Please help!!! I have two male whippet puppies (one at 5 months, one at 11 months). They both seem to 'graze' on their food. We feed them once in the morning and once in the evening but leave the food down all the rest of the time because they don't bolt their food. Instead they pick at it during the course of the day! My partner thinks we should take their food away when they stop eating and not feed them again until their next meal (in doing so, teaching them to eat their meals in one go when we put them down). I agree that this would be 'nice' but am worried about our youngest one, since he was a little underweight when we got him (only a few days ago). But i do want to be consistent with a routine. What should i do? Let them graze or give them tough love and teach them to bolt their food?

P.s. how long do you think it will take for them to learn to eat up when it's food-time and do you think they could lose much weight in this time?

Hi

First of all i would suggest you do not leave food down, by doing this the dogs will never eat all their food straight away. Your whippets will never be hungry either. Regarding your 5 month old he should be given 3 meals a day, when 6 months old he should be given two meals a day. He should also be fed on a good quality puppy food until 12 months old. If s/he doesn't eat the food after 15 mins pick it up and do not feed anything else until the next feed is due (that includes titbits). He will soon learn that the only time he can get food is when it is put down for him. The same applies for your 11 month old. Whipppets generally aren't big or greedy eaters to start with, most of them are actually quite fussy.

They will not starve themselves, and they will only eat when they are hungry. My dogs quite often not eat anything at all one day, but eat the next.

Hope this helps.

I can understand your concerns with the one that is underweight, I had one like this, maybe you should try and change their food. Mine arn't keen on dried food. Naturediet mixed with a bit of tripe (you buy this frozen from pet shops) will usually switch on taste buds. Feed little and often and they will soon put on a bit of weight. Good Luck, hope this helps.

Your partner is right. Be firm, put food down, leave it ten minutes, pick it up again. Dont put it down again until the next meal time, and dont feed titbits inbetween.

If you free feed, you dont know how much they actually are eating each, (which can be a problem if one gets ill, or in your case where one is younger and needs more food), and you are creating a very fussy dog.

Pick your brand of food, stick to it, and dont give in, even whippets arent daft enough to starve themselves (and i know about fussy dogs, i have a saluki x here!!!)

Em