Down to 2 feeds a day???

[Stacy Deitrich]

Hi everyone, my Rosie is a 23.5 pound 18 week old and I have currently been feeding her 3 equal meals per day.  Morning, afternoon & evening.  I'm thinking of cutting her evening feed back to a much smaller portion so that I can eventually have her on 2 feedings per day.  Is she too young to do this?  At what age should she be on 2 feedings per day?  Thanks for the help!

 

Rosie is a medium ALF and should be around 40 pounds full grown

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Hi Rosie, you are sooooo cute! I switched Sophie to 2 meals per day around the same age, maybe a few weeks older. She did fine with it.  I had started to notice that she was leaving her meals so I figured it would be fine. I hope I did the right thing. I hope to hear from the experts.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It depends on your dog. Sherri is right, the dog will give you some signs that she is is not as hungry or interested in eating as she was. You might try staying with three meals a day but reducing the amount you feed for each. (Check your feeding guidelines, too; they usually reduce the amount as the puppy gets older.)  

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

By 18 weeks, Peri (mini dood now 25 lbs full grown) ate only 2x/day.  We started feeding less at the midday feedings and she wasn't as interested.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Yeah, the middle meal is the one i would cut back, since eventually, the two meals will be breakfast and dinner.

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

I measure out Luna's food each morning and give her half for breakfast and half for dinner.  In the middle of the day (if we're home) she will usually get a small veggie or fruit snack, but she doesn't really need it.

 

I think that's about the time we cut her down from 3 meals a day to 2 - it took her a bit of adjustment and I think her fruit "snack" helps keep her a bit less hungry, even if it doesn't have a lot of calories.

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

yes. I always leave a carrot for her in her crate and put some kibbles inside one of her interactive toys. That keeps her happy although she doesn't always eat it all, another sign that two times a day is enough.

[Jess and Pippin]

Pippin was on 2 meals per day at 14 weeks but I divided his total amount of kibble by 3.  The third "meal" was actually the kibble we used throughout the day for training.  We didn't have anyone home mid day to feed him a mid day meal, and giving the full volume at 2 meals made for really mushy poos.  (Reducing the amount of food per serving solved that problem).  This worked really well for us.