Dogs are intelligent. So would they think this.

[PoppaSan]

@Sam_Stone

…
We give our Border Collies a cup of food in the morning each, and we take away anything un-eaten after a few minutes. Tye same happens at supper. This teaches the dog to quickly eat what’s before them.
…

Why does your dog need to eat immediately on your schedule? Does it matter if your dog eats a cup of food now or 3 hours from now? My dog until lately always had food in his bowl. I feed him after I eat and when I get home from work. He may graze a bit during the day but he finishes it up right before the time I refill it. He eats his breakfast when I sit down to dinner and his “supper” right before we take our morning walk. He poops on that walk in the field next to the driveway during the summer and on any part of my windswept lawn without deep snow on during the winter.

[Sam_Stone]

@Sailboat

I don’t understand this part at all. I have never known a dog who didn’t eat everything in the bowl unless they were sick. As far as teaching them to eat quickly, we have gone to some effort to slow ours down as they seem on the verge of choking to death while inhaling their food.

I know lots of people who basically fill a large bowl with food then leave it out all day for the dog to graze on because ‘they don’t want their dog to go hungry’. But there are very good reasons not to do this:

1. It makes the dog harder to train. If your dog is never hungry, food will be less of a reward, and the dog will feel less dependent on you. Positive reinforcement becomes harder, and positive reinforcement is key to dog training. A dog that has constant food available is a dog that doesn’t need you. It certainly doesn’t need to listen to you. So then you wind up using negative reinforcement to get the dog to behave, which is a terrible way to train a dog.

2. Leaving food out invites pests like ants and such. It’s not hygienic.

3. A dog that eats whenever it wants is a dog that needs to pee and/or poop at random intervals - either leading to an uncomfortable dog, or lots of accidents, or an owner constantly having to take the dog outside.

4. Having a well-trained dog that will eat its food quickly is a huge boon if you have to travel with the dog. The same goes for teaching the dog to go to the bathroom on command.

5. If you have multiple pets, you are inviting aggression if you leave food out unsupervised.

We’ve been raising dogs (border collies) for 30 years. All our dogs have been friendly, obedient, and happy. Border Collies especially need structure and control. Let them just do their own thing all the time, and they’ll drive you insane. But by controlling their feeding, making them sit and do other commands to get food or any other rewards, and giving them concrete schedules, they soon learn their role and become much less anxious, destructive, aggressive, etc.

[Sam_Stone]

@PoppaSan

Why does your dog need to eat immediately on your schedule? Does it matter if your dog eats a cup of food now or 3 hours from now? My dog until lately always had food in his bowl. I feed him after I eat and when I get home from work. He may graze a bit during the day but he finishes it up right before the time I refill it. He eats his breakfast when I sit down to dinner and his “supper” right before we take our morning walk. He poops on that walk in the field next to the driveway during the summer and on any part of my windswept lawn without deep snow on during the winter.

To each their own. If it’s working for you, great. But next time ask your vet if leaving food out all day is a good idea. Or ask any dog trainer.

If you aren’t having any problems with your dog, and the dog is not unhappy or overweight or disobedient, then you’ve fallen into a pattern that apparently works for you. But if you are having any trouble with your dog, from destructive behavior to house training or just willful disobedience, your feeding habits may be part of the problem.

[Sam_Stone]

@Tired_and_Cranky

Well, you’re about 1/4 right. I don’t know anyone who free-feeds their dogs. Both of the dogs that I mentioned are fed high-quality food in measured amounts. One of the two dogs is the perfect weight and is very active and healthy at 7 years old. He poops frequently, in small amounts, because he likes to get the treats. The other dog is truthfully overweight even though she is fed only what her vet recommends. I think she doesn’t get enough exercise. I am surprised her vet hasn’t recommended cutting her food down a bit.

It’s true that dogs develop their own pooping habits, and each dog poops in differing amounts. But 8 times per day sounds excessive.

Dog metabolisms are funny. We have two border collies. They are roughly the same size in terms of height, and they get fed exactly the same amount and do most everything together. Yet one of them is at least 10 lbs heavier than the other, and poops in much smaller quantities. It’s like one is really good at digesting food, and the other one isn’t, so it goes right through and the dog remains skinny (the heavier one is a perfect weight, and the other is a little underweight, and nothing we can do changes that).

But our vet always asks us how much we are feeding our dog, and how often she poops. If it goes over three times per day, the vet invariably tells us to cut her food back, because ‘about twice a day is normal’.