Labs Are Actually Hungrier Than Other Dogs, New Study Finds · The Wildest

To state the obvious: Dogs love food. Begging at the dinner table or passive-aggressively pawing at an empty kibble bowl is perfectly normal — if quite annoying – puppy behavior. But if you’ve got a Labrador that seems a little too obsessed with food, it turns out there may be a scientific reason behind their fixation. A new study published in Advances in Science found that one in four Labs have a genetic mutation that causes them to feel hungrier between meals.

Labs are genetically hungrier

Previous research has found that dogs with mutations of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) gene has an increased risk of obesity, and scientists want to explore how the mutation affects the dog’s eating behavior.

In one experiment, they showed dogs a sausage and then locked the sausage in a perforated box. The dogs ate breakfast three hours earlier, so they shouldn’t be very hungry. They found that the dogs that had the POMC mutation were wasted twice just as much time trying to get to the sausage than the other dogs. “What we see in dogs is that they get this molecular starvation signal,” Eleanor Raffan, a co-author of the paper, told Scientific American.

The researchers conducted another experiment to see if this would take dogs to POMC the mutation takes longer to feel full when eating. After an overnight fast, the dogs were offered a can of food every twenty minutes. The dogs were allowed to eat the food until they either finished a can or vomited. The results were unexpected: Although both groups ate enormous amounts of food (twice their total daily energy needs), dogs with POMC the mutation did not eat more food than the others.

The two experiments together show that while dogs with POMC Mutation is more hungry than other dogs, they don’t really need more food to be full. However, interestingly, dogs with POMC The mutation was less likely to vomit — only one dog in the POMC mutation group vomited their food, while more than half of the others did. This means that dogs with POMC the mutation may be able to tolerate larger meals.

They also burn calories more slowly

The researchers also measured how fast the dogs performed on the POMC mutations burn calories. They had 19 dogs sleep in a room and then measured the metabolic gasses they produced. With this information, they calculated how much energy the dogs burned. They found that dogs have POMC The mutation burns calories more slowly than dogs without the mutation.

The fact that Labs are hungrier, have more tolerant stomachs, and burn calories slowly means they are in higher risk for obesity. If you have a Lab (or any breed, really), keep an eye on their eating habits and make sure you’re giving them plenty of exercise and the recommended amount of food. And if they happen to be a little chubby anyway, well, science says it could be fate.