I have a problem staying ready for the phone to ring 24-7-365. I feed once each day in the evening. Herein lies the problem. If the phone rings in the evening just prior to feed time they havent had anything to eat for 24 hrs. I dont want to fill them up just prior to running a track so Im kinda in a pickle. I have got to get this fixed. I have considered feeding twice daily which would help. The only problem is that a lot of the old hound men tell me thats not the way a hound is designed to take its meals and two feedings per day is a bad idea. I thought about giving them a small portion of a high fat meal just prior to loading up to go on the manhunt. How long does it take for a dogs system to turn a meal into energy and be ready to go. Travel time from the kennel to the manhunt is usually one to two hrs. If anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate the response. I have done a lot of reading and am more confused now than when I started. Life was so simple growing up chasing coon, hogs, cattle etc. We always give the dogs a feeding 3-4 hrs prior to using them. I have no idea when the phone is going to ring now. HELP!!!!!

The fat is definitely used for energy so you are right there.
Something to keep in mind: when it's hot or my dogs have eaten too much fat they will vomit it up.
I can't tell you how long it takes to digest a meal. Kibble will digest much more slowly than raw and I think the risk of bloat or thirsty dogs is much higher with it. Raw meals don't create nearly as much desire for water. I think a small raw high fat meal wouldn't hurt.
I fast most of my adult dogs at least once a week and I don't see any lack of energy in any of them, (4 lb Chi's to 100lb GS). My Coon Hound Gene gets fasted with everybody else and she doesn't appear to have any lack of energy either.
Why don't you try fasting half of them one day and see how they do on their training runs the next day compared to the non-fasted dogs.
If it were me I would probably just feed them when they got back.

Two feedings a day is a bad idea? Why? that doesn't make sense to me. I have never heard that.

Two smaller feedings seems like exactly what you need. Then if you had to put off one meal for a few hours the dogs would still have energy. I know I have trouble working when I am hungry.

I feed my dogs twice a day, I don't know about dogs being "designed" to eat only once per day (and I have some Catahoulas). I have seen research showing a large heavy meal being a precursor for bloat/gastric torsion.

Another option would be to feed some of your dogs in the morning and the others in the evening, then if the phone rang you would just take the dogs that had not just been fed.

Also, what do they eat?

If I were 1 to 2 hours from the job I'd feel fine giving a small raw meal.

Since you're usually 1-2 hrs away, perhaps you could give about one cup of ground beef per dog before you head out. There's your fat and protein to keep them going.

I wouldn't be sure how much kibble to give, if that's what you're feeding. I would think less than one cup.

I'd just keep ground beef thawed in the fridge for such an emergency. You might end up eating a lot of hamburgers though

 Quote: Sandy Moore

I'd just keep ground beef thawed in the fridge for such an emergency. You might end up eating a lot of hamburgers though

You wouldn't need to keep it thawed. They would have no problems eating frozen patties.

You are better off using some of that ground beef to bait some water to encourage drinkingand give it one to two hours before. Dogs aren't using what you just fed them for energy - it is wht you fed them the day before that is the gas in the tank. A dog working hard - the meal is just joing to sit in his stomach. A dog working hard needs the water more - and will "run out of gas" faster if he is underwatered. A small meat or fish snack does more good due to the water it contains than the calories, save the meal for when the dog can digest at leisure. I think it woudl be better to water heavily before you track and save the and water after your track and then feed within a couple of hours after that as that is when the body wants to begin to replenish the energy stores.

 Quote: lynn cheffins

You are better off using some of that ground beef to bait some water to encourage drinkingand give it one to two hours before. Dogs aren't using what you just fed them for energy - it is wht you fed them the day before that is the gas in the tank. A dog working hard - the meal is just joing to sit in his stomach. A dog working hard needs the water more - and will "run out of gas" faster if he is underwatered. A small meat or fish snack does more good due to the water it contains than the calories, save the meal for when the dog can digest at leisure. I think it woudl be better to water heavily before you track and save the and water after your track and then feed within a couple of hours after that as that is when the body wants to begin to replenish the energy stores.

This is what I thought, too.

A simple walk will rush a recently fed meal through my dogs. I can only imagine with the kind of work that Terry ask his dogs to do that its either gonna' come back up or blow through before its even thought about metabolizing.

Mine have never shown any signs of fatigue after a days fast, but my dogs most active days are a mere fraction of what your's do on a trail/track.

Ok, thanks for the info, I think I am going to start feeding twice per day, I have no real evidence that feeding once per day is better for a hound, its just the way my mentors did it. These mentors were men that grew up chasing critters with houndogs as did their Daddies and Grandaddies. I suspect I learned it this way because Dave Henson, Joe B. Holstine, Carl U. Holstine, Dewey Holstine, Ed Fisher, Charles Isom, Dugan Isom, and a host of others did it this way. I would give my left --- to be able to sit on a stump and discuss why they fed once a day, unfortunately they have all passed on. Ed Fisher was the last of the oldtimers left in these parts that could tell me where every old sawmill set was located, who ran it, who all shot who and what for. Ed died about three weeks ago and I am just now getting back to normal. For a couple of weeks I didnt want to do anything but roam around in the hills and visit places where we had bayed a hog or listened to a history lesson on who abandoned an old rusted out Model T Ford. I have a lot of the stories about the raunchy logging camps in my head. The evidence of these old places are nearly gone,the Oak and Pine timber has reclaimed most of them. What does all of this have to do with how to feed a dog? Not a thing I reckon,anyway back to the subject. We had a nice shower today and the temp. was 70 degrees so I took the boys out for a run, I took them 8 miles at a 12 mph pace, they were having fun the whole time. Their last feeding was over twenty hrs prior to starting the run. This leads me to believe they have plenty of gas in their tanks. The times I have seen them appear to struggle has been in 90 plus degree temp. I think the problem is just heat and dehydration. I think my energy will be better spent finding ways to keep them as cool as possible and hydrated.

Carol Boche? Jennifer Coulter?

What do y'all do in spur of the moment search situations like this?