What is the best diet for an active dog?
Moses Ankunding
2025-08-04 07:36:10
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For true endurance dogs, like the racing sled dogs, a diet high in fat is important. Up to 35% of the diet should be fat, with 500-600 calories per cup of food. Medium-activity dogs need more fat and caloric density, especially building up to competitions or events. Sprinters — dogs working on agility, dock diving, flyball and lure — need diets heavier on carbohydrates and lighter on fats. For them, 40-50% carbohydrates and 12-17% fat is appropriate, with 300-400 calories per cup of food. The American College of Veterinary Medicine says that as the distance and duration of exercise increase, dogs use fat as an aerobic fuel source, and fat likely has the most profound effect on increasing stamina in dogs.
Medium-level activities include hunting dogs, working foxhounds, open field herding dogs and search-and-rescue dogs. Post-exercise carbohydrate repletion during competition is important. A subset of these dogs are arena hunters, arena herders and other tracking dogs. For the most part, these dogs could be fed more like sprinters since they don’t work for long periods of time, but they still need fat to build up for competition.
4-6 weeks is a good timeline for acclimating your dog's body to the working diet. During their off season, the intense diet can taper down. Then, as competition season approaches and training increases, food should be shifted to the high-fat diet.