It’s impossible to overstate the importance of hydration in a working bird dog. Every single metabolic process in our canine athletes relies on water, and their health and safety depend on its abundance and timely delivery. Fortunately, most gun dog owners—myself included—are well versed in the value of hydration and far more likely to mistakenly leave the shotgun at home en route to the hunt than their dog’s water supply. Along with the rush of adrenaline at the flush of wings, managing hydration is part of the experience we share with our dogs in the field. We both rely on it to keep our bodies in the game. For such a simple molecule, water certainly stimulates a great deal of debate among hunters and a fair number of questions for sporting dog veterinarians.
How Much Water Should I Bring on a Hunt? Like most medical questions, the answer depends on a variety of factors. Dogs are similar to humans in the way our bodies utilize water, with a few exceptions. While it’s well known that dogs don’t expend water through sweat glands to the extent their human handlers do, they undoubtedly dip into their hydration reserves to regulate body temperature in warm conditions. Instead of cooling their bodies through evaporative and convective processes on the surface of the skin, the regulatory radiator exists in the dog’s respiratory tract. They may not soak through a t-shirt during a rigorous outing the way we do, but they certainly burn through their hydration reserves just as quickly for cooling off.
You’ve probably noticed as those late summer hunts blend into fall, water demand in the canine athlete varies considerably with changes to ambient temperature. It’s not uncommon for dogs to take in several times the volume of water to maintain hydration and regulate body temperature in the warm early season than they would require on the exact same hunt in December. This fact underscores the heavy demand that regulating body temperature in warm conditions puts on a dog’s hydration reserves.
Most hunting dogs will never have a problem locating a freshwater source to drink from and cool off when roaming the uplands. The volume of water required for a particular hunt is a common question but one to which it’s difficult to ascribe a scientific formula or rule of thumb. Metabolic demand differs drastically with variables such as a dog’s weight, age, coat, and physical condition. Aside from temperature, other environmental factors like terrain, wind, and humidity make a one-size-fits-all approach to calculating water demand challenging. In warm conditions, I’m likely to plan for one liter of water per dog per hour depending on the availability of fresh sources on our hunt. As the season progresses and temperatures drop, it’s rare for my team of three bird dogs to consume three liters in total on a half-day hunt.
How Do I Assess Hydration in the Field? In my experience, gun dog owners tend to overthink judging hydration in their hunting companions and focus on medical benchmarks instead of practical ones. Start simply: A working hunting dog that needs water will seek it out, either from you or their environment. Thirst is an involuntary physiological and endocrinological process that creates a primal stimulus that the vast majority of dogs respond to quickly and predictably. In most cases, it’s also an excellent indicator of their hydration status. You don’t need to be a field EMT to offer water to your gun dogs when they ask for it or allow them to indulge in a freshwater drink or swim when they show interest in these activities.
Each fall I receive a number of inquiries from owners who are concerned their dogs aren’t drinking enough despite abundant freshwater. While I don’t deny there are a few hunting dogs too driven to drink even when encouraged by the sensation of thirst, the vast majority are perfectly capable and willing to meet their own hydration benchmarks, even if you think they aren’t.
If you’re still convinced your gun dog is behind on fluids, focus on analyzing the visible symptoms medical professionals use to estimate hydration. In the clinic, I’m likely to quickly gauge hydration during a physical exam by evaluating the moisture content of a dog’s gums and the turgidity of its skin. Well-hydrated dogs have moist, glistening, and pink mucous membranes. Under normal conditions, a pinch of skin between your thumb and index finger should return to its normal shape rapidly. If you detect dry and tacky gums and a pinch of skin that is slow to rebound, your dog may be dehydrated.
In the field, however, there are much easier means of assessing hydration.
Monitoring urine output, frequency, and color is one of the easiest and reliable methods of ballparking hydration status, even from afar. A working bird dog in the peak of activity has a tremendously high metabolism, and a well-hydrated dog should be urinating often with that boost in metabolism. Healthy, dilute urine in a dog runs clear or with a slight yellow tint. Dark, yellow, cloudy, or dark red urine implies a highly concentrated sample from a dog that could use another drink. You may not be in the habit of looking at urine when your dogs squat or lift their legs, but it’s a cheap and rapid insight into their hydration status from a distance.
How Do I Encourage My Dog to Drink Water? While I mentioned previously that a dog that refuses to drink even in the face of tremendous thirst is rare, I have personally known and hunted over a few. Though I did not often worry about them becoming dangerously dehydrated, their reluctance to manage their own water led to the natural consequence of debilitating cramps after the hunt. If you own one of these dogs, you can appreciate the challenge involved and getting them to drink when they’d rather keep chasing birds. As a hunter who is always pushing for one more covey, it’s a relatable condition.
Offering your dog water from a dish can be somewhat cumbersome in the field, but can be a great way to replenish their hydration reserves at the end of the hunt. One particularly useful method for these types of dogs (or any dog for that matter) involves training them to drink from a squeeze bottle. Not only does the ability to drink from a bottle waste less water than trying to utilize a bowl in the field, you can force the issue for dogs that refuse to drink from any source on their own. Acclimating them from a young age is obviously easier but breaking the dog from the expectation they can drink from a water dish while hunting is a skill worth investing in for the water savings alone. When acclimated to the squeeze bottle, those stubborn dogs prone to a thirst strike can be wrangled in and cajoled into drinking for the sake of their own health.
Instead of force, you may also find it helpful to bait the water with something flavorful to encourage your dog to drink. I have found that a probiotic powder like Purina‘s Fortiflora makes a seductive (and safe) soup of flavored water that entices my dogs to plow through the bottle or bowl. For stubborn drinkers, I’ve known this technique has been very effective at preventing cramps by allowing them to consume a hefty helping of flavored water after the hunt.
What About Canine Supplements? Electrolyte supplements offer another option of water baiting but should be used with caution in our canine athletes. Dogs do not lose electrolytes as rapidly as we do, thanks in part to the low density of sweat glands on their bodies. Human electrolyte products should be used sparingly and should be free of artificial sweeteners and caffeine.
Want to save some weight and space in your vest? Share your bottled water with your pack. In my experience, dedicated canine electrolyte supplements are high in salts and impart flavors to the water that are met with a mixed reception from my dogs. I also tend to avoid canine electrolyte supplements for the simple reason that I routinely share water with them. No matter how thirsty I get in the chukar hills, I’ve never learned to enjoy a mouth full of beef-flavored water.
Not to minimize the work put in by canine supplement companies, but the old school method of baiting water with diluted beef broth still works well as a salt replacement and hydration strategy. While there may be some benefit in this hack in a small handful of dogs, I generally categorize this approach as well-meaning but unnecessary, particularly as an electrolyte source. I do condone its use in a significantly diluted form, with just enough beefy bouillon to impart the aroma of something tasty that encourages a dog to finish a bowl of water after the hunt.
My preferred method involves drowning the dog's regular kibble in water. With their food afloat, stubborn drinkers have to consume both for the satisfaction of finishing dinner. Not only does this top them off with fluids after the hunt, it aids in digesting a meal that would otherwise pull from internal fluids to rehydrate. Canned dog food is another means of achieving the same goal, as long as you use this tactic in a dog whose stomach can handle the intrusion of something new to their diet without distress.
Keeping your pack hydrated and healthy is an important part of your job as their handler, but it is far from rocket science. While many of us (myself included) tend toward micromanagement of our dogs’ nutritional needs, it should offer you peace of mind that when it comes to hydration, dogs do a spectacular job of handling it all on their own.
