Performance Nutrition Canine-Style

Bo Steketee.

  Mind Up! generally relates to the cerebral and emotional aspects of athletics.  An important part of developing an optimal mindset for sports is understanding that life beyond athletics exists.  In other words, having interests outside of a specific sport actually helps enhance athletic performance in that sport.   

My two rescue dogs provide me constant entertainment away from the pool deck.  Annie’s unique personality and special needs will be documented in a future entry.  Today’s blog will focus on my male dog whose recent dietary preferences make a swimmer’s appetite appear mild.

Bo, a 7-year old pitt bull-lab-chow-sharpei, should not be hungry.  After all, he is rarely subjected to dog food.  Instead, he sups on “dog-sagna” (whole wheat penne, tomatoes, and cottage cheese) or macaroni salad (whole wheat macaroni, tuna fish, and carrots).  He enjoys eggs with cheddar for breakfast, and if he has to eat kibble Steve adds milk to turn the meal into a palatable doggie cereal.

Altitude supposedly suppresses the appetite, but Bo has shown no such decrease in hunger since moving to 5,000 feet above sea level in Reno, Nevada.  Instead, he has become obsessed with horse manure.

Several miles from our house there is a lovely park with a playground, paved walking path, dense green grass, and dirt trail for horses.  We know the dirt trail is for horses because of the yellow signs picturing equines and because of the clumps of manure dappling the path.  Bo gobbles those clumps with an enthusiasm reminiscent of Augustus Gloop in the edible garden of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.  Straining at the end of his leash, Bo laps up dollops of excrement so quickly that he coughs flecks of manure through his nostrils.  His ability to snatch a bite of poop on the fly puts him on par with the best triathletes grabbing an emergency snack at an aid station.

Bo and his "snack."

We have tried to walk directly in the center of the path to avoid the manure, but a 70-pound pitt mix has remarkable strength when it comes to lunging for an entire mound of his new-found, favorite delicacy.  We have tried asking Bo to “drop it” – but pitt mixes become deaf when focused on eating.  We have not tried – and will not try—to pry open Bo’s jaws to remove a clump of manure.  After watching Bo joyfully chomp an avocado pit I accidentally flung across the kitchen while making dinner, I have no desire to compete with the power of his mandible.  What goes in Bo’s mouth, stays in Bo’s mouth…forever. 

By the end of the walk, Bo is in food coma, walking slowly, deliberately licking the bits of manure strung on his whiskers like rotten pearls.  He clambers into the Prius for the drive home during which his thick tail happily thumps on the backseat as he blesses us with his fragrant dog breath.