I have a 71/2mth cav girl who has never been a hungry pup and has certainly not eaten the volume of food a puppy should. She has been on two meals a day since she was 5mths with the first meal at lunch time. For the past 3 days she has refused her lunch time meal, and fed about 6.30p.m. with a couple of buiscuts at about 9.00p.m. She weighed 6kg at 29wkks.
Is she O.K. to go on 1 meal a day or is she too young?
P.S. She is in the 3rd week of her first season.
From a worried first time cavalier owner.

It could be she's feeling under the weather with her season.  Personally, I've always fed my adults twice a day (not a greedy breed either) as I feel it's beneficial to their digestive system (less likely to have acidic problems) and apart from anything else it breaks their day up a bit too ;)

Will she even take something light early on?  Perhaps a half sized meal?  So long as she's otherwise well in herself I'd wait and see if there's any change when her season is over entirely and if there isn't see if it affects her weight to be on one meal only (assuming you make that a slightly larger meal).

Regards, Teri 

My girl weighed 7.9 kg at about 6 1/2 months, but she was a BIG girl, did all her growing early. I wouldn't think your girl is much underweight at 6 kg, she's probably going for the small delicate look. If the rest of her family's small it might just be that. I changed to one meal a day at about 9 or 10 months old, a bit earlier than some recommend I know, but I found it useful to encourage them to eat up instead of playing around with their food. When i changed from 3 to 2 meals I cut out the lunchtime meal - is there something you can give her for breakfast instead of lunch, so the meals are more evenly spaced? The season could certainly also be something to do with it. Hope she feels better once it's all over! :-)

Poppy (11 month old Cavalier) went off her food during her first season, she didn't eat for 2 days at one stage.  Now she has a handful of Butcher's Choice dry complete mid morning, a foil tray of Butcher's Choice at about 1pm then another tray of BC at about 7pm.  It says she should have 3 - 6 trays a day, but she'd go pop if she ate that much

We did find during her season that she'd rather eat bland food like chicken and pasta instead of her normal food.

If she's lively and healthy in all other respects, Bronwyn, I'd feed your dog the way it suits her to eat. There's no magic moment when you have to stop feeding twice a day although there are sensible guidelines about the various ages and number of meals per day that pups need. I've got a 7 month old who has never been a "morning dog" (there's no point expecting him to eat before his first walk in the morning) and I stopped trying to get him to eat a third meal earlier than the books say. However, I do think that splitting the day's food across two meals aids digestion and I know that if mine was fed only once he'd bolt it down and bring it all back up again - something he has a tendency to do on two meals!!

I'd also ignore most of the quantities recommended on the tin since the manufacturers err on the over-generous size - to put it kindly!

Just read this post after posting myself......I'm having the same problem with my 6 month old cav:rolleyes: They are a worry aren't they!? Harvey makes me feel so guilty - I put his morning feed down and he seems all excited then he takes a sniff and looks at me in disgust as if to say 'is that it??' Where's my t-bone steak you mean woman....yet in the evening, he eats it so fast that it doesn't touch the sides I worry mainly beacause Harvey is quite slim and I personally think that he could do to put a bit of weight on.