# How often to feed?



## PoconoPup (Jul 15, 2005)

Let me start off with--Dakota, now 9mos. old, is a real picky eater. I am so not used to a picky eater Golden! My past Goldens would eat up every last nugget in a matter of minutes! Dakota could care less when it is dinner time. I have tried different foods--nothing impresses him. He is at good weight, about 70-75lbs. I've been feeding him 2 times a day--or at least trying to get him to eat 2 times a day. My question--should I try feeding him just once a day? Do you think he might be more interested (hungry) if I feed him only in the evening? I have always liked the idea of splitting up his meals, because of the bloating problems I have read about. Any suggestions?


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## Maggies mom (Jan 6, 2006)

PoconoPup said:


> Let me start off with--Dakota, now 9mos. old, is a real picky eater. I am so not used to a picky eater Golden! My past Goldens would eat up every last nugget in a matter of minutes! Dakota could care less when it is dinner time. I have tried different foods--nothing impresses him. He is at good weight, about 70-75lbs. I've been feeding him 2 times a day--or at least trying to get him to eat 2 times a day. My question--should I try feeding him just once a day? Do you think he might be more interested (hungry) if I feed him only in the evening? I have always liked the idea of splitting up his meals, because of the bloating problems I have read about. Any suggestions?


Maggie use to eat real well when she was younger(shes now 7 months old) around 6 months .. she wouldnt eat, but maybe a handful of dog food, so I changed her dry food and now add a tablespoon of the can food( same kind) she is back to eating normal...2 times a day.... 2 cups each meal....


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## Lexie's Mom (Dec 14, 2005)

Lexie is 5 years old. I feed her 2 cups in the morning and 1 cup at night. She weighs about 70 if that. 

I am sure there will be alot of advise given on this subject. I'm anxious myself to see the replies.


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## AquaClaraCanines (Mar 5, 2006)

Once a day is perfectly adequate... my fat cow Golden (lol) gets 1 cup once a day and one chicken leg quarter after that... you could do morning and night if you want. Some picky dogs do better with one evening meal.


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## greg bell (May 24, 2005)

Casey has always been a chow hound.. whatever, however much, and whenever you put food in front of her she wolfed it down...dixie on the other hand, just was never all that interested in food.. what finally worked for Dixie is that I would put her in her crate with the door open and feed her in there... she soon learned if she left that food, then casey was going to get it.. she may not want her food, but she **** sure didnt want casey to have it..and she didnt dare come out of the crate until she ate it.. so now she eats it when i give it to her so she can come back out safely..


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## Maggies mom (Jan 6, 2006)

AquaClaraCanines said:


> Once a day is perfectly adequate... my fat cow Golden (lol) gets 1 cup once a day and one chicken leg quarter after that... you could do morning and night if you want. Some picky dogs do better with one evening meal.


Out vet said it wouldnt hurt Maggie to eat once a day.....


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## PoconoPup (Jul 15, 2005)

I did try to add some can food to his dry, and that worked for about 3 days. The guy at the pet store told me to put his food down for 20 minutes and if he doesn't eat it, pick it up--he had his chance!! This guy said that a dog will not starve itself and will eat when he is hungry. He believes that Dakota is waiting to see how else I will "flavor" his meals. My husband agrees with this guy, but I think it is mean--I just want Dakota to eat....


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## Maggies mom (Jan 6, 2006)

I also have the 15 mins rule ..I have a total of 3 dogs.... It goes down if they eat great if not... you wait till the next meal.. otherwise I would have dog fights/.


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## DelmarvaGold (Mar 7, 2006)

PoconoPup said:


> I did try to add some can food to his dry, and that worked for about 3 days. The guy at the pet store told me to put his food down for 20 minutes and if he doesn't eat it, pick it up--he had his chance!! This guy said that a dog will not starve itself and will eat when he is hungry. He believes that Dakota is waiting to see how else I will "flavor" his meals. My husband agrees with this guy, but I think it is mean--I just want Dakota to eat....



The guy at the pet store is absolutely right. A dog will not purposely starve it self and it seems that Dakota is "playing" you :no: Changing food with a picky eater is the worst thing you could do. It just makes them even more picky. Of course this is just my opinion. I have a male who doesn't always eat and it's no big deal. I put his food down, if he eats that's great. If not, I pick it up and he doesn't get fed until the next meal. I feed twice a day. His dam was the same way.


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## Buffy & Abby's Mom (Nov 27, 2005)

I only feed mine once a day in the evening. Buffy is not an eater in the morning and I've just kept it consistent when we got Abby. They both eat 2 cups dry mixed with 1/2 can of canned food. They each weigh 70 lbs. For the most part, they eat it all when served. Although Buffy likes to save a little and eat it right before bed. So far there have been no tussles regarding that situation.


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## AquaClaraCanines (Mar 5, 2006)

The guy at the petstore is right for sure.


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## Goldndust (Jul 30, 2005)

Both eat twice a day. Bianka couldn't eat once daily I don't think because she will puke up that yellow bile.


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## gold4me (Mar 12, 2006)

Yep, the guy at the pet store is right. We have a 15 minute rule but the food is now gone in about 4 minutes. Beau's dad was really picky when he was younger and not neutered. I did the 15 minute rule and he figured out he either ate then or had to wait. After he was neutered he was not picky.


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## PoconoPup (Jul 15, 2005)

Just an up-date-- Started feeding Dakota only once a day, in the early evening, and what a difference in his attitude. He actually seems very interested in eating now--yup, he's hungry!! Gobbles up his entire dinner in a matter of minutes. He doesn't act like that picky eater he used to be. I quess he just didn't like eating in the morning. I hope he keeps this up--it does make me feel better that he has an appetite.


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## AquaClaraCanines (Mar 5, 2006)

Yay! That's good news. Works on my Whippet, too. I have an odd pattern of sleep b/c I have evening college classes. So I sleep until 10 or 11 and go to bed at 2 or 3 AM... well my Whippet gets his chicken back/turkey neck at 1 AM!! lol He always asks me for it... bugs me if I am late. SOmetimes I wait and let him get wound up to encourage his appetite lol... I will go touch the fridge, and look at him, and he'll stare at me and "nose press" me leg lol then I'll walk away and back again. It's always been a bit of a mindgame to get him to eat but now he is a pig, though he still won't eat kibble... I'd have to wait two or three days before he'd eat that


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## monomer (Apr 21, 2005)

We believe in the twice a day feeding, mainly because of the chance of bloat thing you mentioned... but Sidney's 'breakfast is very light'... just a cup. However his evening meal always comes about a half hour to an hour after his 'big' afternoon exercise romp (usually a hour or two of an aerobic-type of hard exercising)... and this meal is around 3 to 4 cups depending upon weather conditions and the amount of exercise. Sidney really likes to eat... but I believe the reason is because he gets such a lot of exercise and we keep him a little on the slim side. My own guess is that Dakota is probably being fed a few more calories than his body/activity level actually requires... so, did you ever try cutting back some on the amount you were feeding him? If I'm right, I suspect his appetite will pick up some when his weight has dropped closer to what his 'genes' have in mind as opposed to what any height/age/weight chart says is right. These are just my thoughts on the matter...


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## 3 goldens (Sep 30, 2005)

I feed mine twice a day, they get about 2/3 in the morning and 1/3 at night. They usually eat all their breakfast, which is just dry kibble with canned food meatballs containing their sups. But at night they try to lick the finish off their bowls as there is always a meat (boiled chicken liver, chicken hearts, gizzards, beef liver, canned fish, fresh caught & baked fish) along with unsalted canned carrot slices and green beans.

My Hunter was a picky eater also. You drop a cookie, peice of brownie, popcorn, chip, candy, etc on the floor and he would sniff it and walk away where the others were right on it. Also, the only treats he would eat were milk bones and the ones i make. He never gobbled his food and he mained weight 77-79 pounds depending on good weather and more exercise, bad weather and spending time inside.


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## monomer (Apr 21, 2005)

3 goldens said:


> ...But at night they try to lick the finish off their bowls as there is always a meat (boiled chicken liver, chicken hearts, gizzards, beef liver, canned fish, fresh caught & baked fish) along with unsalted canned carrot slices and green beans...


That's very good stuff you feed your dogs. Sidney gets such things in his evening meal as well (except for the fish which we have found him to be somewhat allergic to). I'm sure we are not giving him quite the quantities you seem to be feeding your pack and we are very sparing on the vegetables (though we do offer a larger variety), mainly because they will make a dog fat pretty quickly unless you severely cut back in the protein and fats, which I believe are actually much better for a dog than lots of carbohydrates and fiber (besides if you also feed kibble they are getting lots of that from the kibble)... we determined this with our last dog, though it took a couple years to figure out the whole correlation. The organ meats (which are sometimes called 'by-products', the larger category in food nomenclature) is excellent for dogs... far more nutritious that muscle meats... and neither one should be fed in exclusion to the other (in other words, both types of meat should be fed in a balance). Though I'm sure 3 goldens is aware, ...this is for anyone who may not know... liver is very, very high in many minerals and vitamins A and D among other things, since it does function as the body's main filtering and storage system... thus it is really easy to 'over-load' your dog on vitamins A and D as well as several minerals... I'm talking about toxic levels that could kill your dog over time. Please use common sense whenever feeding liver... only feed a reasonable amount at one meal and skip several days before feeding again... or to make it simpler, never feed it more often than say twice a week.

EDIT: Also as some may not be aware... fish oil is NOT the same thing as cod liver oil! Fish oil comes from the body fat of the fish... liver oils come from just that... the liver of the fish and so is VERY high in Vitamins A and D... both these vitamins are fat soluble which means any excess is stored with fat and therefore cannot be easily flushed from the body if there is an 'over-load' unlike the water soluble Vitamins C and the majority in the B-complex. Vitamin A is probably the more dangerous of the two. Please do NOT give Cod Liver oil in place of a fish oil... over time this could prove deadly to your dog.


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## lola'smommy (Dec 19, 2005)

I also feed my dogs twice a day. For the same reasons that Monomer had mentioned with bloat. I see how fast both my dogs eat and I just feel like it would be better on their system breaking it up into two seperate times.


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## 3 goldens (Sep 30, 2005)

I think they like the fish best of all and usually get it 4 times a week, the other stuff is varied. I have 4 packs of chicken hearts and one of beef liver in the freezer right now. Had mackeral last night, chicken liver the night before. I also like to give the meat to our 17 year old cat and she can eat the flaky fish and chicken liver better than the more chewy beef liver, chicken hearts and gizzards. I occasionly boil ground beef for them also and she handles it well. She just does not want anything that takes a lot of chewing.


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