The Variety of Working Dog Breeds
Once you begin to explore the astonishing variety of dog breeds alive on the planet today, you may begin to understand the depth of the ongoing relationship between humans and their dog companions and co-workers. Human impact on the natural world has been considerable and the new science of genetics may change nature beyond recognition. But the way that canine-human interactions have altered the animals themselves, each fine-tuned to its role, is still the most impressive example of its kind.
Selective breeding over millennia has led to a plethora of breeds, each endowed with particular powers. The huge, long-haired Newfoundland, for example, is a powerful long-distance swimmer and can drive through snow like a plow. Its one of the largest breeds and has strong lungs and a heavy skeleton bred for endurance. The beautiful Alaskan Husky can pull a sled over three times its weight.
A single Alaskan Husky can pull a sled up to three times its own weight
Ansgar Walk via Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.5
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A dog’s fitness is a combination of many factors including their cardiorespiratory function, balance, strength, flexibility, proprioception, muscle strength, and stamina.
Stamina is defined as the dog’s “ability to withstand high energy – demanding activity over extended period of time”. There are many factors that influences a dog’s stamina. These factors can be intrinsic to the dog, environmental or fixed factors such as breed, age, and sex.
Factors that are intrinsic to the dog include muscle activity, fat and electrolyte metabolism, body weight, and level of conditioning / training.
Environmental factors that affect stamina may include ambient temperature and humidity.
Conditioning a dog to perform at the required fitness level and acclimatizing them to the environment in which they will perform has an effect of the dog’s stamina.
When dogs exercise, they exert energy which generates heat. Canine athletes, because of the demands of their “work” have higher cardiovascular and thermoregulation demands than pet dogs. Canine athletes therefore have greater internal body temperatures and cardiac regulation ability. When exercising cardiac output can increase by 74 – 200% and carotid blood flow increases by up to 500%. These are heat tolerance strategies that increases the blood flow throughout the body and ensures maximal heat exchange.
When exercising, dogs limit evaporative loss from panting which leads to the following physiological conditions:
When the extent of these physiological changes exceeds the dog’s fitness level or conditioning, then the dog’s ability to exercise for long periods diminishes and their need for more regular rest periods increases.
A study of working dogs investigated the factors that influences exercise stamina in regularly exercised dogs.
The study included 12 regularly exercised dogs – eight males and four females from five different breeds. Their ages ranged from 8 – 23 months. The dogs had previous training in retrieving and various agility / search tasks.
The study involved the dogs participating in a 30 minute exercise challenge on five separate days over a 19 day period.
There were two study periods with dogs selected randomly and assigned to a study period. The study periods were in June – July and August.
The exercise period commenced at 12 noon on each study. It started with 5 minute pre-exercise routine comprising trotting and active stretches.
The exercise challenge involved the following:
The exercise challenge was followed by a 5 minute post-exercise, warm down session comprising light trotting and walking.
Exercise was ceased if the dog showed any signs of fatigue such as curled tongue while panting, seeking out shade or reluctance to work. For consistency, a single trainer determined when a dog should stop exercising for the purpose of the study.
Physiological measurements were taken between 7am and 9am on exercise days and immediately after the exercise period.
Measurements included the following:
Over the two study periods the median ambient temperature was 28.7 degrees Celsius and the median humidity was 49.6% however there was a significant difference in humidity between the two periods: first period humidity was 50% and second, it was 40%.
The mean exercise period was 27.1 minutes.
The study shows that the following influenced dogs’ stamina:
As stamina increases, the two biomarkers: base excess and TCO2 decrease.
The study also found increases in glucose and haematocrit post exercise. Increases in glucose is a response to physical stress such as exercise. Likewise, increases in haematocrit is commonly associated with acute vs endurance exercise as it facilitates the blood’s oxygen carrying capacity.
In terms of external factors like temperature and humidity, the study found that as outdoor temperature increased, stamina decreased. In this study, humidity did not have an effect on stamina.
A predictor of stamina was the dogs’ pre and post exercise activity. It was found that those dogs with higher pre and post exercise activity levels also had increased stamina.
A possible explanation for this finding is that pre-exercise warm up increases the temperature of joints and muscles and lubricates the fascia which plays a role in injury prevention and increases muscle contraction and relaxation speeds. Post-exercise, warm down ensures that blood continues to circulate to the muscles and contributes to removal of metabolic waste.
Finally, the study found that core body temperature did not influence the dogs’ stamina but rather their ability to dissipate heat. In the working dogs in this study, their core body temperatures was as high as 42.4 degrees Celsius. Typically, core body temperatures above 40.6 is defined as heat stroke however none of the dogs in the study exhibited symptoms of heat stroke or injury. The study concluded that as these dogs were conditioned to work in hot conditions, they were acclimated to exercising with elevated core body temperature. Further, in all dogs in the study, their body temperatures rapidly returned to normal ranges without intervention after exercise.
Stamina is the strength and energy that allows your dog to sustain physical and/or mental effort for long periods of time. Increasing your dog’s stamina reduces fatigue and exhaustion and therefore helps prevent injuries. That’s important to all of us, whether we have a competition dog or a family dog. Stamina is often confused with endurance, but they are quite different. The easiest way to think of it is that stamina defines your dog’s physical and mental ability to perform any kind of exercise again and again throughout the day. For example, your dog has great stamina if it can run at the same yards per second on the 6th agility run or the 20th flyball run of the day as it did on the first. Your dog has great stamina if it can hike with you all day, covering 5 times more ground than you and not be dragging its feet at the end. You can think of stamina as the opposite of fatigue.
Strength and Endurance are Activity-RelatedStrength Activities: Although some dog activities require a combination of strength and endurance, most tend to be predominantly one or the other. Strength is most important for dogs that compete in agility, flyball, FastCAT, obedience, rally, nosework, barn hunt, coursing, dock-diving, hunt tests, and most other dog sports. If your dog participates in several runs a day, it also requires stamina. Stamina is also important for dogs that accompany their people on hikes or just spend an active day with the family. These activities all require strength – that is the ability to move the body at fast speeds for short distances, including running in short bursts, jumping, turning, chasing squirrels, etc. To safely participate in strength activities repeatedly throughout the day, a dog needs stamina. Endurance Activities: In terms of canine sports, mushing, bike-joring, canicross, field trials and Border Collie herding events are predominantly endurance sports. Dogs whose people are avid long-distance runners also need endurance. Because of the length of time during which these activities occur, these dogs also need stamina. Here is a human sports-related comparison of strength and endurance. Think about runners who compete in the 100-m dash vs. marathon runners (Figure 1). Usain Bolt has been clocked at an astounding 28 mph. That requires tremendous strength, and one look at the muscularity of his body confirms that. In contrast, competitive marathoners like Dennis Kimetto run at about 10 mph, but over a much more sustained period of time. That requires endurance. If Usain Bolt were to run multiple heats in a single day, he would require both strength and stamina. Because Dennis Kimetto runs for over 2 hours at a time, he requires both endurance and stamina.
In contrast, endurance is the cardiopulmonary ability to perform a continuous motion over a long period of time. Mushing dogs that run upwards of 100 miles a day in a race and dogs that accompany their people on a several-mile run have good endurance. Endurance activities usually involve a more moderate speed than strength activities but are sustained over a relatively long period of time. Of course, for a dog to run an endurance race of 100 miles, it must also have stamina.
If you build your dog’s stamina, it won’t become exhausted in the later stages of exercising, whether that’s for fun or competition (Figure 2). That’s important because when the muscles become exhausted, your dog enters the injury zone. In the injury zone, two different things can happen: 1. Your dog’s weakening muscles allow greater-than-normal flexion and extension of the joints. This can lead to strains (stretch injury to the muscle and/or tendon) and/or sprains (stretch injury to ligaments). 2. Your dog is not able to be as careful about foot placement and might also not have the strength to correct an error, like a foot that slips off the side of the agility dogwalk or off the edge of a cliff as your dog runs along a trail. These kinds of errors can also increase the risk of injury.
How to Boost Your Dog’s Stamina The best way to boost your dog’s stamina is to simply modify your dog’s existing fitness exercises. Hopefully you are giving your dog some additional, planned exercise other than just going for walks. For more information on why walking might not be the best exercise for improving your dog’s strength, check this out. Strength exercises might include The Wave – having your dog wave with its paw lifted higher than its head for 30 seconds – a great way to strengthen the front leg muscles. An exercise that strengthens the core and rear leg muscles is Front Feet Perched – having your dog place its front paws on an upside-down food bowl and circling to the right and left – maybe even stepping over bars or a ladder on the ground next to the bowl. For examples of great fitness exercises that target the front legs, core or rear legs check out these videos. The best strength exercises are those that gradually work your dog to overload. For more details on the concept of overload, go here. When your dog approaches overload when doing a fitness exercise, depending on the exact motions that the exercise involves, you will begin to notice that your dog starts to “cheat” a bit, either by changing its body position, moving away, fidgeting, or stopping entirely. This is a sign that your dog’s muscles are starting to fatigue, and that is a good time to stop the exercise. Record what you were doing when overload occurred (how many seconds or reps, depending on the exercise), so that next time you work on the exercise, you can start a little bit before that point and try to work past that point. In addition, keeping records will help you determine whether your dog is gaining strength. This is important, because if your dog isn’t progressing, it’s possible that your dog has an injury. To boost your dog’s stamina, work an exercise to overload 3 to 4 times in a session, taking a 90-second break after each time your dog reaches overload. Another way is to work the exercise to overload several times a day. You can alternate between these two methods or do both in a single day. It’s as simple as that! By making this modification to build stamina, you will greatly reduce the risk of injury when your dog is training, competing or just being a happy dog playing with you or other dogs. It’s a win-win for both you and your dog!