Lance Mackey has won his third Iditarod in a row with Larry & Maple running as lead dogs. Mackey was about six hours ahead of the second- and third-place mushers, Sebastian Schnuelle of Canada and John Baker of Kotzebue. Larry has been one of Mackey's two lead dogs for three years in a row.How does he do it?
Well, he's a very good musher, he's been pretty lucky, and he has a team of top dogs who are well-trained and very well-conditioned.
And what does he feed those dogs while he trains them? Well one big part of the menu is a dog food with CORN in it!
Corn? Oh. My. God. How could he?
Well, the same way almost every working dog in the world, from bird dog to working terrier, and from Iditarod dog to racing greyhound, is fed a dry dog food with a significant amount of corn in it.
Corn works, and there is not a single study that shows putting corn in dog food is bad.
Not a one. Quite the opposite.
Does that mean that the dogs are mostly eating corn? Of course not, and especially not during a race when 10,000-12,000 calories a day are being sucked down per dog. You need a lot of fat and protein to get 12,000 calories inside a dog. That said, when the dogs are training (i.e. the other 350 days of the year), calorie intake is a lot less than during a 1,000-mile race, and dried kibble is a large part of the diet -- kibble with corn in it.
As for feeding 80 dogs at a crack, try to do it without a kibbled dog food or a fish wheel located right outside your cabin!
- Related Post
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** Poodles In the Iditarod?
** Feed Me Like a Wolf
** The Genetics of Iditarod and Crufts
** Alaska: Made by Special Dogs of No Special Breed
** A Brief History of Dog Food
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3 comments:
In truth, I'm fine with food containing the corn gluten, the part that actually provides the protein. This means to me that some foods that are "bad" all of a sudden aren't so bad. It's the foods containing Whole Ground Corn or anything of that derivative that I'm still really iffy about.
Yes, we fed my dog corn off the cob (he'd take it off the cob himself with his front incisors), but it was a treat, not a major part of his diet. He was fed a kibble containing the corn gluten meal, and did just fine on it.
But when we switched foods to a brand containing ground whole corn as the first ingredient, all I ever heard my parents talk about was how BIG his poops were, how much more food he was eating to maintain the same weight, and how OFTEN he was pooping (every time he went outside, compared to his usual 2x/day). While his stool was hard and firm, it also looked as if we had fed him corn meal, since we could see the grains in it when we scooped.
That experience left a bad taste in my mouth for any brand using ground corn kernels as a filler to bulk up the food. I know it's all anecdotal evidence and only with one dog, and made me avoid corn ingredients period in any dog food for a while; but even with my exception with the gluten meal, I still don't see the nutritional reasoning behind the ground whole corn and why it should be more important than any protein source in any dog or cat food. I know dogs can do just fine on it, but I wonder if they can't do better by replacing the ground corn with a quality protein (even a corn-based one, since meat is arguably expensive these days!).
L. Iunii Moderati Columella
"DE RE RVSTICA" Liber septimvs
I° sec. d. C.
XII. DE CANIBVS
. [10] Cibaria fere eadem sunt utrique generi praebenda. Nam si tam laxa rura sunt, ut sustineant pecorum greges, omnis sine discrimine hordeacea farina cum sero commode pascit. Sin autem surculo consitus ager sine pascuo est, farreo vel triticeo pane satiandi sunt, admixto tamen liquore coctae fabae, sed tepido, nam fervens rabiem creat
English:
For one species to another and should be administered at about the same kind of food. If the fields are so wide that can feed the herds and flocks, whey and barley flour are the best support of everyone, without distinction. If the fund has planted a tree and fruit and devoid of pasture, you may have typed the bread moistened with water in which they were cooked beans (species: Vicia faba) Water not too hot.
The cereal always been used in the diet of the dog since the earliest times! Is the dog arrived strong and healthy you modern times. L 'important and the quality of the cereal. I have some variants of the fingers made for dogs to hunt large prey, but always from cereals (bran). Always olds
Pastors usually used the milk of sheep and goats (Protein) that do not cause allergies .
Mirko
Congratulations on your win and thank you for your excellent example of the science of nutrition over marketing hype in the grain-free market. My dog also eats a food with corn in it, Kumpi Dog Food, and I've been blasted many times because it has "cornmeal" in it. All I can say is look at the results. Your dogs are living proof you made the right choice.
Congratulations again on the win and I look forward to catching up with the highlights from the Iditarod website.
Robert Davis
http://www.vonlobos.com
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