Do You Free Feed Your Dogs?

[poopie]

On the dog/cat

I free feed my Min-Pin and she only eats a few bites here and there. She is more intrested in our food.

We free feed the cats but one is overweight.

I used to have a dog that you couldn't free feed, he would each it all.

We have parrotts and we don't free feed them or they would throw what they don't eat all over the place. They get fed in the morning.

 

[dianeschlicht]

As a dog breeder, I reccomend schedule feeding. I like to divide the daily allotment into two feedings...half in the morning and half at our dinner time. They maintaine a better weight that way, and clean up is a breeze, since they all go right away in the morning and again just before bed!

 

[zurgswife]

I guess this is the only thing I have done right while raising my dogs....I schedule the feedings...Puppy gets Morning and Night and the adult dog gets night..

But I have to say it hasn't done a thing for trying to house train the puppy.....She can play outside for hours then come in a poop in the house....then again like I said earlier I haven't managed to do anything else correctly ie trying to crate train her...

 

[dianeschlicht]

Originally posted by zurgswife
I guess this is the only thing I have done right while raising my dogs....I schedule the feedings...Puppy gets Morning and Night and the adult dog gets night..

But I have to say it hasn't done a thing for trying to house train the puppy.....She can play outside for hours then come in a poop in the house....then again like I said earlier I haven't managed to do anything else correctly ie trying to crate train her...

One of the reasons I tell folks house training is easier in the winter than the summer is this very thing! To house train, you have to take the puppy out and stand with it until in goes. Then you praise it and bring it back in to play etc. After about a half hour, turn it back out to potty again. Lengthy play times outside are not possible until AFTER the puppy is trained. He thinks outside is for playing and inside is for potty and rest!

 

[goofy4tink]

My golden would eat until he passes out!!! He gets fed 3/4 cup of kibble plus 3/4 can of veggies twice a day. Cats are free fed. Yes, they are good sized but since they have to get up on a bureau in the basement to eat/poop, it helps keep the pounds off!!!

 

[zurgswife]

One of the reasons I tell folks house training is easier in the winter than the summer is this very thing! To house train, you have to take the puppy out and stand with it until in goes. Then you praise it and bring it back in to play etc. After about a half hour, turn it back out to potty again. Lengthy play times outside are not possible until AFTER the puppy is trained. He thinks outside is for playing and inside is for potty and rest!

We got her in the winter and she would just go outside and shiver until neither one of us could take it...then I finally got her to start to go on paper....sometimes....

Right now she is about at 85% efficiency....I do take her out in the am and make sure she goes and before bed....it's the in between times that if she is going to go inside she does.....what amazes me is that sometimes she will run outside and go no prompting and then the next day...decide she doesn't want to go out....

It has gotten better when I started to confine the dogs just to the main floor....very small house so it really isn't as big an area as it sounds...

 

[skuttle]

When we first had just Maggie, our Yorkie, we would free feed her. It was never a problem. When we got Milo, the Corgi, we quickly learned that no matter how much food was in his bowl he would eat ALL of it right away...so we started feeding both of them on a schedule (if maggie doesn't eat all of her food, Milo will finish it off!!). Now, with DS, there's no way we could free feed...the child fights me to eat table food but has no problem sticking dog food in his mouth.

 

[Amy]

When we only had Sheba, we'd free feed her - put a bowl of food down and she'd pick at it all day long. Then we got Charlie about 6 months ago - what a pig! He gulps his food, and the minute Sheba picks her head up out of her bowl, he dives in and tries to eat hers. So now, no more free feeding - if Sheba doesn't eat it in a certain amount of time, we pick up the bowl. Thankfully, we use dry dog food so we're not wasting any; just save it for the next meal.

 

[MeanLaureen]

We free feed all 5 of our dogs from one bowl. They learn early in life that I expect them to share with each other and to eat when they are hungry. None of them are overweight, they are just right

It's cute to watch them though. Most of them don't want to eat at the bowl. They tend to eat when we do (the copy cats) and they usually take a mouthful and go sit in front of the tv with it or come sit at our feet with it.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

We feed Monty once a day, but we leave his food out for hours. We do this because he is an extremely finicky eater and if we just leave the food out for a short time , he won't eat.

If I were worried about him overeating I would onlly leave the food out for a short time. But I have the opposite problem. I worry about him undereating.

He's not sick or anything, he just "has better things to do" than eat. Like play, bark at birds and cars from the bay window, follow us around to see what we're doing etc...

 

[Kaycee]

From reading the responses here, it looks like it depends more on the temperament of the dog than on what the owner had in mind! I know that is the case with our toy poodle, Pippin. We started out planning on schedule feeding, but this dog literally eats one or two bites at a time. He's underweight as it is, and when he was about a year old he got so thin that we had to put him on a special food for dogs that were terminally ill to get him to gain some weight. Now he's up to 5 pounds ( he got down to 3lb 8oz at one point) which is the most he's ever weighed, and he's healthy and energetic. We give him regular dry food now that his weight is up, and we just keep a little food in his dish all the time so that he can nibble on it.

 

[jeleebeene]

We free feed our two little pups. They eat every so often during the day, and from our last vet visit, not only were they not overweight, our one pup actually lost a pound from last year. SO - now they have a scheduled feeding in the evening (dry food mixed with wet food) and we keep their dry food bowl filled throughout the day just to make sure they are eating enough.

 

[pw2pp]

We "free" feed Shelby, although it is not a "huge" bowl that she eats little bits from during the day, rather, we simply feed her twice a day (normal bowls) and it is not at the exact same time every day.

 

[KarenC]

Our 8 year old miniature poodle has food all the time. He nibbles during the day and is not overweight.

We're getting a second dog this weekend. I'm a little concerned about the food thing. Dog #1 is on a selected protein diet because he has allergies. The puppy will be eating puppy food. Keeping them out of each others' food is going to be interesting. We'll be crate training the puppy, and will have him on a schedule to start, so we have a little time to figure this out.

I'm afraid #1 is going to have to get used to a schedule.

 

[delikado]

I free feed my dog, and he's never had a weight problem because of it. I just give him the prescribed about of food for his size (23 lbs) in the morning, and he can eat whenever he likes. He doesn't always finish his food in one day, but if he does, he doesn't get any more till the next morning.

 

[dlbwright]

My dog gets fed in the am and at night. Some times he will not eat his am food and eats it in the afternoon and then we just feed him less at night. He gets 1 cup of dry and a spoonful of canned twice a day.

 

[sha_lyn]

free feed most of the time. Out dog Sandy, who recently passed, did have a weight problem for a while so we did cut back on her food at that time. She got 2 cups of dry food in the AM. Some days that would last all day, other it would be gone by mid day. The last couple of yrs she had trouble keepign weight on, so she was free fed.

Panda OTOH has always been under weight, so she is free fed.

The cats are free fed dry food and are schedule fed wet food in the AM.

 

[JimB.]

Our dogs get fed in the a.m. & p.m..

No free feeding. We have enough trouble trying to keep them from stealing the cat's food.

 

[arminnie]

Originally posted by N.Bailey
Our lab is really snooty though, and will NOT eat a drop of her dry dog food till she finds out if she's getting something better.

That just like my cocker spaniel. I adopted him from a cocker rescue organization. He was a year old, fairly pudgy, and had only been fed table scraps.

I leave dry dog food out all of the time. He used to wait until I went to bed before he would eat - finally gave up that there was going to be something better than the dry dog food.

I would turn out the light and hear "crunch, crunch, crunch" a few minutes later.