Hi all, we are currently feeding Buddy 3 times per day trying to keep to 5% of his body weight plus treats. Vets are really happy with him and he looks great to me. So we feed him at around 7am, again at 1-2pm, and again at 6-7pm. It seems to work fine and he’s happy enough with that. I just wondered as I’d seen many people saying about taking it down to two times per day. Just wanted to know when I might need to do this and if anyone could explain the reasons for doing this? Obviously if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but just wanted to make sure if there were reasons for doing this and if I needed to do it, thanks....
You can continue feeding three meals a day for ever if you wish. The only reason to reduce the number of meals is for owner convenience. Puppies can't digest large quantities in one go so need frequent small meals but by the time they're around 6 months of age most can digest enough in one go to divide their ration into only two helpings if you want to. I know many people who feed their adult dogs three times a day, as do I.
Once your pup is 5-6 months old it really is down to what is convenient for you and your family. I gradually reduced by girl's lunchtime meal and shared it between breakfast and dinner but reserved some allowance for lunch which is a chew of some kind. If we're out for lunch etc I just pop her chew in my bag so she can have it when we have lunch.
That’s great thanks Joy. I take buddy to work with me so will always be able to feed him his lunch. I guess convenience makes sense but so long as I’m doing the right thing by him then I’ll just continue what I’m doing, thanks again!
Isla is 7and a half months and we still feed her 3 meals a day and will continue to do so. If she has to much food in one go she can't cope and is sick. We discovered this when she had her meal followed shortly after with treats while training,so we are going to continue 3 meals a day.
We mostly use our food for training in 3 or more lots when we are home. When we are working he gets 2 lots of training kibble, a kong when we leave home and some in the middle of the day at daycare or when he gets home from his midday walk in a treat dispensing toy. Chewie is 6 months old and we dont see a reason to change, since it is working for us. I think it helps break up his day and working for his food is stimulation for him, otherwise he would just gobble it down in 2 seconds...
Hi Chewies mum, sorry but what do you do with his food? I would love to do this with Isla but she has kibble and I am running out of training ideas to use up all of her kibble.
We use kibble too, but it is a relatively large kibble, so I think we get fewer pieces per gram than some other brands. FWIW the brand is called Ivory Coat and we feed the large breed puppy version, but I think you can only get it in Australia You could play scent games? That's something we want to do with Chewie when we get our act together because he seems to find sniffing very engaging and calming.
Hey Chewie's Mum, I cannot give you a very scientific answer but i'll tell you how I fed my little one. So I always gave him two proper meals a day, one around 8 in the morning and one around 6 in the evening. In between I used to give him a few treats. There is this particular one that he loves, its a chewy, all natural treat made of yak cheese called Churpi. He loves them and chews on them for hours. As your puppy will strt or has already started teething, such things might be suitable.
@Saffy/isla, I should probably add, more specifically that we train all the usual stuff like sit, stay, down, shake, high 5, leave it and retrieving. We also use his kibble on walks and to do some general "good manners" stuff like settling quietly when we are doing other things and waiting patiently (ha!) On the other side of the kitchen gate. That is pretty much his daily ration done, but as I said we use a larger kibble. Hopefully that helps.
Yes thank you,I will try some of those out on Isla especially some scent games and she could certainly do with some better manners! We've just changed her kibble as well to large breed and the pieces are much bigger
