I was just wondering when people reduced meals from 3 times to twice a day. Bailey eats his breakfast and is quite excited to have dinner between 5-6pm, but he doesn't always seem as bothered about his lunch, when my dog walker goes in to feed him while I'm at work. The vet suggested trying splitting his food into two meals, which I'm doing this weekend.
I cut my lad to two meals per day at around 6 months of age . To compensate , I brought his last meal forward to around 4-5 so that he wasn't quite so starving hungry . I have to admit that he was mortified at losing his lunch, so for a few months, he had a handful of food .
I found that my dogs gave up the middle feed on their own and like yours didn't seem interested. I fed the morning and evening meals at the same time as before, about 9am and 5.30pm.
I find it absolutely incredible that people have Labradors that are indifferent to lunch....Charlie (2.5 years) still gets lunch, but usually in the form of taking his lunch out with me to do some sort of training or a kong if I'm going to (or back to) work.
Our breeder said to feed at 7.30am, 12.30pm and 7.30pm until three months then cut back to 7.30am and 7.30pm after three months. Being our first dog, we never really thought there was an alternative. To be honest, we never had any issues with this feeding regime and it's still working for us now. However, our breeder also said to reduce this to one meal at 7.30am from 12 months but I have a feeling we'll stick with two meals (Ella is currently just under 6 months).
Not fancying lunch?! That would never happen around here. Mine have just had a lovely pig trotter each. Mine are a year old and I'm keeping them on three meals a day. It suits us all that way
Juno went to 2 meals a day at 4 months as recommended by her breeder. She has a chew of some description at lunch time. Breakfast is around 8:00 when OH is around or 8:30 if just me, and dinner is around 7:00 to 7:30. Lunchtime treat is any time from around 1:30
Mine is now almost 19 months and, at day care, he is not interested in lunch BUT when he is home throughout the day he looks for lunch around 11:30. So I divide his 3 cups into 1 cup at 7:00, 1/2 cup at 11:30, 1 cup at 6 and 1/2c at around 8.....total 3 cups. He was having trouble bringing up bile in the morning if he didnt get "something" before he went to bed and vet and this forum advised I give him a little at night to hold him through. If at day care he gets 1-1/2 cups at 7AM, 1 cup at 5PM and 1/2 cup at 8. Maybe he is more bored at home and has time to think about food!
I think we started skipping lunch from about 9 months old. We started reducing the size of his lunch meals bit by bit from about 6 months. He often thinks he deserves two dinners though.
