Clean Run Magazine - December 2008 - 57

Frequently Asked Questions Canine Health Care: By Julie A. Roos, DVM How should I feed my dog on the day of the trial and is there anything I can do to enhance his performance? I’ve heard of glucose loading being used for racing dogs. Is it effective for agility dogs? Nutrition plays a key role in your dog’s overall athletic success. How you feed during an agility trial matters as much as how you feed on a daily basis. Glucose loading is a practice of supplementing simple carbohydrates (sugars) at critical times to enhance performance. Before we get into specifics it is important to understand how a dog produces and uses energy. Remember that each dog is an individual and while there are general rules we can follow it is important to critically evaluate what works for your dog. By understanding the basic science behind feeding your dog, you can make diet decisions that can help maximize your dog’s performance. The main fuel for working muscles is glucose (sugar). Glucose is broken down by the muscle cells through metabolic processes into a high energy molecule called ATP. There are three main metabolic pathways for using and generating ATP. First there are immediate energy stores consisting of glucose and ATP that are available in the muscle cell. These immediate energy stores can only activate muscle contractions for 5-30 seconds. Second, glycogenolysis and anaerobic respiration is a process that involves breaking down glycogen—a form of stored glucose contained in the muscle cells—and uses the resulting ATP for a quick boost of energy. Each muscle cell holds a limited amount of glycogen so this method of energy production lasts for 15 seconds up to 2 minutes. The last and most complicated energy pathway is oxidative phosphorylation. This energy source does not begin for at least 2 minutes after exercise has begun. Oxidative phosphorylation pathways break down fats and sugars in the presence of oxygen and are able to produce Instituting a feeding protocol during energy for endurance activities. This process yields far more energy over the long run than the previous two, but is also an agility trial requires discipline much slower, relatively speaking. Glucose loading is a way to use nutrition to maximize your dog’s performance. The basic idea behind glucose loading is to feed your dog a sugar supplement and forethought, but if fractions of that is timed to provide maximal energy So, what does all this biochemistry tell us about feeding dogs a second count for you, it may make for contracting muscle. Oral glucose is at a trial? It means that performance can be influenced by all the difference. rapidly absorbed through the digestive many factors and feeding your dog is one factor you have tract into the bloodstream making it direct control over. Agility is considered a speed, strength, readily available for facilitating muscle and power activity versus an endurance activity. For a top contractions. Exercise increases blood glucose levels and facilitates uptake agility dog a clean run is 40 seconds or less. These explosive short duration of glucose into the muscle cells. activities use the immediate energy stores as well as the anaerobic glycolytic energy system. Therefore, agility dogs need diets that are high in protein and carbohydrates, which support rapid energy release for short periods of time. Fat in the diet is by no means obsolete or unnecessary. On the contrary, because agility dogs often have multiple runs a day, they need fat in their diets to fully use the oxidative energy pathways needed to support sustained activity. December 08 | Clean Run Several sugar-based supplements are on the market (Energel and K9 Performance Tabs are two examples). Sugars come as monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, dextrose, galactose), which are single molecules of sugar and disaccharides (sucrose, table sugar, lactose, maltose) which are two 57 © WWW.MaTTallISOnPHOTOGraPHY.cOM

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Clean Run Magazine - December 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - December 2008