Thoughts On Feeding Dog

jeffwend

Does anyone have any thoughts or opinions on how many times a day is best to feed a dog? Most dog food will tell you how much food to feed your pet, but they do not say how many times a day.

I typically feed my dog 3 meals a day, she eats when I eat. But I think that it might be easier to just feed her 2 times a day so that when she has a dog sitter will be less difficult for the person watching her.

alphadoginthehouse

First of all, the amount on the bag is not really accurate. If I fed mine what is recommended, they would all be whales!

Second, what type of dog do you have and how old? My adult dogs are fed once a day, but many people feed twice. It is easier for me to keep track of who is eating what (I have 3 and they don't all eat at the same speed, if you know what I mean )

I would recommend you check with your vet if you really aren't sure. You will get all sorts of opinions on here...but then that's why you wrote in the first place

jeffwend

My dog is 7, she weighs 140 lbs

She is a mix of Alaskan Malamute and St. Bernard.

She is pretty leans, gets a 1-2 mile walk every day and she has a fenced in back yard, but this time of year she is pretty sedentary as she does not like the heat. In the winter she is full of life.

I was really just curious if anyone had any ideas or if it might be a bad thing to feed your dog too many times a day. With humans, smaller meals through out the day are best for staying at a healthy weight so I thought the same might be true for dogs.

Willowy

I think most dog owners feed their dogs twice a day. But it won't hurt anything if you want to feed her more often than that. It's all about your schedule and what she does best with. And I'm sure she'd be fine if a dogsitter fed her twice a day for a while....dogs are adaptable.

Kathyy

I feed three times a day as my old dog gets erpy on twice a day. Twice a day is fine and some only feed once a day. See how your dog eats, if slower for one meal cut it down and put the rest into the other meal. If she throws up yellow stomach stuff she needs a meal before then. I hand fed kibble by kibble several times a day when my dogs were in heavy training mode. I suspect meal timing depends on the food and time of year as well as the dog. If the dog doesn't get develop bratty behaviors and is a healthy weight feed anyway you like!

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Esther

It also depends on the type of food. With dry food I would feed at least twice a day. Usually after dry food dogs get thirsty and tend to drink a lot at ones. One big meal of dry food and then a lot of watter makes the food wash through the stomach very fast. Less large portion are better than. If you feed raw meat in large peaces, like a whole chicken, you can easily feed once a day, or even 4 times a week. The stomac of a dog is build for very large portions of food, but only when these portions consist of large peaces of meat. Besides how many times and how much at once, you can also choose to feed your dog at different hours everyday, so the food intake system is not going to anticipate; the dog doesn't produce a lot of saliva and stomac juices in advance, because he doesn't know when he's being fed. Feeding at different hours can be practical if you live an irregular life.

Dylan_Casber

mcknkc

My girls get fed twice a day. Mostly because I work all day and that's what works best with my schedule. They get dry kibble and fresh water when I get up in the morning, usually around 6:30 a.m., and then around 6:30 p.m. they get their second meal which is 1/2 the amount of dry kibble I give them in the morning mixed with some sort of wet food - sometimes canned, sometimes cooked chicken, etc. They rarely eat all of the dry in the morning, they usually leave about 1/3 but that's gone by the time I get home.

I think the feeding schedule depends on the animal and your schedule. I'm not here during the day so I can't give them a "lunchtime" meal.

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