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Eight-Week Program for a Healthy Dog

Portions of the following were published in the Wisconsin Waterfowl Magazine Summer/Fall 2003:

Conditioning and training the hunting dog to be ready for the first day of hunting season should start at least eight weeks before the first day you plan to hunt.  Dogs are no different than people; they need to be prepared for what they are asked to do. Deep down, a dog wants to please his master or mistress and do the best job he can.   

So it is two months before hunting season and you know that your hunting dog is probably going to really have to work hard on and off for five to eight hours a day and you have already set up a three-day hunt.  Here is a simple plan of attack that can help both of you have a fun and a healthy hunting trip.  The following training program is only a guide and each breed and age of dog and condition need to be considered.  What I am about to share is a relatively easy training program that I use for both yearling and geriatric sled dogs. The program I use for adults is more aggressive.  My kennel consists of over 45 sprint sled dogs, Alaskan Husky/Greyhound cross. Health, diet and exercise and definitely happy dogs are the primary concerns.  The dogs that run the ten-dog sprint class will run ten miles on a good track, averaging three-minute miles or less. I have to feed and train them properly in order to achieve this level of performance; they are truly athletes in my eyes and should be taken care of as such. 

First off, look at your dog and assess the situation.  Is the dog underweight or overweight?  If underweight, start bumping the food a little at a time so as to accommodate the exercise plan and not let the weight slip any lower.  If your dog is overweight, start by cutting back a little at a time on the food intake.    

One of the ways to tell if the dog is overweight is by looking at the hip bones; if the flesh between the hip bones bulges upward, this is one of the signs of an overweight dog.  The flesh between the hip bones should be just slightly curved upward.  Then look at the sides of the dog. Does the area from the back of the rib cage to the hip bulge outward? if yes, then the dog is overweight.  If the area dips in a little in a way of showing off a nice waist, so to speak, then this is an indicator of a dog having the proper weight.  If still in doubt, contact your local vet and get his or her opinion before starting an exercise and weight program.

Start Up Considerations

A.     Assess the dog’s condition: age, weight, past injury history, if any, and overall attitude. Make sure your dog has no joint problems.

B.     Start exercising the dog for one mile every other day. Make sure you run the dog on a dirt/grass surface, not sharp gravel, pavement or asphalt. Such surfaces are disastrous to his pads and also very hard on the joints.

C.     Make sure the dog has plenty of water.

D.     Check the pads for heat and put foot cream on the pads, before they become dry or cracked; Musher’s Secret, Protecta-Pad, or Tuff Foot are all good foot creams.

E.      Make sure to check the joints daily for heat or lameness.

F.      Adjust the amount of dog food according to the weight and age of the dog.

G.     Note whether the dog is stiff or sore the next time you plan to exercise. Older dogs will not condition as fast as a young dog and younger dogs and adult dogs need to be paced.

H.     It is very important to make sure you take note of the temperature and humidity.  As a rule of thumb, add the two together and if it is over 115, watch your dog closely because chances of overheating can easily occur.  This is only a guideline. Every dog’s tolerance is different due to hair coat, age, weight, etc.  A dog should always be watched in case of overheating. It can kill.   

I.        Start researching the performance diet that your dog will be given.  I will allude to quality of dog food in a later part of this article.

J.        Always monitor your dog’s overall health for any problems. Better to check with your local vet than to figure it will go away.

K.     Do not feed the dog and then take him out and ask him to exercise on a full stomach.  Wait to feed the dog at least an hour after he has exercised and has completely cooled down.

L.      Make sure the dog is up to date on all his shots and also has been wormed.

M.   If you notice anything not right, please consult your vet.

 Finding the Right Dog Food

Slowly start changing your dog’s diet over to a quality high protein and high fat diet. The new food should be blended with the old food and not switched abruptly. This makes it easier for the dog’s digestive system.  Look for a dog food that contains high calorie per cup without using corn to bump calories.  One of the best I have found in the adult line of dog food is NutriSource which contains 390 calories per cup without the use of corn or flour and no by-products, as far as I know this is the highest in the industry for calories per cup in the adult line.  Chuck Orrick, did the formulation for NutriSource and a lot of thought was put into this quality food, NutriSource sought to formulate a dog food that is ahead of its time and will offer the adult dog superior ingredients in order to produce top performance.  Use the following guidelines to determine what dog food is right for your dog.  Dogs need the appropriate food to fuel them and help maintain the proper energy levels they need to perform.  Otherwise they start utilizing their own body fat during the peak of hunting season in order to maintain the level of performance needed to have a successful hunt, and that is when dogs will really drop weight quickly.   

Take time to look at the label and read it carefully.  Corn-based dog foods do not give dogs the nutrients and energy levels needed to perform at their peak.  A meat-based diet will allow the dog to better utilize the food and receive the most benefit out of the food that he is being given.  Chicken is easier on a dog’s digestive system than beef or any other ingredient when stressed by exercise. Remember, only quality ingredients can help produce quality performance.  Also, you need to realize that just because the first ingredient is meat does not mean it is a great dog food.  Look at the calories per cup and then look at the second and third ingredients. For my kennel, I looked for a dog food with chicken as the first ingredient and chicken meal as the second. I have stayed clear of anything with the words “……… By-Product Meal”.  The definition of Chicken By-Product Meal by the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) states as follows: consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped  eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practice.   

Now that you have located the proper first and second ingredient, the third ingredient that is helpful is rice.  For my kennel, I have chosen brown rice instead of corn or flour.  This is because from what I have learned, my dogs will receive more calories per cup and better digestibility from rice than from flour or corn.  I am looking for the most balanced calorie per cup that I can receive and in the process maintain the proper digestibility of the dog food.  There is no sense in feeding ingredients that cannot be properly utilized by the dog and only produce more waste to clean up in the end.  

Another indicator of quality dog food is the placement of beet pulp in the ingredient list.  Beet pulp is used as a binder of the digested food to help in slowing down the movement of the food through the dog’s digestive system.  When the ingredients are not best suited for the dog, the dog’s system will typically just pass it through and this is where the larger piles of waste come from. This is typical of a dog food that has beet pulp as the fourth through sixth ingredient, thus in turn you feed more to meet the nutritional requirements of the dog.   The reason for slowing the process down, is to enable the dog to utilize the ingredients and not just pass the food on through the dog.  When beet pulp is the eighth to the tenth ingredient, this indicates the ingredients in front of the beet pulp are of a much higher quality and the dog will utilize the ingredients better and gain a higher nutritional value from the food the dog has just eaten.  This also shows that beet pulp is not needed to slow the  

It is easy to bump the calories per cup of dog food with grain, but the utilization by the dog is not the same with grain-based diets. The stools will be bigger, and that means a lot of the food was not utilized by the dog and just passed on through the dog’s system.  In essence, you just paid for dog food that is only passing through the dog and you end up picking up more stools for the money you spent.  I cannot stress it enough: quality dog food means quality performance and less stools to pick up in the end.   In my kennel.

I will not waste my money on corn, flour and by-products. They do not do justice to the dog or the performance of the dog.  I could talk about dog food for a long time because of feeding over forty dogs. I have to weigh cost with nutritional value and get the most performance for the money that is spent.  Everyone will have their own opinion on these matters; however, the proof is in the feeding and the amount of waste produced as well as the amount of food needed to meet the performance of my sled dogs.  

 Exercise Plan for Week 1 and 2

 Start off by exercising your dog for about a mile of jogging, loping, or trotting, going along with the four-wheeler or bike.  Give a few short breaks in between.  Let the dog stop for a minute (to catch a breather) and when he looks ready to go again, start moving and have him run.   As you progress in your training and notice the dog not needing to rest as much, start reducing the amount of times you stop till the dog can run the mileage very easily while always watching the dog for signs of exhaustion.  The last thing you want is for your dog to lie down and quit.  He needs to look forward to the runs and you never want to push him over the edge and let him sour on his exercise.  When I train my dogs, I want happy dogs and when I am done training I want to see them recover (by means of breathing or panting) in less than ten minutes from a five to six mile hard run.     

When you are done exercising, let the dog cool down; walk him a bit, watch his panting and look for signs of his breathing slowing down.  Do not give him all the water he wants right away; many times the dog will just throw it all up in a few minutes.  Give your dog a little water at a time, but in the end let him drink about two quarts and later offer him additional water as he wants.  

Your goal at the end of week two is to have your dog run a mile reasonably well with as few breaks as possible and not come back looking like he was run over by a freight train.  Remember, the more your dog is overweight the longer this process of conditioning will take. You may need to add an extra week to the start-up.  By the end of the second week you should note that the weight should start to drop off slowly and the energy level of the dog should increase; muscles should start to tone up as well.  If your dog is underweight, adjust the dog food to compensate for the increase in activity so that he does not lose more weight and fall behind in his proper weight level.   

Week 3

Increase the mileage and move up to two-mile runs. Just as before, watch the dog for signs of exhaustion and let him rest and then start the run up again.  This is a form of interval training, which will help increase the aerobic capacity of your dog.  By the end of the third week, your dog should be able to run the two miles reasonably well and should show signs of recovering from the run in a very short period of time.  I always gauge my dogs after they come in from a run by how fast their breathing returns to normal and whether they are happy.  A dog that collapses was pushed too hard and must be slowed down so that he comes in looking happy and not pushed over the edge.  As always, look for stiffness the next day and adjust accordingly.  Never run a dog that is showing signs of stiffness or lameness. 

Week 4

Now switch your runs to two days on and one day off, still running the two miles. Use this week to finish transitioning the dog’s food over to the better quality food and also make sure the dog is still coming back from the runs looking happy and not showing signs of lameness.  As always, check the feet and look the pads over.  Put cream on them and make sure there are no cuts or cracks. 

Week 5

Now is the time to bump the dog up to three miles.  You have achieved a good base of conditioning on the dog.  The weight should be looking good and the dog should be transitioned over to the better quality dog food.  Follow the same procedures as before and let the dog run till he starts showing signs of tiring and then rest him, allowing him to catch his breath.  The idea of this program is that by the time you are at the end of each week of increasing the mileage, the dog should be able to run the mileage relatively well without having to stop hardly at all.   At this point you are still training two days on and one day off, followed again by two days on and one day off.

Week 6

This week you again bump the mileage to four miles following the same format.  As always, continue checking the dog’s weight and feet and making sure you monitor all other aspects of the dog’s overall condition.  Here is where I would start looking at an electrolyte replacement to be given to the dog after he runs, to aid in the recovery of fluids lost during the exercise.  There are some excellent products out there that, as a musher, I have found to really aid my dogs in the recovery from one training day to the next.  Glycocharge and NuPro are products that are used by many mushers.

 Week 7

So far you have prepared your dog and expanded his aerobic capacity, switched his food over to meet the new nutritional needs, kept plenty of water always available and daily checked his feet and pads for soreness.  Make sure he isn’t showing signs of lameness and that the dog is always happy.  This is the week you will switch the dog over to three consecutive days of training and then two days off of training, followed again by two days of training  and one day off, and then start the whole process over again.  Now I know this sounds like a mouthful, but this will help increase the stamina and the range of endurance of the dog.  All the while you are still running the four miles. 

 Week 8

Now with the new training schedule, bump your dog to five-mile runs.  As always, you should adjust accordingly for the weight and the age of the dog.  With older dogs, you need to watch for joint problems. Take time to run your hand over the joints, checking for heat. This is a good practice on any age dog.  If you find any problems, go to your vet and have the dog checked out.   

During the hunting season and between hunts, make sure you still exercise your dog and give him a day or two off before going on your next hunt.   Also, be sure to always monitor the dog’s overall health.

 This way you will help maintain his level of conditioning.   Continue to constantly monitor the food intake based on the build of the dog and the weight he should maintain.  Remember, when you stop hunting and if you stop exercising, the level of food should decrease in order that the dog does not gain excess weight.  A good quality maintenance diet should be started during the off season.  As a final recommendation, all dogs as well as people need consistent exercise and a proper diet in order to live healthily and productive lives.   Also, when you switch to a maintenance diet be sure to blend it with your present dog food and slowly convert the dog to the food.  

For more information contact:

Northwind Kennels

N-14908 Kaiser Rd. Park Falls, Wisconsin 54552

 (715) 762-1037

email us at contactus@northwindenterprises.us