Free choice feeding why is it bad?

[Sparty]

I was reading one of the threads and someone mentioned free choice feeding was bad can any one explain why??

we have dry food out most of the time for whenever they want to grab some, Kira who is super active is very slim, sparty who is not so active is also not overweight the Vet who checks him because of his hip keeps a close eye on this also. they never scoff it all down i have never had any problems with them "inhaling" the food as i have read here. so im curious why it is bad?

thanks

[karrie]

Sorry, I don't know the answer. I leave food down for Tuck the bc and he stays slim. My lab golden mix I don't cause she inhales all food. She has gotten better or the yrs cause I don't keep her bowl full. She gets one bowl a day and if she scarfs it down she doesn't get more and after almost 9yrs she isn't eating it all in one sitting.

[sea4th]

I have multiple dogs, but even if I had one, or only 2, I wouldn't feel comfortable with a self feed method.

 

First, it provides structure. I measure out portions. I'm familiar with each dog's eating habits, portions & diets. If a fast eater is eating a little slowly, red flags! I watch that dog. No one ever leaves food in their bowls, so if there is food left in a particular dog's bowl, red flags again. Something is going on, and I'll have a handle on it early enough and be able to relay that info to my vet, should I have to take the dog in.

 

Secondly, feeding time can also be training time and/or bonding time. With freefeeding, the dog becomes comfortable in going to get his own food whenever he wants. You're not part of the picture. I don't want that.

 

Feeding time, with their bowls on the table, I involve each of them in the feeding process. I want them to see that their food comes from me, that I am the provider, that it comes from the alpha bitch----ME. They don't have much say in when they eat. I do though. And I'll talk to them, while I'm measuring out portions. It's a ritual at my house.

 

My dogs eat in their crates. Once that last bowl is done, there is a mad scramble to each of their respective crates. If there are meds in one dog's food, I don't want another dog to decide to wander over and scarf up the other's food. If I have a dog on a special diet, I want to make sure that it's that the dog that it's meant for, eats it.

 

With rescues or any new dog in the house, I use these feeding methods as a bonding process. I might be just a stranger at first, but when they see that their food comes from me, well, I begin to look different to them, someone that is not all that bad. When you control a dog's food, you become OK---even wonderful, in their eyes.

 

With dogs that might have some aggression issues, I'll take that dog into a room, close the door and hand feed, kibble by kibble.

 

Picky eaters---when I get those in, I place them in a crate in between my two most voracious eaters. It's not long before they get the hint, especially since one of the voracious eaters is Juta, my CO, who inhales her food, breaks out of the crate and stares at the picky eaters bowl.

 

So, I figure, why pass up an opportunity to work with the dog through feeding time. It might be more convenient to leave the food down, but I find that using feeding time to my advantage can be invaluable.

 

Vicki

[Sparty]

Thanks for the feed back (sorry no pun intended ) More bonding is not really imperative as they are like 2 shadows as it is!! but when i do fill their bowls i call them up and they sit and watch and wait while i do it, also special treats are either hand fed or again waiting at the bowl while i even it out for them. and bones are given one at a time by hand my 4 1/2 yr son also gives them treats and bones but he is having trouble giving them the correct command that allows them to take it LOL he has to say it 3 or four times before the dog is sure what he is saying and can stop drooling and take the food

[urge to herd]

I feed in 2 meals a day for a lot of the same reasons Sea4th does, and one more. Shoshone the Demon Princess was a starving mess when we got her, and has an intense need to guard any food at all. Leaving food down is an invitation to trouble for us, so they get their 2 meals a day and do just fine with it.

 

Ruth

[BigD]

I don't free-feed for a number of reasons:

 

1. Bugs. Hawaii has lots of bugs. Letting food sit out in a bowl all day is a nice invitation for ants, roaches, etc to come check it out.

 

2. Freshness. I wouldn't want to eat stale kibble!

 

3. Supplements. You can't supplement a free-fed dog in it's kibble. True, you can give the supplements in treats, etc. But when your dogs on a strict diet, you can't afford the treats that often.

 

4. Weight. My dogs will bulk up if they get a 1/4 cup more of kibble for 2 or 3 days. So, as I use kibble mixed with other healthy treats for training, I need to monitor and regulate what the dogs eat. If I free-fed while training, my dogs would be huge.

 

5. Schedule. We've got a 16 month old that will need a midnight potty if she was allowed to free-feed. So, since I can control the schedule, I can control the potty times.

 

6. Monitoring. As already noted, if a dog goes off it's feed, you will know a lot faster with scheduled feeding.

 

7. Visitors. My in-laws dog comes over and will EAT THE COUCH if we let her.

 

Now, I learned what to feed my dogs by doing something my vet said. For my puppy, I put down a measured amount of food. (Like 2 cups - something should could not have eaten in one setting.) and I timed her for 10 minutes to see how much she ate. I did this for a few days and measured what was left to see how much she ate on average. Now, she gets about 1/2 cup of kibble 2 twice a day. Both dogs get meds/supplements in their kibble. I don't have to hide meds in cheese or anything, they eat em up with the kibble.

 

My rescue came to us free-fed and he was about 52 lbs. The vet wanted him thiner due to some stifness and we got him down to 48/49 lbs. He's much better off now. Some folks say he's way too thin - but most people are used to "fat" as being what they think is normal. I found it way to difficult to control his weight on a free-fed schedule.

 

It can work for some folks...but I switched for all the reasons mentioned above.

 

Denise

[Piper]

Well...I don't free feed but...

 

For the most part, Piper get's fed at night, 2 1/2 cups of Kibble...sometimes she eats it sometimes she doesn't (so far I haven't read about other BC's in this post that don't eat their food, but I know they're out there...). Piper can go two days without eating, I think she just forgets, and it isn't a priority...who knows.

 

So, then if she hasn't eaten her food I leave it there and the next night I see that it hasn't been touched...so I sprinkle some pecoro-romano cheese on top and then she eats it.

 

Also, for the most part, there is always food left in her bowl, so I just add food to it the next night...

 

Also, when we're dog sitting, there is competition, so she eats everynight...

 

Plus, she gets some treats, in the morning, at lunchtime and at bed-time, so I know she isn't starving. In the beginning it bothered me that she could go a day or so without eating, but then realized that is just how she is.

 

Oh well, there could be worse quirks for her to have.

[sea4th]

I currently have 3 bc bitches that are staying with me while their owner recuperates.

 

I asked about their eating habits. She doesn't free feed either, and even if she did, things are too hectic here for "separate checks". if it's merely out of habit, and not a dog that is sick.

 

One, Tibbie, scarfs her dinner down with the best of them. The other two were picky. These other two would always leave food in their bowls and it was their owner's habit to just leave the bowl in the crate with them overnight----she feeds in the p.m. Sometimes it would be gone by morning, sometimes not. It was no different in my house.

 

Well, one of the picky ones eats in the crate in between Juta and Maggs---two hogs. For maybe the better part of the first week, true to form, they'd leave food in their bowls. I picked their bowls up, food and all, when the rest were done and they didn't see food again until the next feeding time.

 

Their owner called today. I told her that her two picky dogs are licking their bowls clean now. That might change once they go home, but here, it's eat while the gettin's good---and they will when they are hungry enough. Guess those two decided to cut their losses and what the heck---eat.

 

When I talked about using mealtime to bond, it began mostly for the benefit of new dogs, but feeding time has become our own ritual, something that they all look forward to. There is comfort and security in structure and routine.

 

The other thing I forgot to mention is when you control what goes in, you control what comes out----most of the time.

 

OK--I'll shut up now.

[Tiga's_mom]

This has been a question of ours too. Tiga gets fed about 1 cup twice a day, but he rarely eats it all. He won't overeat, he just eats when he's hungry. Sometimes he'll go most of the day before he touches any of it. He rarely gets us up in the night to go out and eats most in the evening. The vet said he's a little bit overweight and we had been free feeding, so we're trying to control it a bit more. He still sort of free eats cause he doesn't necessarily eat when you put the food down. He always watches when we do it and he'll sniff it but usally won't eat it for a while and only in small amounts at a time. He does seem to be losing a bit of weight since we cut down the amount we were giving him, but I don't think he's really eating any less. The only difference is that we fill his dish the same times every day instead of keeping it filled all the time.

[Riley-dog]

I used to feed Riley structured meals and get worried when he wouldn't eat all he should right away. My only previous dogs were labs, so go figure. I realized that's just how my pup was, he didn't have any interest in food unless he was really hungry. When he was on a set schedule, he got protective of his food bowl with the kitten, who would try to sneak a bite. Now I just put down a cup and a half twice a day and there's almost always food in the bowl. I can tell how much he's eaten because I know hom much is there morning and evening. And now he doesn't give a whit if the cat starts scarfing his food down because there's always more there. I definitely could not do this with Belle, the lab, or she would have turned into the Goodyear Blimp.

 

It depends on personal preference and situation, I've never heard of any dangers directly related to letting the dog have 24/7 access to food so long as they don't overeat. I haven't had any problems with his 'regularity' either, but it does help to have the potty command set so he'll go before I leave in the morning.

[Sparty]

A good point about the puppy toilet break!!! we are getting a new puppy in January and im sure that will be an issue!! so we will try the scheduled meal times.

it will have to be supervised in any case with a new dog in the mix arrrghhh the litty litter will have to be moved up too i dont know if i could handlepuppy breath with that on it!

 

when we introduced kira in (6 years ago) she inhaled her food too for a while then settled down, they feed with the bowls next to each other although they are pretty strict abut who uses which bowl

[Riley-dog]

From the FAQ of the Border Collie Rescue:

http://www.bcrescue.org/freefeeding.html

My 11 month old BC is freefed and has no problems holding it through the night. A dog food with less filler will make them poop less often and a lesser amount. I noticed a literally HUGE difference switching from Nutro to Proplan.

[Sparty]

BTW any Aussies, as in people not dogs!! recommend a good pet food i can get over here ??

and a retail outlet to get it from, im not sure what is filler?? im getting an idea what to look for but still need suggestions

[Bill Fosher]

The main reason I wouldn't free feed if there's more than one dog on the scene is that it would be very hard to know if one or the other went off feed.

 

When my first two dogs were young, I was fairly lax about feeding, and let the have what they would eat. Both became overweight and it took over a year to get them back in shape after I recognized the problem.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Honestly, I'd take the information on that bcrescue.org web site with a grain of salt. I don't know whether they still free feed as a policy but I knew people who worked there when they were on the east coast. They had huge problems with freefeeding there - they had dogs that would guard the food and get fat, while others went hungry. They never knew when a dog got sick until it was REALLY sick because you couldn't tell if it went off it's feed. I just don't know where they get off recommending free feeding.

 

When I had four or five fosters here in addition to my own four to five dogs, feeding time was a convenient time to train, in addition to monitoring food intake and overall health. They ate in their crates, from their own bowls, and disease spread was thus kept to a minimum (very important in a rescue enviroment with shelter dogs coming in all the time). It was also a convenient time to give meds and supplements and make sure the dogs actually got them. The supplement I used to "beef up" scrawny rescues is a liquid and would have been hard to feed other than on the food.

 

Now that I feed a homeade diet, of course, they get a couple distinct meals a day.

[Riley-dog]

im not sure what is filler?? im

Ingredients that have little nutritional value but add mass and size to the kibble. So the dog has to eat more to get the same level of nutrition and more comes out the other end. Yes, dogs need some fiber, too but many foods put extra in because it's cheap and you have to buy more because your dog eats more.

 

I don't know what was in Nutro puppy food, but my pup would have to poo massive amounts several times a day. Switching to Proplan puppy chicken and rice cut it in half! I don't know how wonderful the ingredients in proplan are, either, but the dog is in great health, SHINY coat and no allergies. The brand can be found in pet stores, TSC and Agway. He's on Lamb and Rice adult formula now:

 

Lamb, brewers rice, corn gluten meal, whole grain wheat, chicken meal, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of Vitamin E), oat meal, pearled barley, fish meal, dried beet pulp, natural flavors, dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, salt, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, choline chloride, vitamin supplements (E, A, B-12, D-3), zinc sulfate, ascorbic acid (source of Vitamin C), ferrous sulfate, riboflavin supplement, niacin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, biotin, thiamine mononitrate, folic acid, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), calcium iodate, sodium selenite. H-4470

 

If anyone spies a problem with this, let me know

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

If your dog is healthy, your pocketbook is happy, and your conscience is quiet, there's no reason to change what you're feeding.

 

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with feeding filler - dogs have survived on junk for thousands of years. Personally I see better results with my dogs when I avoid "mystery ingredients." I'm a control freak so I prefer to make my dog's food; and for us the homeade diet satisfies my whole pack, in all the above points.

[Sparty]

Thanks Rebecca, i'm just checking as we will be adding a new puppy next year, and I have read on here that changing to adult food in the first year is recommended, if im doing that I want to make sure it is a decent one.