Al Magaw

Sled Dog Demo at Spirit of the North Kennels

August 31, 2010 by teamineka

Sled Dog Demo at Spirit of the North Kennels

By Al Magaw

Don’t forget that next Monday, Labour Day, Spirit of the North Kennels ( 966 Airport Road, Salmo ) is having a bit of an open house for those interested in seeing the racing sleddogs in action and a celebration of the start of the 2010/2011 training/racing/tour season – we’ll start running dogs at 8am when it’s still cool out of consideration for the dogs – should be done with running teams by 10am – waffles after the runs for those interested, lots of chance to pet dogs and get to know these wonderful animals and cuddle a litter of 10 week old puppies – all are welcome – let me know so I can prepare – if you have sled dogs you’d like to run, bring them along

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Al Magaw is a musher from Salmo, BC. Al keeps a medium sized kennel of 20 – 45 alaskan huskies as well as several pet dogs of various breeds. Al has been training and racing for the last 33 years. Before becoming involved with sled dogs, Al, along with his family, kept and competed with horses for many years. Al can be reached through his website athttp://www.spiritofthenorthkennels.com Al is a guest blogger for Denver Dog Works and can be reached through our website athttp://www.denverdogworks.com

Sled Dog Songs by Al Magaw

August 29, 2010 by teamineka

Sled Dog Songs

By Al Magaw

I was interested in watching a group of musicians on TV a while ago, that were able to begin their songs without a countdown to cue the start – When asked how they were able to do that, the trio, all brothers, said they couldn’t explain it, they “just knew when to start playing”. Two or three weeks ago I was talking to a lady that had sung in a choir for years. She said the same people were in the choir year after year and how pleasant it was to share something like that with friends that she had known for so long. She also commented on how this group of singers could start their a-cappela songs with every one starting at the same time without any particular person taking the lead. It made me think of the sing-a-longs in my kennel of alaskan huskies. Somehow they know when a song is about to begin and often they will all start at once with no noticeable cue like a fire or ambulance siren. My yearling belgian shepherd must be picking up on the same cue because she will often start barking a unique bark, moments before the sing-a-long starts.

On the surface, at least, the ability to sense the beginning of the song seems to be a common feature of sled dogs and those humans so fortunate to be in the company of others who are in the same “wave length”. It’s a common happening among northern dog breeds and not very common amongst humans. I have to speculate, again, about shared abilities that humans have left in large part unused, and that the northern breeds have kept well used and fresh. How poor are we for the loss of that “community of minds” and how rich are our canine friends for their perseverance of that ability?

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Canine Research Continues

August 22, 2010 by teamineka

Canine Research Continues

By Al Magaw

It’s gratifying to see scientific research on our canine friends continuing – in a recent study, reported Aug 10/2010 in Science Now, further research has brought more understanding to how breeds have developed in virtually an evolutionary moment in time. While the report doesn’t deal specifically with sled dogs, the conclusions apply as well to our racing compatriots as it does to great danes, sheep dogs, chows or spaniels. Large or small, short hair or long, the basics are the same for all dogs. A team led by “Carlos Bustamante a comparative geneticist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and Elaine Ostrander, a comparative geneticist with NHGRI, analyzed genetic information from 915 domestic dogs representing 80 different breeds. The researchers compared the dogs’ DNA, looking for sequences that differed by a single base, known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Once they found out where the DNA differed, they compared those differences between dogs with, for example, short versus long legs or perky versus droopy ears.”

The researchers identified “51 regions in the genome that contributed to physical variation among the breeds. These regions can be clumped into larger areas of the genome called quantitative trait loci, which are known to contain genes that produce a specific physical effect, such as shaggy hair” “Depending on which traits are compared, genetic differences in two to six of these regions,can account for about 80% of the variation in physical characteristics among dogs, says Bustamante” most likely the ” selective pressure caused by human-directed breeding, the researchers conclude.

Co-author Heidi Parker, a geneticist at NHGRI, says that because humans initially bred dogs for specific traits—say, smaller body size or calm temperament—selection created a population “bottleneck” that narrowed the genetic variation in offspring, leaving them with just a few specific clusters of variable genetic regions. Variable genes within these clusters, such as those that govern snout length or leg length, were then selected” “by humans to create the dog breeds we recognize today” “The study validates the idea that a relatively small amount of genetic variance can lead to a large degree of physical diversity, says Jeffrey Phillips, a veterinary geneticist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The findings corroborate what many in the field suspected but do so with “a very, very impressive sample size,” he says. “It’s a wealth of information” he concluded. My interest in this aspect of dog breeding continues to grow and I look forward to learning more about it. It certainly helps explain why in less than a century, the alaskan husky, through environmental pressure and selective breeding, has gone from being a cross bred mutt to a super performing specific breed recognisable by it’s DNA.

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Feeding Dogs the Best Possible Diet

August 15, 2010 by teamineka

Feeding Dogs the Best Possible Diet

By Al Magaw

Feeding dogs the best diet possible is always a subject that creates controversy. Some people swear by a holistic approach to feeding, more or less paralleling a good human diet, others are as adamant about a raw meat diet. A recent book by Lew Olson, Phd Natural Health, is an interesting read. In an excerpt from his book, he writes –

“We always want our dogs to look great and to perform at their very best. We want our working dogs to have steady endurance and drive. We want our tracking and search and rescue dogs to hold the scent and stay on the trail. We want our agility dogs to have the energy and balance to make the jumps, go through the weaves smoothly and effortlessly, and to handle each obstacle with precision. We need our obedience dogs to stay focused and our Schutzhund dogs to have stamina, courage, and stay on task. We want our conformation dogs to have ground covering side movement and to be happy and confident in the ring. And we all want our dogs to have lean, muscular and fit bodies.

A good diet provides the energy, strength, lean muscle mass and mental focus that is needed to achieve these performance goals. Let’s take a look at the different diet components and how they help with each of these performance goals.”

He goes on to say –

“It takes a lot of energy to digest food, so it is very important to feed foods that are easy to digest, provide the most nutrients, and use the least amounts of energy. For dogs, that food would be fats and protein. The foods to stay away from are carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are found in plant based foods, which include vegetables, grains and fruit. The two main components in plant based foods are sugar and fiber. Dogs have short and simple digestive tracts which are not designed to ferment high fiber foods and cannot break down the cell walls which are composed of cellulose. The dog’s digestive system struggles to digest these foods which takes greater energy, creates more gas and produces large stools of undigested food matter.”

“Fat and proteins are much easier for the dog to digest and produce smaller stools. Harder to digest foods mean a full colon, which Dr. Kronfeld, DVM equated to an extra 20 pound handicap on a race horse:” “Fat is the most important energy source for dogs. Fats are dense in calories which are needed when dogs are working hard and are burning large amounts of calories. Fat also helps to protect their cells from damage. The fat a dogs needs is animal fat. These fats are found in meat, eggs and dairy. High fat diets have been the secret for successful sled dog racing teams for years:

Another important fat is Omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids not only help provide energy, they also help the immune system, fight inflammation, help keep the skin and coat healthy and are heart, liver and renal protective. This essential fatty acid is hard to find in foods and breaks down easily when exposed to heat, light or air. I would recommend using fish oil capsules and give one 1000 mg capsule per 10-20 lbs of body weight daily.

Proteins

The second most important energy source for dogs is animal protein. Animal proteins contain amino acids, which when fed in high quality and quantity, produce glucose in dogs. This keeps their energy level on a stable plane. There no energy crash and it will keep the dog focused without mood swings. Feeding a good variety of animal proteins such as beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, dairy and fish provides a wide swath of amino acids and offers better balance to the diet. Each protein varies somewhat in amino acids so providing a good variety of proteins insures the dog will get all the amino acids needed. Amino acids help repair tissue, keep the organs healthy and help build muscle mass. When your dog is on a diet rich in protein sources, and fresh sources offer better quality, there is no need to ever add synthetic amino acids to its diet.

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Research?…

August 9, 2010 by teamineka

Research?…

By Al Magaw

I sometimes wonder about how bright, or how knowledgable, or even how honest some researchers really are – a recent study ( http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/4/330.full ) into the ability of animals to feel emotion exemplifies my point. Beyond the dryness of the writing, and the emotionless involvement of the author, any pet owner or anyone who has ever been close to a pet can relay many stories of animals showing happiness, fear, excitement, disappointment, love, loss, contentment, anticipation, possessiveness, jealousy, familiarity, homesickness, and altruism. In other words, emotions that run through the same gamete as human emotions do, give them any name you want. When you get “experts” that have to spend thousands of dollars or more to come up with a conclusion that is easily demonstrable by having a pet, or an “expert” with a PHD in canine behavior that claims sled dogs “are not pack animals” and gives, “they are housed separately” as the reasoning behind the outrageous conclusion, really makes you wonder. I’m starting to believe studies into animals should start with the premise that they have similar emotions and instincts as humans do, then work to disprove the theory, rather than the other way around. After all, we inherited our emotions from our ancestors, some traceable to the most primitive of multi-celled beings. There is no reason to assume that those instincts and emotions skipped millions of years of evolution, then magically showed up in humans. — Then there are the dog food companies with “experts” in canine nutrition that tell the public what the public wants to hear about dog food, rather than the truth about what dogs really need for good nutrition. It all makes someone that has experience with animals think twice before trusting the “experts”

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Should You Spay Your Dog? By Al Magaw

August 1, 2010 by teamineka

Should you Spay Your Dog?

By Al Magaw

There are problems associated with spaying your female that every dog owner should be aware of – there is no apparent or well known harmful effect involved in neutering male dogs, but there is a potential and common serious harm associated with spaying the females. The lack of estrogen production brought about by spaying FREQUENTLY (“commonly” is the word used in the veterinarian community) brings on the loss of bladder control in older females and frequently, uncomfortable skin problems. Earlier than normal death can also occur. It is such a simple thing to confine a female twice a year to prevent pregnancy that the risky alternative of spaying is not one I would recommend – one of the reasons given for spaying, beyond birth control, is the prevention of breast cancer. Breast cancer in un-spayed dogs is a rarity compared to the commonality of problems caused by spaying and the resulting hormonal imbalance. There are drugs that Veterinarians will prescribe to treat the hormone imbalance, but the drugs pass into the environment and are environmentally damaging, staying in the environment for many years, ( DES (diethylstilbestrol) exposure is often viewed as a health issue unique to those exposed to the drug and an issue that is no longer relevant. This is far from the truth. DES exposure and long-term exposure to any synthetic hormone concerns a much broader population than those directly exposed to DES. In fact, the entire population is exposed to synthetic hormones like DES from sources such as chemical pollution, medicines, plastics, paints and pesticides on food. Many synthetic chemicals in the environment are harmful to our health. Some are so-called “hormone disrupters” like DES”) ( “There is some evidence that DES-exposed sons may have testicular abnormalities, such as undescended testicles or abnormally small testicles.” “Professor Niels Skakkeback, a Danish scientist, first alerted the world to the possibility of a substantial fall in male fertility levels in 1992. He did this by showing that sperm counts in healthy men appeared to have dropped by more than half in 50 years” “Subsequent studies have confirmed and strengthened Skakkebaek’s findings) These hormones can and do upset and delay the development of prepubescent males and bring on early sexual development in females – be responsible with your dogs, don’t bring unwanted puppies into the world and don’t be so foolish to believe that having “just one” litter will improve your dog – think twice about the long term health of your female and the long term effect to the environment. You can be a responsible dog owner without resorting to spaying and the use of environmentally damaging drugs.

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