our 14 month lab is fed three times a day, usually at 7am (as she used to wake just before this time), 12-ish, and 6pm. She has recently lost weight due to a food allergy, so we changed her food a few weeks ago. Now she has started to wake at 6am and whine incessantly, even if we ignore her. It’s not for a wee or a poo, but she seems very hungry. I read that a later breakfast time might help her sleep in later and stop her associating morning get up time with feed time. So I have been going downstairs to see her at 7am, but not feeding until 8am. She seems hungry, but I make her wait until 8am, then after her feed she sleeps again. I have tried this for 2 days, but next week the kids are back at school and it will seem mean not to feed her when we are tucking into breakfast ourselves? Or is this normal for a dog? I am interested in other forum readers meal schedules. Is her last meal too early? Is 7 am too early? We just want her waking nearer 7am than 6am (Problems of being a fist time dog owner!)
I feed at 5am and 4pm, so I'm not much help really sorry. I do find a little suppertime snack does help though. What time is her last feed?
Cassie has a very haphazard meal time schedule, mainly because I didn't want a dog that was set in a rigid routine. That said she gets breakfast anywhere between 6.30 and 8.30, and tea between 4 and 6, depending on what we are doing. In the mornings, when she was tiny, I got up at 6, gradually getting later, but she didn't get her food straightaway. She's 2 now, and people can get up at any time, go in and out of the kitchen where she is, eat, have cup of tea etc and she will get up to say good morning, go out in the garden if she needs to without demanding food. She goes to her bed now at anytime of day when we eat having taught her that with boundary games. I'm not sure about teaching Elsie now she's older, but I should imagine you could with perseverance. If she's had a busy morning --Forum walk or a taxing training class she's not above requesting her tea at 2pm ! Which she gets because I'm confident that it's genuine hunger then, not just because it's the time of day
You could try feeding a bedtime snack to keep her tummy fuller so she’s not as hungry in the morning. We changed our feeding schedule so that our boy gets a smaller breakfast, supper that is double the quantity of breakfast, and then a substantial bedtime snack. We can now sleep in on weekends confident that he’s not that hungry that he needs breakfast at the usual time. Our schedule is 6am/6.30am breakfast (my husband is an early riser, otherwise weekends it can be as late as 7.30am, or we feed early and then all go back to sleep till around 8.30). Supper is around 6pm, can be later if our walk ends late. Bedtime snack 7.45pm, or as late as possible, but Snowie starts begging for it at 7.45pm (perfect alarm clock!). He also gets lots of raw veg and cooked veg snacks while we are making dinner, so he really gets a lot of food at night compared to morning. Also a nub of butter when we all go to bed around 9.30pm. He used to get seizures at 4am which the vet said could be related to drop in blood sugar, hence feeding more late. It also had the effect of allowing sleeping in, which we all appreciate! He was asking for breakfast from 5am in the old days, and we think in hindsight he really was hungry.
I save a handful of food from her meal and give it to them about 8pm it's a signal it's time to settle and they enjoy their supper.
This is our feeding schedule - Up to 14 weeks 7:30am. 11am 3pm 7:30pm Then up to 24 weeks 7:30am 12:30pm 7:30pm Then from 6 or 7 months onwards, two meals a day 7:30am and 7:30pm. I always keep a portion of their meals for Kongs - they have three or four a day each. We eat our own meals at varying times - sometimes before the dogs, sometimes after. They get no food while we are eating, ever - so us eating has no relevance to them. .
Our 16 month old gets fed at 6 am and 5 pm. She has 3 kongs throughout the day. I keep 40g from her allowance for her evening walk and she has a few fish cubes as her going to bed snack.
I feed mine at 9am and 6pm and he has a Bonio at at about 9pm and three dog biscuits to go to bed with at 11pm
