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

[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!

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!
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!! Problem is now, he won't eat unless there is warm / hot water in his food....
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!! Problem is now, he won't eat unless there is warm / hot water in his food....
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!