Mealtime Rules

[JaderBug]

What is everyone's policies about mealtimes? Get fed once a day? Twice a day? More? Required to eat food immediately? within 10 minutes? 30? Left out until it's gone?

 

Jade recently went on Lamb & Rice ProPlan, which she was on Beef ProPlan the bag before and she doesn't seem to like the lamb as much (thought it would be more appropriate for a sheepdog to be eating lamb.... stupid, i know... ) She does really really well on ProPlan, so I'm not looking to change food (except maybe back to beef) but maybe her routine. I have a hard time getting her to eat her food when I want her to, though she will usually eat within an hour. Today she actually hasn't eaten anything, she wouldn't eat her food this morning so I took it away, and when I gave it back to her tonight she still doesn't seem interested in it. She seems ok otherwise, I don't think she's been sick at all, I think she's more preoccupied by watching the cat play with her toy mice tonight. I also think that she doesn't like the lamb flavor as much. This is the first day that she hasn't been interested in her food, so I'm not getting concerned about it at this point in time.

 

What are your dogs' dinner rules?

 

Add on: after a little prodding, Jade is finally eating her food (from this morning.) She gets 1/2 a cup twice a day.

[sweet_ceana]

Poke and Ceana eat once a day, in the evening. We have found this creates the optimum poo schedule, lol. Poke does not like to eat. I honestly believe he finds it too boring. Ceana doesn't have to be told to eat all of her kibble, but Poke must be told. Otherwise he will take a few bites and then go off to play.

 

Interestingly enough, it is usually Poke who "asks" for dinner. We keep their food in an old holiday popcorn tin and Poke will walk up to the can and paw the lid (not to open it but almost his version of a tap) until we get out their bowls. He likes the idea of dinner, he just doesn't like to eat it. I almost wonder if dinner is boring because he was a stray and per his "gi-normic" tape worm when we adopted him, he was quite a hunter. To keep him interested we also put food in his "kibble ball." It is a ball that looks like swiss cheese. All of the holes are extreamly shallow except for one that reaches to the center of the ball. We fill the center with kibble and he is content to eat a good quarter cup of kibble by pushing the ball around with his nose and eating bits and peices here and there that fall out.

 

When Poke was in obedience class we would use part of his dinner portion for training treats. Maybe Jade is like Poke and needs a little brain work with her dinner.

[Dixie_Girl]

I can't help. I think I am one of only a few, if not the only, person here who free feeds. I have two bowls and they get filled as they are emptied. So far there has never been an issue with the food. It is right by the back door so any dog wanting to go out while another is eating has to go right by the eating dog. So far they have all respected who ever was eating, including the foster dogs that have come through. I just like the idea that if they are hungry, they will eat, if not they won't. All the dogs have their own schedule. Jackson eats late at night when he knows no more play time, Holly eats in the morning, Cheyenne in the evening, and Skip is a hit and run eater. He'll walk by, take a bite and go on about his business. They are all fine, no diarhea(sp?), constipation, or vomiting. They all maintaint their weight. They all will have an occasional bite or two throughout the day. There are some days when there is hardly a bite or two taken out of the bowl, and some days it will be gone by bedtime. I think they are better at regulating when they are hungry than I am. I don't want a dog to go hungry just because at 6p.m. he didn't want to eat. JMO, and not a very popular one I suppose.

[vanillalove]

I'm another rare free freeder with Pete. He just isn't a big eater and he eats a kibble at a time, very. very. slowly. So we just couldn't be bothered to wait, to be honest. He takes a kibble as he walks by and continues on his way. Sometimes he eats more, sometimes less. He is neither under nor over weight, and these "rules" seem to work with him so why not? I definitely see the upside of scheduled feeding and I think with my next dog, I definitely will try to put them on a schedule but I'm not about to go and change Petey at almost 9 years old. Although I am not feeding per a schedule, I am by no means, unaware of how much my dog consumes. I am very aware of how much Petey has eaten that day and what his eating habits are for that day, which I think is important if you are to free-feed.

 

If Jade continues to be picky about the Lamb variety, try switching her back to the Beef. "Popular" schedules may not work with Jade, if she takes an hour to eat, then maybe that's how long she needs. Try taking her bowl away after an hour, and maybe decreasing time increments from there if you are persistent on changing her schedule. I have never practiced a routine, so I'm not very good with advice on this subject, my dog just goes with whatever he feels that day.

[RedBCAussie]

I have no problems getting Archy to eat. I feed him roughly at the same time each night, after we eat. Only once a day.

Shep out older BC (14 yr) does not eat as much when Archy isnt around, however when Archy is around he will eat properly. Having Archy around keeps Shep young. When they are together at my mums house they are fed at the same time and we watch to make sure they eat their own.

Archy loves his dinner and finishes it. Both dogs know when its dinner time and they get excited.

 

A vet once told me that dogs find raw chicken irresistable, this is handy to remember when feeding older dogs, or dogs who might be sick. Not sure if it is true, but worth remembering.

[juliepoudrier]

In general, I am a once-a-day feeder, in the mornings. I feed in the mornings because my schedule is more consistent then, and I think dogs thrive on routine (and evenings can be iffy if something comes up--like the other evening when I discovered a lamb with bottle jaw and so stopped to worm the flock, which put me much later than normal coming in, or last night when I went to the neighbor's place to work dogs and didn't get home till nearly my bedtime--you get the picture). So it's been mornings forever.

 

My general rule is it gets put down, everyone woofs theirs up, and I pick up and wash bowls. Then I got Lark, the world's pickiest eater. She won't start eating (in general) until everyone else is nearly done, so she takes a bit longer. But the routine at my house is eat, then go outside, so she's not bothered by the other dogs either. Anyway, because of her pickiness and tininess (at 2.5 years she still weighs just 28 pounds, but at least she no longer looks emaciated), I started her on raw as a second meal (interestingly when she was being picky as a pup I tried switching her completely to raw, but after the first couple of days, she refused all raw food as well). So then I had one who eats twice a day. Of course when we're on the road traveling to sheepdog trials, getting her to eat at all is pretty hit or miss.

 

Then a couple of months ago Willow (who is 11) was put on heart meds, one of which can cause inappetance, and she stopped eating as well as she used to. The only way I can get her to eat enough in one day is to split her feeding into two meals, and her second meal is also raw.

 

Before Willow's medication-related feeding schedule change, I also got an LGD who was a rescue. She's being fed twice a day mainly as a means to keep her in tune with humans (so that I have some hope of getting my hands on her when I need to, although she won't always come all the way up to me when I take her meals to her--still it's better than if I just left food out all the time), since she was somewhat feral when finally brought into rescue. That said, if it's a hot day and I'm a little late feeding in the morning, she won't eat it anyway, in which case she just gets the full portion in the evening.

 

Then there's Raven, who is here for training. Since she eats twice a day at home, I have just left her on that schedule.

 

I find twice-a-day feeding to be something of a pain, and I do it only because I have a really good reason to do so (dogs that would waste away to nothing otherwise). Otherwise, we'd all still be on a once-a-day schedule in the morning, which has worked well for me for years. I think I am one of the few here who feeds in the a.m. vs. the p.m. though.

 

The rest of my dogs are good eaters and easy keepers. If I just left food around free choice, some of them would weigh more than I do, not to mention send me to the poorhouse buying food. Also, some get fed specific diets or supplements (the joy of having a number of geriatrics), so free choice wouldn't work. But I figure whatever works for an individual is fine.

 

Other feeding rules at my house: you may not put your face in another dog's bowl unless that dog has walked away from it. If I tell you to "leave it" for whatever reason, you do so. And that's about it.

 

One thing dealing with Lark taught me is that some dogs just don't want to eat much and nothing you can do is going to change that. For example, if Lark has something as big as a turkey leg in the evening, I can forget her eating her breakfast the next morning. I was so used to dogs who eat with gusto when their bowls are placed in front of them that Lark was a difficult adjustment for me. So although she gets a little more time to eat than everyone else, if I've got everyone else's bowls washed and she's still fiddling, I'll usually just go ahead and pick it up then (so she's had maybe 15-20 minutes) and put what she hasn't eaten in a container to go in with the LGD's evening meal. I did actually spend some time and effort trying to find a kibble she will eat (Merrick), but beyond that I have just had to learn to take a more casual attitude toward her eating habits, because I don't t think they're going to change (although she did seem to become a better/more consistent eater right around the time she turned two at the end of this past Janurary)....

 

ETA:

A vet once told me that dogs find raw chicken irresistable, this is handy to remember when feeding older dogs, or dogs who might be sick. Not sure if it is true, but worth remembering.

 

This made me chuckle because when I switched my oldest dog Boy (he's now 13.5) to raw a couple of years ago, he didn't even know what to do with a raw chicken part! I had to peel the skin off and then tear it into chunks before he'd even consider eating it. I hate handling raw meat, so you can just imagine how fun this was for me. My experience since then has been that dogs being introduced to raw don't automatically eat raw chicken when it's put in front of them, at least not without some human help....

 

J.

[Root Beer]

Mine eat twice a day - when we get up in the morning and in the evening.

 

My dogs eat right away normally. If Dean is spooked by a thunder storm and can't eat yet, I will put his meal in the 'fridge until he is OK to eat it. Aside from that if any of my dogs refused to eat, I would worry about illness!

 

The basic rule in my house is that every dog eats out of his or her own bowl and they may not bother each other if one finishes eating first. Once a dog has left his or her bowl, they play round-robin with the bowls until they are all sure there is not a molecule of food left! They do this pretty nicely.

 

When I have a foster or am dog sitting I generally accommodate that dog. Mickey liked to lie down next to his bowl and crunch on his food one or two pieces at a time. It took him quite a while to eat up. By the time he left here he was in the routine and was eating with a bit more purpose, but that was probably from being in the same routine for a while.

[Janba]

I am another who feeds twice a day, morning and evening but times can vary in a 2-3 hour period. 2 of mine eat quickly and rarely leave anything. The third is very slow and religously chews each mouthful so he is locked in a crate. Anything that is not eaten within about 15 minutes is removed.

[Cynthia P]

I feel like a negligent owner. Sometimes they get fed once/day, sometimes twice, sometimes the dont....never on a schedule...We have 14 dogs, 3 are LGDs; All but the the two giant schnauzers and LGDs are fed in their crates. After coming in from a walk in the morning most will run to the their crates and stick their heads out and wait. The LGDs get fed when we visit the sheep

 

I feed raw and mainly feed twiceXday and the time can vary from 4 am to 9 am...or not at all; In the evening they get fed in their crates before they go up for the night; only difference is with puppies who get fed more often and get to go out after the last meal.

 

My dogs never know when they will get fed, if they will get fed...I always joke that it is Friday, and F day...must be time for Food; Wednesday they get water (just kidding before someone freaks out)

 

The reason we started feeding in the the crates was that it was easier, my ACD felt like everyone was going to take his chicken and once swallowed it whole...had to do the doggy hymlich (sp?); Crates is cleaner and easier. If i do feed kibble they don't even get a bowl, just dumped on the floor of the crate...the horrors...The only bowls they get are if they get a veggie slop (about every 3 or 4 days);; and then the bowl collection begins. I trained the ACD to go into all of the crates, get the bowls and bring them back to me. He's my little helper.

 

Here is a picture of the 4 week old puppies learning to eat chicken wings; even at this age they want their own spot to eat in peace

 

 

 

 

Cynthia

[ness_bc]

I feed my girls twice a day. I have two dogs. My older 8 year old BC who would inhale everything in about 2-3 seconds flat (although frozen chicken frames and raw take slightly longer) whereas the pup at 4.5 months seems to take great delight in burying or hiding food which her older sister then steals much to the bemusement of the baby. I can't leave the food down as otherwise my other one would clean it up and I should probably crate her so she can't hide it but I haven't gone to that yet. She gets enough I guess and I turn a blind eye to what my other one is getting in the way of extras at the moment. I do also leave the youngster with extra meaty bones when I take her sister out places so hopefully she is getting enough.

[bc4ever]

Scooter eats twice a day. He's a slow, contemplative eater. A few bites, looks around, a few more bites...always has been. Will sometimes wander out to the front foyer, look out the door and come back and finish. He has a good appetite, just a slow eater.

[PSmitty]

A vet once told me that dogs find raw chicken irresistable, this is handy to remember when feeding older dogs, or dogs who might be sick. Not sure if it is true, but worth remembering.

 

Man, Jack goes absolutely ape sh*t over raw chicken. They all LOVE it, but it's like doggie crack to Jack.

 

I feed mine twice a day, about 6:00 in the morning and 5:00ish in the evenings. They're mostly kibble fed.

 

It's so weird to me to hear of all these dogs that aren't interested in food. I never had a dog that didn't eat with enthusiasm. I could never free feed the three I have now. They'd be cows.

[ness_bc]

Yeah I was use to a dog that would inhale food like there was no tomorrow so I wasn't sure how to deal with a pup who would eat a few mouthfuls and then go off and play and not want to eat the rest. She is eating more now but still not great amounts.

[Ninso]

I feed twice a day, morning and evening. When I first brought Lok home from the shelter he would usually only eat one of his meals. Whatever he didn't eat got picked up after 10 minutes or so and put away. Now he is a very enthusiastic eater. If I free fed, I think he would probably just keep eating no matter how much food was in front of him. My bf's parents free feed their little dog and I have to ask them to put the bowl up when we're over cause it's impossible to keep Lok out of it. Usually the morning meal just gets put down for him. I use the evening meal for training most of the time. Also, he is required to sit and wait while I put the bowl down and look at me until he is released to eat.

[Pat W.]

I feed once daily in the evening, raw or occasional Solid Gold kibble. I have a senior that has diminised kidney function so can't handle the high protien of raw so he's on kibbles. I have 2 agility competitors so they get raw 90% of the time, getting 1 -1/2 lbs dailiy. Fosters stay on kibbles rather an switch from kibble to raw and more likely back to kibble when adopted. I have no trouble getting anybody to eat

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

Daisy gets fed 2 times a day. Once at about 6am and then between 8 & 9pm, if we have classes, then it's closer to 10:30, but she does better with her training if she is hungry. I had a lot of issues with her not eating and I used to free feed her just to keep the weight on. I have experimented with tons of food and have now found two that she does well on and likes (ACANA & Orijen). Still she has her days and I do have to tell her to eat. Our recent trip to Ontario was difficult for her, we slept in strange houses and spent 3 days in a car, so getting her to eat was a chore while on the road. She'd eat my french fries no problem though!

 

Things I have done to encourage her to eat include:

Warm water, pure pumpkin, chicken stock, plain yougurt, baccon drippings, raw egg on kibble (no not all at once). She is on a schedule now and seems to do better on it. She gets physical activity before her evening meal to kind of stimulate hunger. If she does not eat, it gets taken away and I do occasionally hand feed her. (she was displaying what I could only imagine was some sort of weird resource gaurding issues for a while). She really, really enjoys it when I put her food into one of those kibble balls (the same swiss cheese type mentioned above) she will roll it around and drop it down the stairs and toss it onto the floor and this takes her about 30-45 minutes. It's like a hunting game I think and apparently fun!

 

julie

[dognutmom]

I think I have done it all

 

We free fed my first dog ... just filled up the bowl when it got empty. He pooped all the time.

 

Second dog was a retired racing greyhound and we were told it was important to keep him on a schedule for the first little while. Plus, we discovered crates with him and he was crated when we weren't home for the first couple of months. Roulette got fed twice a day and pooped twice a day.

 

Kept that up with my third dog, Princess and then also when I got Luce. Both Princess and Luce had to learn that, yes, they could too eat when there was another dog in the room and I wasn't going to let any of the other dogs come and take their food. Luce was funny when I got her ... she would stand over her dish, growling, snarling and spitting like a cobra. Meanwhile, the other two had their muzzles deep in their dishes, ignoring her. Took a little over a week before she figured it out.

 

Princess was very picky when I got her .... I used a plastic bowl the first couple of days that I had her as I hadn't had a chance to go out and get another stainless bowl. When I switched her over, she wouldn't eat. She came with the name Princess and sometimes it was a very apt name If she didn't eat, I just picked it up again after about 10 or 15 minutes. I didn't want Roulette to eat it and I didn't want to have to stay in the kitchen for longer than that. She very quickly learned to eat what was there and not to dawdle. She might have been free fed before we got her at age 7 years old.

 

They all would then check each others bowls out after they were done, cleaning up any molecules of food that was left behind. Or maybe to check and see that they had all gotten the same?

 

I started feeding raw a few years ago, just Luce. Roulette was gone and Princess was too old and couldn't tolerate it. Maybe if I had stuck with it, but I was tired of cleaning up projectile diarrhea.

 

Went to once a day for Luce and she poops once a day. I like that It was hard for her to give up the other meal, but she is used to it now.

 

I kept Blaze on the kibble he came with for about 2-1/2 weeks and then switched him to raw. He took to that like a duck to water ... thank goodness. I hadn't fed kibble for a long time and the smell of it turned my stomach every time I opened the bag.

 

I tend to feed around dinner time as I know I will be home and can take out the dogs in case they have trouble with something they ate ... especially on a night that has a lot of organs as that tends to "lube the chute" sometimes. I don't want them to have to try and hold it if I feed in the morning and then go to work for hours. 99% of the time they would be fine, but still.

 

And like someone else said above ... sometimes they get fed, sometimes not. If they had a huge meal of something that I couldn't make smaller, they don't get anything the next day. Sometimes I forget to take something out of the freezer ahead of time .. in that case they don't get fed that day, but get something the next morning as it usually happens after a long day of work and I don't have to go in the next morning. They are totally fine with that as well and don't go around scavenging for food any more than they usually do (hubby and kids tend to leave things on counters and tables and we all know how opportunistic dogs can be )

 

Actually, now that I think about it, now that I feed raw, they chew fewer things in the house and they aren't tied to a feeding schedule that makes them come and bug me twice a day the way the dogs used to when I did feed twice a day. Hmmmm.

[Bo Peep]

I feed twice a day. Morning & evening. Bliss is heavy, so she gets 1/2 a cup and Usher gets a full cup each serving. Bliss eats in the laundry room and Usher eats in the kitchen. It's gone in 60 seconds. Yep. I measure.

[BustopherJones]

We used to feed Annie twice per day, morning and evening. But I get up very early in the morning to go to work, and Annie is not a morning dog; it was difficult to get her to eat at that time. So on our vet's advice, we switched to feeding her once per day, late afternoon, giving her the equivalent in one meal of what she used to get in two; she gets one cup of prescription kibble mixed with 1/4 can of prescription moist, supplemented with a little grilled chicken or broiled hamburger (for flavor) and some beef or chicken low-sodium broth mixed with water (for both flavor and additional moisture). She is allowed as much time as she wants to finish (she eats in her crate with the door open), but generally she is done in under 5 minutes (unless she gets distracted, which might result in taking a little longer). We do not have a problem with this revised routine, unless there is thunder in the area (in which case she will not eat, period). Because we still have not found a treat that does not create a problem with her sensitive stomach, she may get a small amount of kibble during the day in lieu of treats.

[Mollie&Me]

I feed three times a day out of sheer habit. Though I'm seriously considering cutting it down to twice a day. Whether or not I take the food away depends on the dog, and how much interest they're showing in eating.

 

Mollie has never been that into food (it requires standing still in one spot after all) - until the Evo. She literally salivates over it, as do the other two. I used to add a little bit of canned pumpkin or cooked green beans to the old food both to entice her and add a little more general goodness. Now it's just green beans and Evo, yummy. Cake and eating it, too!

 

I was always told that feeding less than twice a day can increase the risk of bloat / GDV, and allow digestive enzymes to run rampant possibly resulting in ulcers. Is this true?

[JohnLloydJones]

When I grew up, the rule was working dogs are fed once a day (evening), but family dogs are fed twice a day. Senneca gets kibble at 6 in the morning and 6-ish (a bit later in the summer) in the evening. We go out for morning walk or evening dog park trip then we eat. The 15 min rule applies. In the beginning, she was very picky eater, though it's pretty rare that I have to pick up her food these days. She is a eat-to-live girl, and I took some time to adjust to a dog who was so nonchalant about her food. After her evening meal she will come and sit in front of me and give me the "I'm ready for my after dinner treats" look. She gets a few pieces of Lakse Kronch -- about the only thing that she really gets excited about.

[ZoZo]

Both my dogs are free feeders. The female is just not super interested in food, unless it's a piece of cheese or a sardine, and will never eat a bowl of anything at once (although she's been known to steal a sardine sandwich!). When Jinx arrived last year, his foster mom told us that he was somewhat of resource guarder, so we feed him in another room. He used to inhale a bowl full of kibble in seconds. Interestingly, he would never steal the other dogs kibble that always sat out. Now, we have tell him to eat and he now prefers to eat smaller portions throughout the day rather than just eat his kibble all at once, it's all very puzzling to me.

[Shetlander]

I feed twice a day. My last picky eater was 5 dogs ago, so all food at my house is inhaled and dishes picked up immediately. Quinn and the Lhasa are too likely to be stupid about resource guarding a food bowl. No way could I free feed because 1. my dogs would all eat until they were literally sick and 2. my dogs would fight if there wasn't enough food for them to all eat until they were literally sick.

 

When I had a picky eater, he free fed until a second dog came into the picture. At that point, I put him in a room by himself for 15 - 20 minutes to eat what he wanted before picking it up. I usually figure dogs will eat when they get hungry enough. When my picky guy became old and senile, I did sweeten the deal for him and mixed in a bit of wet food so he would eat his meals better. A number of my friends have fat picky eaters that they are always fretting over. When I suggest maybe the dog is picky because they CAN be picky, I'm met with shocked looks at how heartless I am. I see my dogs as scavengers and am not likely to equate what/how I feed them with loving them. I'm always dismayed to see someone give my dogs some delicacy as a treat that they snap down like alligators. Talk about a waste of good food.

 

As an aside about Jade not eating her new food, I really would not press her to do so. And not just because, as I said, I figure most dogs eat when they're hungry enough. But there may be something about the food that disagrees with her. And --- not that I am saying the food is tainted! --- I can't help but think of when there was that outbreak of tainted dog food and owners kept coaxing their dogs to eat and adding stuff to their food encourage the dog and all the while making the dog sicker and sicker.

[Tranquilis]

Twice a day, in her crate. Morning meal is slightly heavier than the evening meal, and this seems to work very well for the poo schedule - She always drops more on her eveing walk, but that's kinda expected.

 

Her feeding schedule has evolved a bit - I used to feed her while I was cooking, but now she's fed after the kids are eating, but before I sit down. I don't take her food back up, and in fact, she often doesn't eat it all during the day - I'll come home to find maybe a third of her kibble left in the cup in her crate. Usually, she'll gobble that up just before her walk. And no, it's not an issue of too much food; She's maintaining her weight very nicely.

 

I did just discover, last night, a kind of people food that I'll have to watch carefully around her. My wife was dicing up some kielbasa, and Suka shot out from under my desk like a snake, down low and moving fast, eeling between the kids to get to the kitchen. I'd never seen her move like that before, so I popped up to see what set her off, and there was my wife, having just unwrapped the sausage and setting to slice it, with Suka at her feet and drooling.

[theshine]

I feed twice a day, between about 6 and 8 am, and then again sometime between 6 and 10 pm...not a very rigid schedule. There are no picky eaters here, I put down the food, each in their own dish, and they eat it right away. Since they eat so fast, I just stand there and wait for them to eat and take up the bowls when they're done.