Spring: Slowly reducing the extra calories

As the days get warmer and the nights only occasionally dip below freezing, we begin to reduce the additional calories in the dogs’ diet.

The first thing to disappear is usually the daily snacking. During winter, snacks are an important part of keeping energy levels high. In spring, they become less necessary.

We may still snack the dogs if we are going out for a training run or doing a specific activity with them, but at that point the snack is more about routine, handling, and training than calories.

The same happens with meals.

During the cold working season, the dogs often get a morning soup: a mix of defrosted meat, water, and sometimes dry food. This helps hydrate them and gives them extra fuel. But once the dogs have recovered well from the winter, started putting on a little bit of summer weight, and no longer need that extra morning feed, we remove the soup from the routine.

This does not mean the dogs are without water. In summer, all dogs have water available 24/7. Instead of feeding morning soup, we go through the kennel in the morning, refresh the buckets, and make sure every dog has clean, fresh water.

 

Summer: Less meat, same quality food

In the evenings, we continue for a while with a mix of meat and dry food. But at some point, usually around June, July, and sometimes into August, we stop buying meat for the summer and switch to a dry-food-only dinner.

At Bearhill, that means Royal Canin 4800.

This is still a high-fat, high-protein food. We do not switch the dogs onto a light, low-fat, low-protein, or cheaper summer food.

Some kennels do, and there are different ways to manage a sled dog kennel. But in our experience, changing the food itself has not worked particularly well. We have experimented with it in the past, mostly to see if there was a benefit, and usually regretted it.

The system that has worked best for us is simple:

We keep the same high-quality food, but reduce the portion size and remove most of the added meat and snacks.

That way, the dogs still get a nutrient-dense food that supports their general health, even when they are eating less of it.

 

The practical side: Clean, easy, efficient

There is also a very practical reason for feeding dry food in summer.

It is cleaner.

In hot weather, feeding greasy, fatty meat meals creates more mess. Bowls become harder to clean. Food hygiene becomes more important. Everything is warmer, and everything gets dirtier faster.

Dry food is much easier to manage. We take a bucket, go around the kennel, and feed each dog. The bowls stay cleaner, the routine is quicker, and the dogs still get the nutrition they need.

There is also a small dental benefit: the dogs get something dry and crunchy to chew. It is not a replacement for dental care, of course, but it is another practical advantage.

 

The nutritional reason: Fat adaptation matters

The bigger reason we do not like switching to a lighter summer food is physiological.

Sled dogs, and dogs in general, are very good at adapting to a high-fat diet. This adaptation happens at the cellular level. Their mitochondria become better at oxidising fat and using it as an energy source.

But this does not happen overnight.

It can take around four to six weeks for dogs to fully adapt to a high-fat diet. We usually work with six weeks as our conservative estimate.

The same is likely true in reverse. If we switch the dogs from a high-fat working diet to a low-fat summer diet, we should assume it takes several weeks for them to lose that adaptation. Then, before autumn training begins, we would have to start building it again.

So if summer is only 16 to 18 weeks long, the logic does not really add up.

The dogs might spend six weeks losing their high-fat adaptation, have perhaps six weeks where the lighter food is actually “useful,” and then spend another six weeks adapting back to the winter diet before serious training starts again.

That is a lot of disruption for very little benefit.

For us, it makes much more sense to maintain the dogs’ high-fat adaptation throughout the year. When autumn comes, they are nutritionally ready to begin training again.

 

Keeping one system for the whole kennel

Another advantage is consistency.

Royal Canin 4800 has worked well for us not only as a working food, but also as a maintenance food. Many of our retired dogs eat the same food as the working dogs, including 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old couch potatoes who are no longer pulling sleds but are still living long, healthy lives.

That matters to us.

A good kennel feeding system should be practical, reliable, and as universal as possible. We need something that works for young dogs, working dogs, retired dogs, and seniors. Of course, individual dogs may need individual adjustments, but as a base system, keeping things simple has been one of the best approaches we know.

Or, as the old saying goes: KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid.