Weight control
Some dogs are permanently ravenous. They don’t seem to have an off switch to tell them their stomachs are full and can take no more. Some medications can cause this.
The many tablets Frodo the Faller took every day to control his epilepsy had the effect of making him hungry all the time. He wasn’t as severely affected as some I heard about. One dog was so driven to eat that all food had to be securely out of his reach, or rather, he had to be contained in a room where there was no likelihood of him getting at food. Otherwise, he broke into fridges, freezers and cupboards – nothing was safe when he was in the vicinity of food.
However, some Labradors and Flat-coated Retrievers are insatiable and it is not their fault. It really is due to their genes, or rather a genetic mutation that insists they are starving and makes them liable to gain more weight than is healthy for them. A study has shown that about a quarter of Labrador retrievers and two-thirds of Flat-coated retrievers have this genetic mutation. It has not been seen in other pure-bred dogs. The affected gene is POMC (Proopiomelanocortin)
The research says: The POMC gene and the brain network it affects are similar in dogs and humans and the new findings are consistent with reports of extreme hunger in humans with POMC mutations, who tend to become obese at an early age.
The study showed that dogs with the POMC mutation burn 25% fewer calories while sleeping than dogs without it. The ancestry of Labradors and Flatties includes Newfoundland water dogs, who were used from the seventeenth century to bring in fishing nets from the icy waters . These dogs worked hard, so increasing fat reserves to allow them to work without freezing was essential.
Roxy waited so patiently until she started to drool.
It is possible that breeding from the best working dogs led eventually to the 'insatiable' gene being passed on and becoming common. One good stud dog can sire hundreds of puppies.
Our Labradors have always been interested in food and, on occasion, have joyfully 'found' an endless source of food - that is, when the dog food has not been safely stored - but they have never eaten themselves to the point of illness and any rotundity has soon dissipated.
