Abstract
Dietary fiber affects canine physiology in many ways, such as increasing colonic absorption of water and improving gut health, both of which may positively impact exercise performance. The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of increased dietary soluble fiber and incremental training on respiratory rate (RR), internal body temperature (BT), body composition, and fecal metabolites in mid-distance training sled dogs. Fourteen dogs (12 Siberian and 2 Alaskan Huskies) were blocked by age, sex, and body weight (BW) and then randomly allocated into one of two diet groups. Seven dogs were fed a dry extruded control diet (Ctl) with an insoluble:soluble fiber ratio of 4:1 (0.74% soluble fiber on a dry-matter basis), and seven dogs were fed a dry extruded treatment diet (Trt) with an insoluble:soluble fiber ratio of 3:1 (2.12% soluble fiber on a dry-matter basis). Fecal samples were taken once a week. All dogs underwent 9 weeks of incremental exercise conditioning where the running distance was designed to increase each week. Every 3 weeks, external telemetry equipment was used to non-invasively measure and record RR and internal BT at resting, working, and post-exercise recovery states. Body composition was measured on weeks −1 and 9 using quantitative magnetic resonance. Body composition, RR, BT, and fecal metabolites were analyzed using a mixed model with dog as a random effect and week and diet group as fixed effects. Dogs on Trt had lower working and post-exercise BT than Ctl (P < 0.05). In addition, Trt dogs had lower recovery BT at weeks 2 and 5 than Ctl dogs (P < 0.05). Treatment dogs had greater fecal short-chain fatty acid concentrations than Ctl (P < 0.05). Diet had no effect on RR or body composition (P > 0.10), but exercise resulted in an overall 7% increase in lean and 3.5% decrease in fat mass (P < 0.05). These data suggest that increasing dietary soluble fiber may positively influence BT and gut health; however, it has no effect on RR or body composition. Soluble fiber did not negatively impact any measures of overall health and performance and should be considered for use in performance dogs.
Highlights
Exercise has the capacity to affect whole-body physiology; high-intensity endurance training, such as that experienced by sled dogs, can lead to gastrointestinal (GI) disturbances, heat stress, and possible dehydration [1, 2]
No differences were observed between mean daily feed intake, body weight (BW), and run distance (RD) with diet (P > 0.10), but all variables differed by week (P < 0.05; Table 2)
Body composition (FM, lean body mass (LBM), and total body water (TBW)) at weeks −1 and 9 did not differ between diet groups (P > 0.10); when data were pooled to evaluate the effects of exercise, all variables differed by week (P < 0.05; Table 2)
Summary
Exercise has the capacity to affect whole-body physiology; high-intensity endurance training, such as that experienced by sled dogs, can lead to gastrointestinal (GI) disturbances, heat stress, and possible dehydration [1, 2]. Nutritional solutions, such as increased dietary soluble fiber inclusion, may support exercise performance through mitigation of these deleterious effects [3,4,5,6]. As SCFAs can increase water absorption in the colon of dogs, providing a diet with optimized soluble fiber may prevent dehydration and aid in heat dissipation that could influence RR and BT during exercise [18]
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