Hi

My puppy is 19 weeks (4mths, 3 wks) and should officially be eating 150g of her dry food over 3 meals, until she reaches 6 months when it changes to 210g over 2 meals.

She has always been really food orientated which is great, but over the past few weeks has started eating later and later in the day until now she doesn't eat her first meal until around 5/6pm.  She just shows no interest in food at all until this time, when she will suddenly decide "right, its time to eat!" and scoff the lot, then about an hour or so later, she's out at her food bowl hinting that she's ready for her next bowful!

Tonight, she wouldn't eat her food until 6pm, which she ate every last bit of, then I put some more down at around 9.30 which she devoured again - I'm still trying to space it if I can but obviously I'm worried about her not eating enough.

The question is,
a) should I feed her a third bowl at later on at night (she goes to bed with us about midnight), and let her have all 3 meals in the evening if thats how she wants it.

b) Just give her two meals a day, around 6pm and 9.30pm but give her the daily amount (150g) split in two (75g) instead of continuing with approx 53g a meal. (ie I am still putting 53g in but this is the amount for splitting over 3 meals and she's only eating 2)

or c) move ahead to the 20 weeks feeding instructions and put her on 210g a day over 2 meals, 5 weeks earlier than she should be having it like this?

I hope this isn't too confusing, I'd appreciate your views!

You should decide at what time to give her her breakfast, lunch and dinner. If she doesn't eat it when it is offered then you should pick it up and not offer it until the next mealtime.  I personally would not leave food down for a dog.  She is eating when SHE wants to because she can.
Sally

I've done that, but no bother (to her), she just doesn't eat during the day, and doesn't miss the fact that the food isn't there....I could pick it up and put it down all day, she's not interested, until the evening when she decides she's hungry and consequently she's only getting 1-2 meals a day instead of 3....

In that case I would drop it to 2 meals.  If you only give her half of her daily ration in the evening then I'm sure that after a day or two she would eat the other half if it was offered in the morning either first thing or mid morning maybe.  If not use the other half throughout the day as rewards for training maybe.

Sally

Good advice, thanks Sally, much appreciated :-)

Update!  I decided to open a can of tuna yesterday - I was reluctant to add anything to her meals as she has the potential to be a fussy eater (long story I won't bore you with!), so I wanted to try and get her used to eating the food that I give her and be happy with it.  However, I wanted to try the raw egg thing mentioned elsewhere, and found I had no eggs, so decided to add a little tuna to her breakfast meal - face went in the bowl as soon as it hit the floor and she didn't stop scoffing until the bowl was clean, just like she used to do when we first got her.  So at lunch, I added a little more tuna -same result, and at dinnertime too.  I haven't added too much, I still have half the can in the fridge but just enough to get her interested. 

Like I say I was reluctant to get her in the habit of adding stuff to her food but you know how it is, you just want to see your dog eating well, so I relented!!!  I have decided that I shall just try adding a little something to each meal - be it tuna, egg, a little bit of carrot or other veg, things like that and i'm also going to remember a tip I read yesterday about using the water from boiling veg to moisten the dry food rather than plain water (but we don't eat veg very often in this house!).  I already know that she'll eat her food if I put a tiny sprinkle of garlic powder on! 

Its not really what I wanted to do, as I didn't want her used to seeing 'added extras' in every meal.  There's possibly the reason she just doesn't like what I'm feeding her, but as she has had her food changed several times for different reasons, I don't really want to change it again just yet.  So maybe eventually if I just add something to the morning meal (the one she has been most reluctant to eat), then hopefully she will eat the lunch and evening meal as they come - and I'll be gradually able to phase out the 'added extras' in time, or just continue with them at breakfast as a treat.

What do you think?

Why not make her home made food then or feed raw?  Dogs DO have likes and dislikes just like us and I expect that even the hungriest of us could refuse to eat if we had the same thing twice a day for 10 years :D

You can feed the tuna alone, pilchards, sardines, mackeral either in oil or brine (rinse first) or tomato juice; this is a valuable source of Omega 3s.  Maybe your dog does not need 3 meals a day and so cutting down her ration and spacing them out more will make her more focused on her food in any case!

Adding things to food to make it more attractive has always seem somewhat strange to me, why not just feed more attractive food in the first place? :D

Dogs are very good at manipulating their owners to provide fresh and novel ideas at meal times; they, like children, know that this is an area of contention, worry and tension and so play on it.  At the risk of boring everyone else again, no dog will starve itself to death; these are after all animals that love to eat excrement, putrid flesh and go through your garbage can!

ps I notice in your original post you talk about "officially" eating a certain quantity etc.  Dogs like us are all different and some will need more or less to eat depending on their activity level, sex, time of year and temperament.  IME commercial dog foods always recommend more than dogs may eat as it of course increases their turnover and sales!

Tohme - you've opened a whole new can of worms now!  My sister feeds her dog 'real' food and suggested to me I do the same, but I was a nervous new puppy owner and just wanted to do everything 'right'.  When we visited her, the breeder said she was on Eukanuba - ok we thought, we'll get that.  On the day we picked her up, the breeder said she was actually changing the puppy she was keeping onto Bakers Complete from that day.  Ok, we thought 'we'll do that, the breeder knows best!'.  So we took her away with some of her Eukanuba and gradually changed her over to Bakers.  The dog went wild!!!  I think I've read here about the amount of sugar in it, but whatever it is, it certainly turned her into a crazed maniac, to the point where we would be cowering on the settee during her crazy, aggressive biting attacks - and this was a 9 week old Scottie pup!

At that time we had a free sample of Pedigree Puppy arrive, a 2.5kg bag and some Puppy pouches so we gradually changed over and she turned into a much calmer, happier dog and was fine.  My sister again brought up the subject of feeding 'real food' like her Westie, Max, and whilst I liked the idea in theory, I was being baffled by all the feeding charts and, like you mentioned the 'official' feed amounts, bearing in mind we had worked from 3 different charts - so I said that whilst this would be my plan for when she was older, whilst she was a puppy you have to be careful to get the right amounts of this, right amounts of that and that whilst she knew how much her 8 year old dog would eat in his single daily meal, I had no idea how much to give and would be at risk of either under or over-feeding so thought it would be best to stick with the feeding guides on 'proper' foods to make sure I got it right.

I also had the problem of a crafty partner!  He has a real problem with dry food (because it doesn't look much in quantity or appearance) and wanted to feed her canned food at least which 'looked' nourishing, and many aruguments ensued.  I eventually relented in that the Pedigree Pouches can be mixed with the dry food so would do a bit of half and half occasionnally.  Then Millie began eating the wet food only and leaving the dry food in her bowl - again I was worried about her not eating enough so I relented and let her have the pouches most of the time, occasionally giving her dry food too (now this is why I mentioned above about her having the potential of being a fussy eater!).  Then after a few weeks she started leaving the wet food and when I put down the last bowl of dry food left one day for a change, she scoffed the lot.

Right, thought me!  That's it!  You're messing me about big time.  I put the 16 puppy pouches left away in the cupboard, bought another bag of dry food and said "this is it, like it or lump it".  She seems happy enough with it, but like in my first post is eating later and later in the day (although this started a while ago, not just with the introduction of plain dry food).

Now in the middle of this, having had her for nearly 3 months now, I have obviously spent a lot more time researching dog food and visiting sites like this and have read all about foods like Burns and JWB.  As I want to give her the best thing for her, and everybody says these are best, I want to change her over to one of those foods, but I think because she is a puppy (and was advised of this over a discussion about Burns with the dog salon lady) its probably best not to change it now, for fear of upsetting her digestive system by changing her food so much while she is still young and that I should just stick with her food for now and then maybe change it over when she's a year old.  I did actually get a small free sample of JWB in January, which I tried a bit out on her and saved the rest for training treats and she absolutely loved it - in fact she had been scratching desperately at something under the settee for a week or so and when we finally moved it last week to see what she was after, it was the old empty JWB bag which had somehow found its way under there!!!

But now you're getting me thinking on the old home-made food idea, which admittedly I do like.  Max is so easy to travel with because of his feeding style, they would bring him round to me for dog-sitting knowing I would have cans of tuna in my cupboard - or they'd visit for Sunday dinner and he would be eating chicken like the rest of us - it didn't matter that we didn't have dog food because he didn't eat it anyway. (they are also a bit naughty with him in that if they go to Macdonalds he gets his own hamburger!).  I have just been reluctant to consider it because Millie is a puppy and I would have no clue how much to give her in each meal, and how to know she was getting everything she needs (vitamin, protein wise etc etc) as its so much easier when the packet tells you - but good point, they're probably just saying that to get me to buy more!

So maybe I will spend the day researching home-made food.  I often read the advice given on these boards, even if its not a matter that applies to my dog, but its all good information to take on board and yourself and Sally have always caught my interest with your sensible advice and I value your opinions, so the fact that you have mentioned home-made/raw food tohme, which my sister recommended has made me take notice!  Previously I thought that all experienced doggy people used Burns, Naturediet etc only so I'm glad to see there ARE other options!  I think it would be beneficial to our lifestyle, in that Millie spends a lot of time with Max and its hard to feed Millie her specified food with Max around -she wants what he's got!  Plus as mentioned, I have a fiance who would be much happier about it too (it will stop him feeding her nice things from his plate in secret when I'm not looking too!)

Sorry this is so long, I do rabbit on when I get going!

If you are keen you should research it thoroughly by getting a couple of books first and reading them several times until you are happy you understand the concept.  The best and most accessible one IMHO is Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats by Kmythy Schulze; there are others.  Then perhaps join a website that specialises in raw feeding eg BritBarf.  Another book which is useful is Dr Pitcairns Book which has recipes in it.

Remember commercial food is designed to appeal to you the purchaser (hence why your OH thinks "wet" food is more nourishing and why Bakers has cute shapes with colours in it)  

(Not sure I agree with the Macdonalds though) :D

You must feed your dog what is best for it and what you are comfortable with whatever you decide, just don't train your dog into becoming fussy :D

Good tips, ty I will do that!

I know what you mean about the Bakers - as soon as I opened the packet and saw all those little coloured shapes....tut tut!

Just as an update - because I guess many people don't come back with updates, I wanted to say that I think I have mastered the food problem!

I changed Millie's dry food brand and started incorporating more home made food - ie chicken and mixer or dry food with some veggies thrown in for some meals and consequently she is back happily eating 3 meals a day, and really tucking into her food again.  I find it works to give her something interesting for breakfast because this was the meal she was most reluctant to eat, then she eats her other two meals quite happily, and she also seems quite happy to tuck into a bowl of plain dry food, and doesn't even have to have it moistened like she did with the pedigree, so I am happy, Millie is happy, and I'd like to thank Sally and Tohme for their help!

I guess she just didn't like the Pedigree, simple as that!  And who can blame her ;-)