| Summary: | Despite their important role in security, little is known about the energy requirements of working dogs such as odor, explosive and human detection dogs. Previous researchers have evaluated the energy requirements of individual canine breeds as well as dogs in exercise roles such as sprint racing. This study is the first to evaluate the energy requirements of working dogs trained in odor, explosive and human detection. This retrospective study evaluated twenty adult dogs who maintained consistent body weights over a six month period. During this time, the average energy consumption was $136\pm 38~\mathrm{kcal}\cdot {\mathrm{BW}}_{\mathrm{kg}}^{0.75}$136±38kcal⋅BWkg0.75 or two times the calculated resting energy requirement ($\mathrm{RER}=70~\mathrm{kcal}\cdot {\mathrm{BW}}_{\mathrm{kg}}^{0.75}$RER=70kcal⋅BWkg0.75). No statistical differences were found between breeds, age or sex, but a statistically significant association (p = 0.0033, R-square = 0.0854) was seen between the number of searches a dog performs and their energy requirement. Based on this study’s population, it appears that working dogs have maintenance energy requirements similar to the 1974 National Research Council’s (NRC) maintenance energy requirement of $132~\mathrm{kcal}\cdot {\mathrm{BW}}_{\mathrm{kg}}^{0.75}$132kcal⋅BWkg0.75 (National Research Council (NRC), 1974) and the $139\pm 42~\mathrm{kcal}\cdot {\mathrm{BW}}_{\mathrm{kg}}^{0.75}$139±42kcal⋅BWkg0.75 reported for young laboratory beagles (Rainbird & Kienzle, 1990). Additional research is needed to determine if these data can be applied to all odor, explosive and human detection dogs and to determine if other types of working dogs (tracking, search and rescue etc.) have similar energy requirements.
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