Do You Feed Your DOG/DOGS Once A Day Or Twice

[lizbud]

I've often wondered how often most people feed their dogs. I think that
mostly it's according to their breed, but, for just an average weight pup.
How often per day?

[borzoimom]

I feed mine at 9am and 4:15-30.

[Husky15]

We don't really have a time for Belle. We just fill up her food bowl and let her go whenever she pleases. She's not a big eater anyway, sometimes mom has to actually take a handful and roll each one across the floor, one by one, and she'll chase them and eat them.

[binka_nugget]

They usually get fed twice a day.. unless I stay out late or am running late for work.

[wolfsoul]

I feed Visa twice a day, Solo three times a day. Both are fed raw and get plenty of treats and RMBs throughout the day as well.

[Cincy'sMom]

We actaully feed ours 3 times a day. They eat around 6 am, 6 pm and 10 pm. Breakfast is 1 cup, and the two evening meals are 1/2 c. each. We started splitting it up becuase when I cur Cincy's food back for her diet, she would wake me about around 3 am starving. The smaller meals seems to help her metabolism too, as she has lost about 10 lbs since I started doing this. She still needs to loose abou 10 more...

[joycenalex]

alex gets his meds with his meals, so all the critters eat twice a day. the hoomans do eat 3 times tho' ;)

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

I feed them all twice a day as adults (when we wake up which is between 6:00-10:00am depending on the day, and then again around 5:00pm). As pups, they get fed 3-4 times a day. :)

[GreyhoundGirl]

6 and 6. I like the simple life. lol :p

[Love That Collie]

Feed at 5:20am-5:45am and again at 4pm - 4:30pm
Each eats 3 total cups per day.

[Pam]

Twice a day for the dogs and twice a day for the cats. :)

[Taz_Zoee]

Twice a day here. Breakfast whenever Bruce gets up and dinner when I get home from work.

[lizbud]

Twice a day for the dogs and twice a day for the cats. :)


That's how mine are fed also. I've been trying to help Maggie lose some
weight for quite a while now & it's not working as fast as I'd hoped. She's
not gaining weight, so that's something I guess. I got another "your dog is
fat" comment while out walking Maggie a few days ago. :rolleyes: Although
I didn't know the guy at all, he had stopped dead in his tracks as he was
coming out of his house when Maggie and I passed by.

It is very furstrating when Smokey could eat 3 times a day & not gain
weight & Maggie can't even look at food without gaining weight.

[Danegirl2208]

Mine get fed twice a day. :)

[Glacier]

Once. This time of year dinner is at about six pm. In the summer they don't get fed until closer to 9 or 10 pm. They get water baited with some kibble at least once a day as well in the winter(along with constant access to plain ol' water)

[mr.chiwawa]

I will give mine a quarter cup in the morning and he will snack on it throughout the day and whatever he doesnt eat i toss out before bed and gove him fresh in the morning. I dont want a fat chihuahua so I stick to once a day. And he gets treats of course. ;)

[cali]

twice a day with the exeption of sundays. first meal time varys and could be anywhere from 8am to 4pm lol but supper is always at 6pm sharp. on sundays they are fed once between 4-5pm.

[mruffruff]

Mine are fed once a day, at 5PM. They each get a large "cookie" for breakfast, though. I tried to get skunny Scruffy to eat breakfast, but he just picks at it, so I gave it up. Samson thinks it's too much trouble and Bella is on a maintenance diet.

Bella was fat for a while. She eats Nutro Lite, 2 level cups a day now. She dropped 5 lbs a month for 3 months and looks much better. She's a Belgian/Chow mix, and was 55 lbs before her diet.

[xcolbi]

We don't really have a time to feed Colbi. We just pour the food in her bowl as soon as we wake up, and she eats whenever she wants to. We usually refill it by supper.

[Logan]

I do twice/day, right now. I feel like it is especially important for Mack, who is still a puppy. I don't think Honey and Lilly care, one way or the other, as long as they eat, eventually!

Logan

[critter crazy]

Duke gets fed twice a day once at 7 am and again at 7 pm. :)

[lv4dogs]

I usually feed twice a day 3-4 days a week then once daily the other 3-4 days. I feed a raw diet so that has an impact on how often to feed (like if they get a big meal or something that may cause a digestive upset like something they haven't had before or in a while [thank god this has yet to happen but maybe that is because I feed this way??] etc... those are the days I usually only feed once a day).

[ramanth]

When I only had Kia, I fed her once a day. If only because when I tried to give her a bowl of food in the morning, she wouldn't eat it. She'd just lay there and guard it and snap at the cats if they came too close.

So I stopped offering her a morning meal.

With the arrival of Chipper and because of him needing morning medication and to put on weight, he obviously needed a morning meal. So that Kia wouldn't feel left out, I offered her a morning meal too. The first couple of times, she didn't eat and again just guarded her food. So I'd take it away from her and give it to Chipper.

This seemed to shock Kia and now when they get their morning meals, she eats it all up and doesn't protest if Chipper licks her bowl looking for any leftovers. :)

So I guess my answer would be yes, they get a morning and evening meal. :)

[gemini9961]

Once here. Grant needs to drop some weight and Sadie needs to loose a little. Maggie is fine weight wise but she doesn't eat that much. They are ready to eat when they get fed which is in the evening. They will get treats/snacks too. Mine are fed raw.

[anna_66]

I feed big raw meals so mine eat once/day, in the morning.

[DrKym]

Twice a day for the Goof and Sequoia, 3 for Rusty as it seems to help with his thyroid issues and meds (plus i can change up his pill hiding so he isn't always sure when it is in there ;) ) the cats free feed and we have one of the huge water bottle holder things that allows fresh water, we use a 5 gallon jug a week (not counting toilet dunks :rolleyes: )

[KYS]

I feed twice a day, and a dog buiscuit for a snack. :)

[BitsyNaceyDog]

Mine eat once a day, in the evenings.
Charlie, Buster and Nova wouldn't eat in the morning if I offered it. Nacey and Bitsy are both late sleepers and I can hardly get them to even go potty in the morning, I'd never be able to get them to eat in the morning. Jake probably would eat in the morning, but to keep him on the same schedule as the other dogs I feed him once a day too.

[Rachel]

It is very furstrating when Smokey could eat 3 times a day & not gain
weight & Maggie can't even look at food without gaining weight.


It's the same with Tucker and Hannah, and for that matter, my husband and me.

The dogs get breakfast around 5:30 am, a snack around 1:00 pm, dinner around 4:30 pm and a *nighty cookie* around 8:00 pm. Empty stomachs around here are prone to upchucking stomach acid. {gurk, gurk, gurk}

[chocolatepuppy]

Lacey and Layla are fed three times a day. Laceys two meal a day portions are separated into three meals so she can eat when Layla does. When Layla is older and goes to twice a day, Lacey will go back to twice a day also.
They eat at 6:00, 4:00 and 8:00. Feeding time when back to twice a day will be around 6:00 and 6:00.

[elizabethann]

Fenway has kibble available all of the time. He's not the type of dog to gobble it up in one second.

As for his canned food, he gets about 1 cup in the morning & 1 cup at night. Sometimes he doesn't eat his breakfast cup, so he eats it at night.

[CathyBogart]

Jasper has two official meals - one in the morning one in the evening. He also snacks on whatever I'm eating as long as it's ok for him.

[*LabLoverKEB*]

My two get fed twice a day.

[ChrisH]

I split Bob's recommended allowance into breakfast and evening meals. He doesn't always eat the breakfast one right away but most times it's all gone by the afternoon. Same with the evening one but his bowl is normally empty by somewhere around 8pm. He also gets a 'bedtime biscuit', heaven help me if I forget that! :D

p.s. he's always ready for people food and if leftovers are added to any meal it gets wolfed down right away!

[crow_noir]

Twice a day seems to make the most sense (for adult dogs) so that's what I've stuck with.

With GSDs you really have to watch out for bloat so you don't want to feed less than twice per day.

With any dog though you can majorly reduce begging by feeding twice a day. It's quite nice with less begging.

I skip meals one day per week (aprox. 25 hours) to let their bodies heal. (There is scientific evidence proving that they benefit from fasting. Has something to do with enzymes that are only produced when their digestive system is relaxing.)

It takes raw food six hours to go through their digestive systems and 12 hours for kibble to. (Varies by individual, breed, and current health.)

[pitc9]

I used to free feed because mine were both so skinny! :eek:
But now they are both at a good weight so I feed once a day around 7:00pm.
In the morning (7:30am) when I leave for work I hide snacks around the house for them to find and eat while no one's home.

[Reachoutrescue]

I feed our pups twice a day. Once in the morning around 7, if the food is gone, I feed them again around 6, usually when we eat. The cats, I just fill the bowls and it usually last all day.

[Nobas Mom]

My basset hound, Noba, eats once a day. I put food down for him in the morning, and he won't eat until about 2-3 pm. He went on a hunger strike and didn't eat for over a week not too long ago... so I had to find a new tactic. Some great advice by a few PTers to put warm to hot water in his food to entice him with the added smell helped tremendously and he finally started eating again!! :D Problem is now, he won't eat unless there is warm / hot water in his food.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Now my question is, with bassets having such large chests and potentially being prone to bloat... I've heard that drinking right after eating can help cause bloat. With the water in his food, is this dangerous??

[dukedogsmom]

I feed twice a day. Dasher always acts like he's starving. I'm thinking he might not have gotten fed on a regular basis at his previous home and maybe he doesn't think he'll be eating again? And when he does eat, he eats it so fast. We've had to put up the cat food to where only the cat can reach it because he was raiding it, too. I'm wondering if he could have some mineral deficiencies or something? Anyone have any ideas?

[mike001]

I feed raw so my dogs get fed only once a day. They have bones to chew all the time and I feed whenever so they don't anticipate mealtime. I fast once a week.

[*sled_dog*]

Once. This time of year dinner is at about six pm. In the summer they don't get fed until closer to 9 or 10 pm.
Same here, I feed mine once a day. Usually around 6-7 pm, summer time around 8-9. With young puppies I will feed twice a day.

[Canis-Lupess]

I feed mine twice a day.

I used to feed them once in the evening but Jess started suffering with the acidic stomach problem in the afternoon and knowing it was because she was too hungry, I decided to split their daily intake into two meals. I had to do the same with Mist because I couldn't feed Jess without feeding Mist especially as I was trying to establish a clear cut pecking order between them at the time and had to feed Mist first before Jess.

Personally, I would never go back to feeding once a day. If the dog eats it's whole daily intake in one go, it overloads it's system and wouldn't be able to absorb all the goodness from it anyway as there would be too much so some of it would come out of the other end wasted and the dog spends half the day feeling hungry.
I find that the dogs do so much better when given two smaller meals or three even smaller ones for those who like to feed their dogs that way. Can help combat weight problems too because feeding little and often helps to speed up their metabolism and stop it becoming sluggish.

I know in the wild, they have to gorge themselves and then go for days without food maybe but thats because they have no other choice. Wild wolves generally don't live beyond about 7-8 years because their lives are so hard.

[lizbud]

My basset hound, Noba, eats once a day. I put food down for him in the morning, and he won't eat until about 2-3 pm. He went on a hunger strike and didn't eat for over a week not too long ago... so I had to find a new tactic. Some great advice by a few PTers to put warm to hot water in his food to entice him with the added smell helped tremendously and he finally started eating again!! :D Problem is now, he won't eat unless there is warm / hot water in his food.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Now my question is, with bassets having such large chests and potentially being prone to bloat... I've heard that drinking right after eating can help cause bloat. With the water in his food, is this dangerous??

I didn't see anyone answer this question, so I'll give one opinion. Adding
a little warm water to the food will not cause bloat. I don't know about
drinking lots of water afterwards. I would think it's not a good thing to let
them have "lots" of water, but a little is ok.

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

Now my question is, with bassets having such large chests and potentially being prone to bloat... I've heard that drinking right after eating can help cause bloat. With the water in his food, is this dangerous??


This is a controversial topic, as some people believe adding water may cause bloat and others believe it will prevent bloat. The majority seem to believe the latter though, including myself. I add water to all of my dogs' food (I have a coule deep chested dogs/breeds too), they don't like it otherwise and I believe it's healthier for them both to help prevent bloat and to help the food digest easier. So, adding water to Noba's food should not harm him at all.

[wolf_Q]

Nebo is like Kia.....I used to try to feed him in the morning, but he would never eat it, so I gave up. I fed him once a day fairly late at night for the past few years. After I got Keva and was feeding her in the morning, Nebo wanted food too, so now he gets half his food (1 cup) in the morning and the other half in the evening. He used to be a really picky eater and would often go a day or more without eating, and now he gobbles it right up. Nothing like competetion to make a dog eat! ;) Keva gets fed at the same times as Nebo and I usually give her a bit more at night as well, Nebo eats 2 cups and she eats at least 3 cups per day, she's a little pig!

[Seravieve]

Mine eat twice a day, 730 am and 7 pm. 1 cup in the morning for Zeke, with a good amount of hot water -- which slows his eating down a lot, since he still has rescue dog syndrome where he has to eat it ALL at the speed of light. And 1 1/2 cups for Bunny. She gets a little water but not much. Zeke gets the acid stomach deal even with two meals... Three might be a good idea for him. Never really thought about that. I usually just an one Tums tablet with his breakfast. They eat Purina dry dog food..

They also get snacks from me in the evenings -- they usually get to taste whatever I'm snacking on. :D

[cocker_luva]

jesse is on the BARF diet so she gets feed twice a day, between 4-6 pieces of meat a day with some veggies as midday snacks to keep her tummy from not growling. its great, she was probably twice her normal weight, and has already lost about 2-3 ins around her girth!!!