I have a slight dilemma here. I have decided that on days I don't work that I will hand feed Lilly her breakfast in attempt to reintroduce the whistle for sits and recall. We "broke" it last time as we weren't proofed well enough. Trouble is she is not a big drinker so is missing out on the water I normally add to it. I'm thinking best option is to give her a small amount of her food with water then keep the rest aside for training. Any thoughts from you guys who do the hand feeding?
Re: Hand feeding question Complete novice here so this might be all wrong! Or might not help if Lilly doesn't drink out of her bowl.... Charlie doesn't drink in the morning because of the hand feeding (although I can get him to drink a bit on cue - the result of solving hiccups when he was small). So I take a small bottle and bowl with me to training and walks. Obviously, I take care not to give too much, or when he is doing or about to do something strenuous. But when we have just been doing relatively quiet things, and used up quite a bit of his kibble breakfast, I leave his bowl down where we are training, on the beach or common, and he'll take sips on his breaks. The gun dog trainer thought I was quite mad when I worked in water breaks! Really, he thought I was mad. So perhaps it doesn't matter, and they'll just drink later when they get thirsty!
Re: Hand feeding question Hi Jac, Charlie is hand fed both his meals and he doesn't drink before his breakfast either and this meal is used to feed/train on his walk. He does have a massive drink on his return. Don't forget Lilly needs to be hungry before taking her out training, personally I wouldn't give her anything before you went out. I wouldn't worry about it or taking water with you, only on hot days. Maybe I am just mean Good luck. Helen xx
Re: Hand feeding question Thanks for that. She loves drinking out a bottle so that may be the solution. Or of course the stream at the end of our track : Will keep an eye on her. 8)
Re: Hand feeding question You can do all your whistle training, recall, directions, leave etc with the food bowl at meal times. I take (or did! He is a cracker at sitting to the whistle ;D) his food bowl with his breakfast into the garden and he has to do certain things before he can eat it. I would train one thing at a time until he understood. The one thing that worried me about taking food out and feeding on the go, is that the dog could get bloat.
Re: Hand feeding question I must admit I did wonder about that too Stacia. Although Lilly only gets around 100-110g so may be less of a risk. She gets her anti inflammatory tab at teatime so I don't see myself hand feeding that meal. So far we haven't made it out the garden
Re: Hand feeding question [quote author=Stacia link=topic=2673.msg27170#msg27170 date=1379926152] The one thing that worried me about taking food out and feeding on the go, is that the dog could get bloat. [/quote] Yes, I worried about this too - but in the end, after worry and asking the vet, I reckoned that feeding many tiny amounts over a period of time, eg an hour, probably means the chance of bloat are very small. It's not like giving a huge amount in one go then doing exercise. Hope so, anyway!
Re: Hand feeding question Jacqui I do the method you are thinking of but for different reasons.I feel tortured by Dexter if he doesn't get his bowl put down with some food in it....I know I'm totally humanizing him !Whatever he has had out and doesn't seem to count and he ignores Chris when he comes downstairs if he hasn't had a bowl put down to him,i feel he doesn't accept he's been fed until he's eaten from his bowl.he gets 2 little 'tapas ' meals of 75g and the rest is fed by hand....he's a good water drinker though,thank goodness,I top up at least once a day and he has portable bottle of water out on walks with a spare in my backpack.lily might change her drinking habits though and Drink more enthusiastically if you change her feeding...possibly?x
Re: Hand feeding question Jacqui, is it a kibble type? Charlies food is soaked for hours before she eats it, and it goes like a spongey texture, it soaks up the water completely, so there's no gravy stuff, just moist food in the bowl. I put the water in boiling and it's left covered for around 6 hrs or so, til her next meal time. Not too wet to pick up (messy like if you squeeze it, but you gave up tidy and dignified when you got dogs!). Or else I would think Lilly would adjust her drinking to compensate if she felt she needed to? Not an expert on behaviour, but I'd think ours would do that.
Re: Hand feeding question I'm a bit surprised to hear people add water to kibble - is that the normal thing to do then? I had thought that the crunching of the kibble helped the teeth cleaning - not that it can much in Charlie's case, as I doubt it touches the sides! I thought soaking kibble was just to get them over the mum's milk to solid food stage, the breeder told me not to add water but I didn't ask why, just thought she meant there was no need anymore. Hmmm...I'm sure Charlie would LOVE his kibble soaked in gravy...
Re: Hand feeding question LOL Kibble soaked in gravy....yum! No, I just put her kibble in her bowl, add water and serve! Hey presto! Kibble doesn't last long enough for it to get at all soggy, still firm, but its not overly crunchy to start with. We had a run in the park earlier and she got quite out of puff, but still didn't seem to drink much. Maybe she was put off by sharing the water afterwards. I will have to make sure she gets extra later - zonked just now
Re: Hand feeding question [quote author=Dexter link=topic=2673.msg27176#msg27176 date=1379927328] he gets 2 little 'tapas ' meals of 75g and the rest is fed by hand.... [/quote] Charlie says the next time Dexter is looking all pained....Dex needs to know that 75g is Charlie's whole meal...no tapas about it!
