Fat for working dogs has been advocated for sled dogs for many years. It's not a new scientific deal for them. We, as bulldog people, are usually behind in most things, and the use of fat for working dogs is no different. A dog that won 4 or 5 with corn flakes is simply a good dog. When you consider the minimal amount of carbs dogs utilize, you can chalk that up to carbs being a non-issue.

Frying and cooking things up in grease is fine and good, but I wouldn't use the same grease for six weeks, and there are health reasons for this. I don't believe this statement. "the frying part that breaks down the animal fat and just works better for the dog". The fact that he's feeding it for 6 weeks prior to starting the keep is what allows the dog's body to adjust and use it more efficiently as time moves on. All of this being said, if he's using fat on kibble, then he's not helping the dog near as much as he would if he swapped the entire diet over 6 weeks before a keep.

Things such as fat and what not are things that are passed down from one person to another. Considering the old timer probably lived when there was no commercial grade dogfood, fat was probably a mainstay for a dog all those years ago. So it's not unbelievable that someone of that age would feed fat to a dog, but that's not to say he knew all the benefits of feeding fat to a dog years before it was ever proven to actually BE beneficial. The sad thing about old timers is that alot of the stuff they know is stuff that is outdated and no longer relevant. So, in a sense they do know more than others, but in another sense, a great majority of them have no idea of the changes in nutrition and science that could benefit them UNLESS they are keeping up with it themselves.

My own personal experience comes from the increase of water intake. I'd never used as much water in a keep as I do now until a friend of mine told me how he utilized the water during his keep. So, as I started implementing his ideas, I started noticing things changing somewhat in the dogs. A few years later when I started getting more and more into the nutritional aspects of dogs, I came to understand really how HOW important water is for dogs in a keep. I learned how much water a working dog can lose in one day of activity, and as I started paying more attention, I started to weigh certain dogs before/after their work to see how much actual weight they lost during a workout. So, while I thank BMac for putting me on the water path, I also have to give the scientific community a thank you also for helping me to really understand the significance of water during a keep. I'm just glad the dogs are able to benefit from what I've learned over the years.