Dog Food Logistics on a Thru Hike

Figuring out, when, what, and how much to feed Sawyer on my thru hike was one of the biggest things I stressed over. Sawyer is a picky eater and has a *sensitive* belly and I am a very picky dog mom so I won't feed him just any kind of food. At home, off trail, he eats Victor Hero Grain Free dry food, but I wasn't sure if this would give him enough calories to take on something like a thru hike. After a lot of research and trial and error, we got our system down pat. Here is what worked for Sawyer during his 1200 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

How much & what type of food?

It's easy to get really technical with this. There is a formula you can use to get an idea of how many kcals/day your dog needs based on weight, life stage, and activity. I calculated Sawyer off of the formula for a "working dog/active dog" since he would be exerting a lot of energy hiking all day, not to mention the tougher conditions through the snow and cold. Once I got an idea of the kcals he required, I converted them to how many cups of food he would need per day. I only used this formula because I had literally no ballpark idea of the amount of calories he would require and didn't want him to be severely under or over. I was able to use the number of kcals as an estimate, not as a strict feeding schedule.

If I had kept him on his food at home, I would have had to carry a lot more because it was a lower calorie food. However, Victor had an active dog variation (higher calories) that I was able to switch him to and that his stomach handled fine. I would buy the biggest bag of Victor Hi Pro Plus (50 pound bag) and I believe I had to buy around 3 bags total for the whole trip.

a lovely fireside dinner

If I was a millionaire (which I'm not) I would have gladly carried dehydrated food for Sawyer the entire trip because it is so much lighter. It would have saved my spine and hips a whole lot of pain, but with a dog Sawyer's size it just was way too expensive. Instead I used dehydrated food as a topper for some extra calories and to save myself from carrying at least a couple bags of the heavy dry kibble. I chose Stella & Chewy's freeze dried meal mixers because of the high quality ingredients. I would buy the biggest bag (35 oz) and it would last about 2 months on the trail.

Joint Supplements & Treats

With big dogs especially, joint problems are always something of concern, long distance hiking or not. I continued to use Sawyer's same supplement that he used at home- Glycoflex joint support chews. The main ingredients are perna, glucosamine, MSM, and DMG. Sawyer would get one chew in the morning with breakfast and one in the evening with supper. Now that we're home and after some more research, I also started him on a liquid supplement of pure Omega-3 oil from Nordic Naturals.

I always kept some treats in my fanny pack and wound give him a few throughout the day when we would stop and take breaks. My mom would usually send Zuke's treats in the resupplies she sent, or I would pick up something from Walmart. Treats were especially important in the evenings when Sawyer had "toe time" (his least favorite time) which is when I would apply Mushers Secret to his paw pads. He made sure he got a treat after every single paw was done.

Frequency

Another concern with big dogs is the chance of bloat. Bloat is something that occurs in especially deep chested dogs, when the stomach fills with air, flips, and cuts off blood flow. There is still a lot veterinarians don't know about bloat, specifically the exact cause. There are some ideas, though, and many vets suggest letting your dog rest before and after activity before eating. This means no running/high activity 1 hour before feeding the dog, and 1 hour after feeding.

On trail, this meant when I woke up in the morning, I would automatically let Sawyer out of the tent to go to the bathroom. When he returned, I would feed him two and a half cups of food with his dehydrated topper and his supplement, with about 1 cup of water on top as well. I would then set a timer for an hour, and either let myself go back to sleep or make some coffee or read a book. Once the timer went off we would usually get up and start packing up for the day.

In the evenings, when we got to camp. Sawyer would flop down somewhere and watch us do all the work of setting up the tent and I would set a timer for an hour then as well. Once it went off he would get the same as he had in the morning and then go to bed.

Resupplies

I will say this whole system would have been pretty difficult if I hadn't had a support person like my mom at home. I was in constant contact with her and about a week ahead of time would let her know how much of Sawyer's food to pack in gallon ziplocs and where to ship it to us at. At first I thought it would be easier for her to send a weeks worth of food at a time no matter if we would be hitting town before that or not. I soon found out carrying a weeks worth of dog food on your back for a ninety pound dog was painful and exhausting. Cobra always took a bag or two of the food but we soon decided it would be better to go into town to grab a package as often as we could so we could carry as little as we could. I always carried at least a day extra for Sawyer just in case something happened and we were a day late, a package got lost, or if we wanted to zero somewhere.

There were a few instances on trail that we had to work around a few lost or extremely late packages. It's not really something you can plan for but thankfully for us one of the times we were close by to friends in the area who picked up a bag for us at Tractor Supply and brought it right to the trailhead for us. The other times this has happened and I was running low on food for Sawyer I would grab some wet food from the grocery store and mix it in with his Victor food to make it last longer until we could pick up another resupply box.

If you don't have a support person at home who is willing or trustworthy to take on a task like that, I think this could easily be done on trail as well. Planning a town stay where you order an Amazon delivery of whatever food your dog eats, and then spending a day packaging it up in boxes and shipping it ahead for the weeks ahead would totally be doable by yourself as long as you had a plan of where you were going into town and stuck with it.

Some people who aren't as picky about what food their dog eats, or whose dogs aren't as picky just buy whatever kind of kibble they can find at the grocery store when they go in to resupply for themselves.

Town Days

We all know my favorite part of town day was food. Any kind of food as long as it wasn't something I was carrying in my food bag. I wasn't about to keep Sawyer from enjoying some town food too, so when we would stop in to resupply I would get him a can of wet food, a hamburger, or some chicken nuggies. Dog lovers on trail love spoiling dogs as much as they do human hikers. Our friend One Foot's family cooked Sawyer a breakfast as big as ours both mornings we stayed with them. A hostel owner in New Jersey made him his own plate of scrambled eggs and some trail magics that we came upon gave some doggie treats, some even made him his own hot dog or bratwurst.

Sawyer and his cheese quesadilla from Taco Bell

Patiently waiting for his McDonalds hamburger

Food Bowl

Although Sawyer ate about 5 cups of food per day, I only brought a small 1 cup collapsible bowl. I chose a 1 cup because it made it easy to measure out his food and I could feed him in servings. After he finished his food I would fill it with water. When he was finished I could clip it onto my fanny pack for easy reach to give him water throughout the day.

My favorite video. Sawyer getting some of my BBQ in the Springer Mountain parking lot the night we finished the trail.