| How should I FEED? |
| Feeding Time |
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There is more to feeding time than tossing down a bowl of kibble. I have gathered
some pointers that should help you out.
Disclaimer: All information on these pages is personal opinions and information
gathered from various official and unofficial sources, and can not be taken as proven
facts. I have no education or training to validate these statements and take no
responsibility for the results of making use of this information.
Preparing to feed your new dog
Obviously, your new dog needs something to eat. There are a few things I recom-
mend having ready or buying on the way home. First off, don't spend too much
money on stuff in the beginning. You may find that your fancy new equipment
doesn't work well for you and the dog, so you might as well wait and get to know
him or her better before investing in nice stuff. The place not to be a cheapskate is
the food. A quality food pays off in better health, fewer vet visits, smaller stools and a
happier animal. Since a good food contains more nutrition and less (harmful) filler you
also feed less of it.
Since it is stressful to enter a new home and a new life, adopted animals often have
somewhat upset stomachs, especially if being fed a poor food in their former home or,
to a lesser extend, at the shelter. Many foster animals went into foster care because
they had kennel cough or some other medical condition and needed medicine, which
also can upset the stomach. I recommend that all new dog owners add shredded
cheese, yogurt or cottage cheese to the food for a few days or until the stomach has
settled. Canned pumpkin added in is also great and maybe some bland white rice.
Some dogs like their kibble soaked in hot water, and may make them eat better until
they have settled in, while others prefer it dry. Don't worry, though. It is natural for
dogs to skip a meal or two now and again if they don't feel well or are anxious, but
most start eating again after a day or two. Don't double the next portion to make up
for the lost meal as that will screw up the animal's eating cycle.
Bowls
Plastic bowls are not recommended in the long run as they may give off a chemical
that causes the nose to lose color and possibly has other effects internally. Metal
bowls are easier to stack if you have several animals, but they can also be noisy and
scare a timid dog. Ceramic bowls are heavier and don't slide around as much while the
dog eats out of it. They are usually also harder for a dog to turn over, so they are my
favorites for water bowls. Outside I have a hard rubber "pan"/bowl from a feed store.
If you have a dog that eats too fast, the easies way to slow it down is to get a foot or
so of big-linked chain and put it in the bottom and just pour the kibble on top of it. If
you only have one dog, or can put the dogs in different rooms to eat, you can also
spread the food out on the floor.
Feeding time
There is still some debate over how often to feed dogs. Most agree that for adult
dogs, dry kibble or regular canned food should be fed twice a day. Dogs are not
comparable to northernly timber wolves that mostly eat a large meal every few days,
as they are not the ancestors of dogs. In fact, we don't know much/anything about
our dogs' grey wolf ancestor except that it lived about 15.000 years ago in Eastern
Asia. Other wolves, like the more southernly wolves, are hunters of small prey and
possibly the occasional large animal, and all wolves scavenge to some extend. This
means that smaller meals more often is natural, and it seem to be healthiest when
feeding kibble. A Raw diet, on the other hand, is often but not always better fed once
a day; it depends on the dog.
A puppy should be fed three times a day, because of its small stomach capacity. The
feeding schedule can be reduced to twice a day around four months of age.
Kibble is often preferred to canned food for various reasons, one being that kibble has
more fiber and work more on the teeth, and that canned food is mostly water. An
exception is canned RAW or "home cooked" diet. There is also a considerable price
difference. Canned food does have its merits when you have a dog or cat that for
some reason doesn't get enough fluids. And it is of course great for mixing with
medicine, especially for cats.
Free-feeding dogs is rarely a good idea. It's in part an attitude thing. You want the
dog to be reminded daily that you provide this most savored and basic thing in its life.
You also want to quickly be able to notice changes in appetite since that is often one
of the few or first signs of feeling ill, you get to see. Animals are programmed to hide
being sick, so you need all the help you can get, and knowing how your dog normally
behaves throughout the day will give you important clues when something is off.
This is yet another reason that dogs that are isolated outside, away from the family,
are generally not cared for as well as a house dog and family companion.
Then there is the issue of multi-pet households. Free-feeding really makes it hard to
keep track of who eats how much, and you may not even realize it if one dog keeps
the other away from the food bowl(s); it may be as subtle as one dog giving the other
a warning look from across the room. Sometimes you even have the cats and/or dogs
emptying the wrong bowls when you are not paying attention.
Cats are usually free-fed and I haven't heard of any problems with it unless you have
multiple cats and may not notice if one of them stops eating. It is my personal
experience that cats can't eat as much at a time as a dog, but that may be a faulty
observation.
Feeding order and rank
The rule of thumb used to be to feed in order of rank with the Alpha dog first, and
that after eating yourself. Forget all that! With the more recent research on pack
behavior we know that wolves and wild dogs don't use such artificial guidelines. Rank
is a much more fluid thing than that. First off, you can eat when you want and feed
the dogs when it fits in your daily schedule. Secondly, a good way to decide who is
being fed first, second etc. is by looking at the dogs' behavior: The one that is best
behaved gets fed first and so forth. Generally, you want to reward calm, patient, quiet
behavior at feeding time. You may also ask them to obey a command like sit or
different commands each day to keep their training fresh. Each dog can be asked to
follow a different command (not all given the same one) so that they truly have to
pay attention to you.
Changing feeds
Changing feeds can upset the stomach so it is a good idea to transfer slowly. First put
a little bit of the new food in the old one to introduce it. For the next meal, mix in
some more, and continue this way until there is more of the new feed than the old.
This should take 2 days to a week depending on your animal's usual reaction to new
foods. The better the quality of the food, the less of a problem it usually is, except for
very food sensitive animals. If you are switching between formulas within the same
brand you probably don't have to mix more than one or two meals.
Upset stomachs/vommiting/diarrhea
Dogs may occasionally get upset stomachs and refuse to eat and/or trow up and/or
get diarrhea. Sometimes it is caused by something as simple as stress, which is
common when an animal is transferred from one living situation to another, or eating
something in the yard or on a walk. For a new adopter I always recommend buying
some cottage cheese, yogurt, or shredded cheese to mix in the dog's food for the first
few days, or for puppies, the first few weeks. This can also be used in case of upset
stomachs in general as it helps settle the stomach and firm the stools. Canned
pumpkin is great to stop diarrhea, and bland pasta or rice for dogs, and cooked
chicken breast for both dogs and cats is recommended for upset stomachs and if the
animal hasn't eaten in 24 hours or more when it needs to break the fast gently.
Fasting a dog for 24 hours can give the stomach some needed rest when throwing up
(be careful to get the dog to drink plenty of water during this period).
I am really pleased to just have heard about a vet that told a friend to give the dog
some Peptobismol for runny stools. I have been using this for a while when nothing
else did the trick, but didn't have "the doctors consent" until now.
Caution: Vomiting, gaging, and to some extend diarrhea, can be signs of more severe
problems, so always check the animal for blood in the stools or vomit; foaming at the
mouth (sometimes a sign of poisoning); obstructions in the mouth or throat or
between teeth; signs of pain in the mouth (especially teeth), stomach, and intestines;
unusually pale gums (sign of blood loss); dehydration and possibly other symptoms. If
these symptoms are prolonged or seem acute, take the animal to the vet.
Green spit or vomit usually means the animal has digested grass in an attempt to deal
with the issue itself. This is fine, but may not solve the problem, so you should still be
ready to act if necessary.