Food For Dog and Musher: Part 2

    Now for all those dog feeding secrets!


    I try to keep it very basic - meat (beef fat scraps, although sometimes we get lamb or pork) and First Mate High Performance Puppy kibble. Heart, liver, tripe and tongue are great when I can get them and I mix them in as I can - either with meat or kibble or cut up for snacks.


    In the summer the dogs get meat at one meal and dog food (always in water) at the other. They also get bones periodically which they love. In fact, they know when I go to the butcher and get extra excited when they see me unloading meat because they know a treat is coming! It really helps the pups learn to chew on something other than collars, houses or each other...


    In the fall I begin to add meals. It all depends on training intensity. On days off, they have two meals, but on training days they might have up to 4 and a snack or two. Basically I feed the dogs a kibble meal in the morning, then a snack every three hours (or so) of the run (beef chunks or kibble on the snow) and a wet cooler is dog food and meat soaked together at 6-8 hours.
    When we return from a run I give more kibble and then a meat meal when the dogs are bedded down at home. Pretty simple, eh?


    Not quite!


    Races are a bit more involved. I try to make sure I get the meat ground and I am very careful to try to have a few different types of snacks - in addition to the base wet-cooler of dog food and kibble. A few years ago I sat down and broken down the calories for every snack and meal I anticipated feeding. What did I discover? It's VERY easy to feed too much!
    One of the reasons I chose First Mate is because of the extremely high kilocalories per cup, because it's fish based and has no corn (rice instead). This means the dogs love it (the fish) and it's very dense, so I've had to train myself to not give more than a scoop (1-1 1/2 cups) to a dog at any given time. A handful of kibble is quite a bit of calories!
  
    If I could change anything, I would get access to some fish to supplement the beef. I think the dogs would enjoy the change and fish is great for warm weather. Plus, the oils should really help their coat and feet. Something else I think the dogs might like in warm weather is kibble mixed with milk and frozen in ice cubes...just an idea at this point, but I might try it.


    Well, I think that's a pretty good overview of the dog's feeding regimen...perhaps next time we'll get back into "How It All Started..."