Free Feeding -vs- Meal Times

[Tricia, Shiloh, Fenway & Tessie]

I'm curious who free feeds (just leaves the food down for their doggies all the time) versus who has set meal times....(where the food gets picked up after the designated meal)

How did you decide what works for you?

Does your vet have an opinion on the subject?

If you have multiple doods.....do they eat from the same bowl or each have their own?

[fergie11]

I'm glad you posted this 'cause i want to read the answers. I used to freefeed but had trouble housebreaking Fergie so i switched. You can't tell when they are going to poop when you freefeed. Then after she was all housebroke I went back to freefeeding with Fergie. That was great - she just nibbled and ate whenever she wanted and I never had to think about it.
Now I've got Lucy too and again, I'm housebreaking so I can't freefeed at this time. It's caused a little problem with Fergie because she never wants to eat when i put the food down. I fixed that - thanks to the "food group" and I'm doing some home cooking that i top off Fergie kibble with and she loves that and chows it all down.
Another problem is Lucy is an absolute pig. I think she'd eat the 15# bag of food if she ever go into it. I'm hoping when she's about 6 months and I'm pretty sure about her being housebroke I can go back to freefeeding. Hopefully she'll get over this piggish stage. I am going to continue making homemade food for them and giving them some of that also. It's especially fun to feed them that in the morning for breakfast. They so love it.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I free-feed. Jack is a very picky eater, and it's what I've always done with my dogs. I put kibble in his bowl first thing in the a.m., and leave it there. At dinnertime, I throw away whatever may be left, give him fresh kibble, and add his dinnertime fresh food. He always eats his dinner pretty quickly, while we are having ours. His appetite at breakfast varies from day to day, and he also goes through phases where he always cleans his bowl immediately for about a week and then picks at it for the next week.
I really think that if you have a dog who will eat when they're fed, it's a better idea to get them accustomed to having a limited time to eat. It helps a lot with dominance issues for them not to always have food available and gives you more control over a valuable resource...i.e. "you eat when I say you eat", lol. As Cathy mentioned, it also might help with housebreaking issues, although I have never personally had any porblem in that area with free-feeding. And if you have a multiple dog household, or ever plan to, it really makes life easier to be able to pick up the food bowls after a limited time.
I will be interested in the other responses, as well.

[Leslie du Mont]

I'm glad someone brought this up. My 8 week old is a painfully slow grazer. He eats a small amt. at various times during the day a few bites at a time. My vet said to put the bowl down in his crate, leave it there for 10 min and pick it up. I know that I should starve the little guy by doing it one meal and see if it works, but he only has two or three bm's a day. Doesn't that mean it isn't affecting his potty training? Isn't three times a day normal even with full meal eating dogs of this age, too?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I can't answer the question about how many times a day to feed a puppy, it's been 19 years since I had one. But 2-3 BM's a day is about all any dog should be having. It takes a dog 7-10 hours to digest food. Of course, if there's food going in all day, lol...
I would maybe try the vet's suggestion; he won't starve by missing one meal, and it might make him eager for the next one, where he'll eat it up quickly. If he does that for a few meals in a row, you'll have a pattern going.

[fergie11]

Go to the DK cookbook and make some Lynne's great homecooked food and top off the kibble with that. I bet they'll gobble up the food then. Thanks Lynne.

[Linda,Yankee & Finn]

I have a picky eater so I have always left his food down for him. He usually doesn't eat till afternoon sometime. I only pick it up when the neighbor's cat comes to visit because he will eat it all.

I am in the process of changing his food and I want to see if this changes. When he was a puppy, I tried several different foods and he was very hard to please. It may be that he just isn't a big eater. His weight is fine so I'll continue to free feed.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I free feed and Luca generally stars eating around lunchtime and then seems hungry again about dinnertime. He rarely finishes his dry food and I just add to it unless I've topped it off with something moist and then I'll throw out what's left after a few hours. Sometimes he's more hungry for a couple of days and sometimes not. He'll usually only have 1-2 bms a day and his weight is good. I like the idea that he doesn't feel the need to gobble his food and this also helps prevent bloat. I'm getting a puppy tomorrow so we'll see how that changes things.

[Kim]

Allie is by no means a big eater. I tried to feed her 2-3 times per day, but she WILL NOT eat when I put the food in her dish. She will walk by, smell it and then keep walking!!!! So I really don't have a choice, but to free feed. She doesn't overeat because she NEVER has an empty bowl, and I do pay attention to how much food she gets per day - but she NEVER eats the amount of food that the bag recommends. The Vet says she is of perfect size - so whatever she is doing works for me!

She has "Potty Times" around the same times each day - so she knows what's going on... (lol)

[Leslie and Halas]

When I got Halas at 8 weeks, I fed him 3 times a day. I'd pick it up if he hadn't touched it in about 20 or 30 minutes. He gets kibble, so it's easy to leave the food down for awhile and not have to worry about it getting all gross. Over time, he stopped eating the morning and lunch time meals. I free feed now, but he still pretty much only eats at night. Once in awhile, he'll eat a few bites in the afternoon. And once in awhile, he won't eat anything at night, so the next day, he'll eat a little more in the afternoon. But overall, even though I free feed, his eating schedule is pretty consistent. Free feeding hasn't caused us any problems with potty training, but I can see how it might for some dogs, just depending on how often they decide to eat. I think that it's good for a puppy to have specific scheduled meal times, just so they start to learn a schedule, and you're better able to predict potty times. Halas just kind of worked things out on his own when he eventually stopped eating 2 of the meals each day.

It's obviously more complicated if there's another dog in the mix. When we had 2 huskies, we fed them once a day. We even had to separate them while they ate. The male ate very slowly, and when we used to free feed him (before my parents adopted the female husky), he'd just eat a little bit here and there when he felt like it. The female, on the other hand, would chow down, and then run over to the male and eat his food. He would let her, so we had to separate them and stand between them just to give him some time to eat. If we would try to free feed, she'd just eat it all as soon as you put it down, no matter how much or how often you put food down. So it really just depends on the individual dogs.

[fergie11]

That last paragraph is exactly how Fergie and Lucy are. I'm hoping that changes.

[Adina P]

I really think it depends on your situation and your particular dogs.
Free feeding would never work at my house. Early on, my middle 'child' Thule was a VERY slow eater...she'd nibble at meal time and then leave her bowl for more interesting things and return to it later on. This was a HUGE temptation for my other two chow hounds. They did learn that other bowls are NOT for them, but I was never sure if it was Cass or Thule that finished Thule's food.

Eventually we started limiting Thule's meal time opportunity and before I knew it she turned into a chow hound too. Now ALL three of my dogs act as though they are winning the lottery at meal time and we don't add any embellish their food or have variety...same old Canidae...day in and day out. With fancier food for treats.

My two girls get only one meal a day.
My male Rosco (who would eat a whole bag of food if left to his own devices) gets two meals because he has more risk factors for bloat (large size, deep chest, wolfs down food). Come dinner time (the meal they all eat together) I feed in this order: Cass, Rosco, Thule. Just the pattern we've created. They all eat in the dining room, each one with their head facing away from the others...if it were a perfect triangle, each one would be facing one corner. It's not set up that way on purpose...it's a small room and I don't want them face to face to cause problems. They do NOT share bowls and if they tried a fight would probably ensue...but they have NO problem eating in the same room because each one is ravenous for their own meal. But once they are done...each one goes and helps clean out the other dogs' bowls...perhaps the leftover flavor is better in their brother/sister's dish ... LOL

For other people it could work great as long as one dog didn't out eat the other.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

"perhaps the leftover flavor is better in their brother/sister's dish ... LOL"

Actually there is a phenomenon you should now be aware of called "Other People's Food". Other People's Food is food that is served at someone else's house which only tastes good over there. If you serve the same thing, your child will not touch it. I have noticed that dogs do this, too. Maybe in the latter case, it should be called, "Other Doodles' Kibble."