There are two words we're not allowed to say in our home: breakfast and dinner.
The mere mention of these events brings out the stallion-dancing, twirling, and crazy eyes.
The pups awaken with excitement to have breakfast as their first meal of the day, and during the week they are fed "dinner" by their dogwalker when they go on their walk.
So maybe it's really more of a lunch.
Though on weekends, often a mere hour after eating, the pups start hinting that it is time for dinner.
The follow us around the house. Staring. Peeking around corners. Leaping in excitement if we seem to be heading in the direction of the kitchen.
Sometimes we feed them dinner just to make them leave us alone.
Which I guess would be considered brunch.
Though sometimes the pooches forget that they ate so early, and around their really dinner-time they start doing all the stalking all over again. Which can be quite unnerving when your dog looks like this:
But when we really thought about it, I'm not sure why we even separated their food into two meals anyway. Maybe we could just feed them everything at breakfast and eliminate all the madness.
I guess it might be easier during the work-week since we can't take them out to go to the bathroom as often and dividing the meals works better with our walking schedule.
So of course we're curious....
Does your dog eat breakfast and dinner? Or do you just serve one meal? Or does anyone get fancy with a brunch?
Also:
Now you can see why this changed our lives.
And you know why this was the best day of Miss M's life.
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32 comments:
With the exception of one dog who was allowed to free feed, I always fed my own dogs two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. My sister's practice with her dogs is to feed them one meal a day.
One of her dogs is currently living with me (I'm nursing her through an injury)and she's really thrilled to get two meals and never fails to let me know when it's time to eat.
We do 2 meals a day. Annie used to slowly self feed over the day. We'd put a cup of kibble in her dish and slowly over the course of the day, she'd eat when she was hungry. Now that she's allergic to most kibble, or itches a lot from it, we've switched to wet food that she's not as allergic to, but gobbles down like crazy
We do two meals a day and those are magical words, "breakfast and dinner."
Cooper gets two meals a day and he definitely knows "breakfast" and "dinner." He likes to walk into the kitchen to see if I'm following him at the appointed time. Spinning begins! (He does have to wait patiently until we release him to chow down though.)
We do three meals a day to keep them from being antsy about food. Makes everyone happy! And feels good to give them food 3 x a day so u know they can't be too hungry! We usually do something like 7am, 5pm, and 9-10 pm due to our work schedules.
Ms. M's crazy eyes always make me laugh :) Our dogs get fed twice a day - around 5 am and between 5-7 pm.
Of course when we has Spuds he just grazed all day so he are whenever he wanted :)
Leroy gets breakfast and dinner. I did this initially to allow time for me to eat without him staring (I'm typically not home for lunch) but he didn't turn into a beggar.
These guys get breakfast and dinner, and we can't use those words either unless we really mean it. Oddly enough, somehow the word "hungry" has become associated with eating for them, so we have to be very careful about those words. No longer can we say to each other, "Are you hungry for dinner?" Now it's crazy stuff like, "Are you peckish for supper?"
MJ and Zozo have breakfast when they first wake up, and dinner whenever we sit down to eat after work. We found giving them their own meal helped cut down on tableside begging/"are you going to eat that eyes" when we had dinner (unless there's pizza or pancakes. then it's all out the window).
We also separate them when they eat-- they're both rescues, and they have some food aggression that we're working on. So they know they have to be sitting in their food places ("where do you eat?" is our cue) and they have to be released before they can gobble.
We do two meals a day too! We have a Pittie and an American Bulldog mix just like you! Our pittie girl used to "self feed" until we switched to better food and she started gobbling it up, and our American Bulldog has "crazy eyes" over the magical words also!
My choice to feed twice a day is mostly based on thinking about how I would feel if I only ate in the morning, and then had to stare at my humans eating dinner with an empty belly. Our dogs are also very regular in the potty department. So after both breakfast and dinner, they have to use the yard right away! It works for our schedule and I can't imagine such a large meal on their bellies once a day.
"Hungry" and "Eat" are also big words in our house! We switched to Evo Red Meat recently which cleared up all kinds of skin allergies and digestion problems for them. Our bulldog not only gets the crazy eyes, but he drools puddles while we're getting his food bowl ready!
Thanks for sharing!
Just one meal a day here, and it is never at the same time. Sometimes morning, sometimes afternoon, evening, or right before bed. Changing the time like that eliminates the obnoxious behavior around dinner time, since there is no actual dinner time.
We do breakfast and dinner (late dinner) at my house. One of our dogs is well into senior status and breaking up their total intake into twice a day feedings supports good blood sugar levels for our older gal. Plus I think how hungry I would be by bed time if I only ate breakfast.
Because of his sensitive stomach, Vinnie gets THREE [small] meals a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - and yes, he recognizes all those words as well as "are you hungry?!". We generally feed each meal right after a walk, so by now if we come inside and don't immediately head to the kitchen, he gets rather concerned :P
We do 2 meals a day also. And I love Ms M - she cracks me up haha
I give my pup breakfast (half in her bowl, and the other half frozen in a kong with peanut butter as I walk out the door for work), and then she has dinner when I have mine.
(Same with my kitty; half in the a.m., half in the p.m.).
I think I've just always done it this way. I've never had dogs that were good grazers; and at times I've had 2 dogs, so I've never left food out so as to avoid any potential conflicts.
Thanks for another great post!
Two meals. We've got two of our four on meds, and we've tied meals to that schedule.
I do lots of little training sessions, and they get kibble as a treat for those (usually a kibble that isn't a regular food, but sometimes the kibble that somebody didn't want that morning)
The crazy drives me nuts. They got into the habit of looking for the meals at the same time, and when daylight savings changed their schedule it was downright painful.
Now we are in Arizona, which doesn't do daylight savings, and they still try to get the meals early every day. Gah!
We used to do 2 meals, but CBR would self-feed and most often waited for all of us to be home for dinner. So we switched to one meal... but there are various training snacks most days. And too much cheese to hide his allergy pills.
We have two meals, but one name for both. All you have to say is "Who Wants Foodz?" and let the dancing begin!
We have two meals, but one name for both. All you have to say is "Who Wants Foodz?" and let the dancing begin!
We used to feed Jasper breakfast & dinner but noticed when we'd feed him in the morning he would nibble on it & save some all the way until about 5 pm then not eat much of his dinner.
So now we just feed him at night and he eats everything in one shot excitedly & he seems to have more energy through out the day!
Oh yes we have both breakfast and dinner and god forbid we don't get Boomer and Dottie fed exactly at their preferred times. They stare at us, they paw us, they drop their bowls on our feet and follow us from room to room. Spoiled pups these two!
But can you imagine the hassle they would give you if they only had one meal a day, I'm sure they'd make a bigger production of it!
We do 2 meals a day but never at the same time so the dogs are never expectant. Kaya gets super psyched once I get her bowl out but not until then:) They always gobble their food down quickly and they have bones and things lying around to chew on.
We've used to do two meals a day and half of it was homemade. Presently we're working on so much training on our walks, we started measuring out their kibble and taking it with us on our walks twice a day. Whatever is left over goes in gatorade bottles in their crates. As former strays, they scarf their food way too quickly and we worried they could get bloat. Due to the odd shape, the gatorade bottles are basically DIY dog puzzles. The dogs have to knock the bottle around to toss the kibble out, so it slows the process down to at least a few minutes as opposed to the few seconds it took them to inhale their food in bowls. So I guess it's something like four meals a day if you include the feeding through walks!
My dog gets two meals a day and we do a "snack" for brunch or lunch normally consists of kibble but I take that opportunity for a daily brush up on training as he is very food motivated... This helps with the crazy eyes!
We have an Aussie who will paw at any empty bowl/glass/plate that is on the floor if she is hungry or not. The 2 Pitties don't really care as long as there is food when they want it. So we just keep their bowls filled through out the day. We notice that this keeps any weird food possessiveness down to null (although there wasn't a lot anyway) and they eat when they are hungry. Everypup is on a different eating schedule anyway. We are probably very much trained by our dogs but it works. :)
I never knew dogs could tell time. We feed our dog twice a day when he goes to daycare. When we're at home w/him, he'll get a lunch. As 5pm nears, he will start stalking us, with those crazy eyes you describe, in search of his dinner.
Our big guy needs to eat some in the morning or he throws up bile, but his bigger meal is dinner. Our small ones eat only at dinner time.
Petey, prince that he is, doesn't get out of bed until he hears his breakfast being made. He knows the phrase "do you want to eat?"
When he stays with my mom he is very badly behaved...head butting her to wake up and feed him...then running back to take her spot in the bed. He'll prance around, tap dance, and whine starting around 5 which is earlier than his dinner time
For us the vet recommends a minimum of 2 meals a day or better several mini meals. Without regular feedings too much acid can build up resulting in vomiting or acid reflux. It also helps to have several mini meals if there are meds that need taken separate or at different times.
My dogs always have dry food available but rush to eat something every time I say "ready to go out", like we were going on a 40 mile hike and they have to stock up. EVERY time.
I feed Bella a high end dry kibble in the morning with bone broth added for moisture and flavor when I get home from work and then feed her raw at night before leaving for work. I usually feed at 8:00 a.m. and again at 8:00 at night. I also give her potty treats when she goes out in the morning when I come home and at night before I leave for work.
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