Hi, this is my first post, so I hope its not a silly question!

I have a 12 week old sheltie dog, and would like to know how much food I should be feeding him, and what kind of weight gain I should be expecting each week.

At present I feed him 3 times a day on pedigree pouches and dry food- about 100g per meal (roughly 50 g of each). last week when I weighed him he was about 3.7 kg. He gets about 1 hour's exercise each day.

Having only had rough collies before, i want to be sure he's getting everything he needs to grow.

Not my breed, but at twelve weeks I would be feeding 4 times a day and letting the pup have as much as it will eat in say 20 mins. What did the pups breeder suggest, you can always phone them and ask their advice and what weight the pup should be.

Unfortunately I work, so I can only feed 3 meals a day. I don't like to give him a 4th meal before he goes to sleep.

The vet saw him on saturday, and indicated he was growing at a good rate, but couldn't really help with the size of portions. I keep an eye on how quickly he finishes all his food, but this isn't much of an indication, as some days he'll finish everything and others he'll just leave it in his bowl- I think he's holding out for a treat :)

At this age many pups will be dropping to 3 meals a day.  You say you work and can't fit in 4 meals, but pup will need at least that many toilet breaks while you are out, so I do hope you have arrnged adequate daycare for him. 

Otherwise it will take you forever to housetrain him, and also you will have a very unhappy puppy as he will be lonely.  He will need less sleep and more play over the coming months, and without adequate supervisiobn is likley to find his own amusement and become destructive and/or noisy.

Thanks Brainless.

Pup is now semi housetrained and has his areas to go in the house if he needs to. So this is not a big concern at present- he is learning to go outside where possible, and often when I go home at lunchtime he's waiting at the door.

I'm very aware that he may start to get bored when I am out, so I've been leaving the radio on for him and making sure he has lots of toys to play with.  We also try to "work from home" when we can get away with  it, as just having company seems to help. Have you any other ideas to prevent boredom?

Have you a nice neighbour who would be willing to come in say twice a day for a half hour.  Just to let out for toilet and just be there.  Best to keep it low key, as that will not encourage over excitement, which might make the pup unable to settle well when they left, but would break up the day.

I do this for freinds with Dobes, and they leave the TV on for their dogs.

An adult Sheltie from Rescue, who has nice manners might also be an idea if working full time is going to be the pattern for the long term.

Dogs are pack animals and are not really suited to long periods alone. :D

Hi

I was feeding Buffy 4 times a day but when i saw the vet for her puppy check 2 weeks ago she told me to only feed her twice a day. I dropped her to 3 times a day last week and this week i have only fed her twice a day. Should she still be fed 4 times a day? She is still only 9 weeks old.
She gets 100g eukanuba puppy and junior for medium dogs with each feed.

Debbie