which in turn requires more carbohydrates or protein which can be converted to glucose.

Our experiments are performed on eight Alaskan Huskies. For 14 days the dogs are fed a dry food, in which 35 % of the energy is derived from carbohydrates, and then for the next 14 days they are given a carbohydrate-free food. The dogs participate in a training programme, and their physical performance is recorded by measuring running speed and pulse. Feed intake, feed nutrient digestibility and faecal consistency will be used as parameters to determine which food type is most suitable. The transition between the two food types will be made from one day to the next, and will provide data on how much time dogs need to adapt to a change in diet. Blood analyses could shed light upon how the dogs utilise the two food types as an energy source for muscle activity, and how the transition affects the level of various nutrients and metabolites in the dogs' blood. These experiments are part of the department's research on the nutrition of active dogs.

Updated: 14.05.09
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