How often do you feed your dogs?

I’m like you, I just make sure food is in the bowl and they eat whenever, but both mine are rescues (a bit neurotic about food) and not fat either.

Like you, I have one problem child who refuses to number two in the rain or weather, so we’ll have an occasional accident, always on the carpet, never on the tile. I’ve thought about getting puppy pee pads and trying to see if it would work on those rainy nasty days.

*I swear that dogs do things out of revenge or just being willful, I’ve had too many ‘brats’ to think otherwise.

But not feeding him after 6 wouldn’t hurt him, would it?

I always fed my dog a high quality dry food and always tried to keep his bowl supplied constantly.

But it won’t hurt him to not be fed after 6, will it? I mean, it doesn’t hurt me!

I’ve always understood that one leaves cat food out all the time, but that dogs should have a feeding time or they will overeat. I fed my dogs a small amount of food in the morning and didn’t refill the bowl. Then at around 5 I would serve them their “main meal.” They never ate at night or all through the day.

Many people feed puppies a couple of times during the day but mature dogs only once but that seemed too hard to me.

@Dutchess_III No it won’t hurt him, maybe his feelings, but I wouldn’t take his water though.

I just open a 40 lb bag of dog food and stand it in the corner. I have this fear that I will die of a heart attack and someone who does a wellness check on me will find my half eaten body on the kitchen floor with my dog laying next to it. I have had to pull up all the carpet in the living room and put down linoleum problem solved.

Like I said @janbb, I never restricted food intake for any of my pets, cats or dogs, and I’ve never had a dog over eat.
I’m attempting to control his crappin’ schedule. Food stimulate the bowels.

I would never restrict his access to water @KNOWITALL! He has a giant assed bowl of fresh water at all times.

I feed Wilson on walks mostly, and he gets a bit of breakfast and dinner either in kibble form or in a Kong.

No, a set dinnertime wouldn’t hurt Cato – but it wouldn’t do any good either. Not with your problem of housetraining.

It takes between 4–12 hours for a dog to fully digest a meal. If he eats at five, he might have to go outside as quickly as nine.

To solve your problem, try barriers. Dogs will very rarely eliminate where they eat and sleep. If Cato sleeps in your bedroom, simply block off the entrance. You might wake up to a happy surprise. It’s that simple for most people. If that doesn’t work, I have some other ideas you can try. Of course, this same result is achieved by putting your dog in a crate at night (a very big one - don't do the cruel thing many Americans do. He needs to be able to stand, turn, and lie on his side, paws outstretched).

Most dogs, by the way, use soft surfaces as their preferred bathrooms. Probably because many breeders keep their puppies on newspaper. And he’s certainly not trying to be “a brat”. Dogs love poop. In his mind, he’s probably giving you a gift.

He knows I’m not happy with him. He gets all guilty looking after he does it. And he was doing great up until 2 weeks ago.

Did he quit smoking then? :-)

^^ LOLL!

It depends entirely on the dog. I have had dogs that do best with free feeding, and dogs that need to adhere to a schedule of feedings.

I have never had it correlate to housebreaking.

However, I have never been able to turn a rescue dog that was on scheduled feedings into a free feeder.

My dogs most always made it through the night without pooping but until it’s sorted out, can you barrier him in the kitchen at night so that if he does poop it’s not on the carpet?

When dogs look “guilty”, they are actually scared. Being punished for breaking arbitrary rules they haven’t understood is very frightening. I was about to ask if Cato ever got in trouble for accidents – since that is strongly correlated with regression. In a dog’s mind, the connection between his bathroom habits and angry owners can translate to, “Oh no, I better not pee when they can see. Sometimes they praise me, but at other times they get so scary!”

The result: Flat ears, tail tucked…and holding it until nighttime, when the humans can’t see.

Our Buddy has 3 feeds, breakfast – lunch – dinner.

My girl gets breakfast at around 6:00 and dinner around 4:00 when I get home. I go outside with her right before bed time to do her business and she gets a small treat when we come back in.

He’d scream bloody murder if we wouldn’t let him in the room to sleep his heavy ass right on top of us, and wake us up in the morning by sticking his nose in our eyes and ears! I wonder if dumping some pepper on his usual pooping place might help.

That sounds good Chyna.

^^ That’s very similar to what I said I did. I always took them out right before bed to go.

Was Cato able to go out and in before it got cold to go and now can’t? That would be a good reason for the regression. Do you let him out as soon as you’re up, and several times during the day?

Twice a day.

Crate trained for potty training. They love their crate !

I hear that a lot. I hate the idea of crates. But If I were to use one, how does that work?

All of my dogs have been crate trained. I put the dog in the kennel when I’m away from home. This protects my home and the dog. The dog could eat something or tear up something that could harm her. A crate is not torture. It’s their safe space. I don’t even shut the door anymore. She goes in on her own and sleeps there or chews on a bone. She also has two other beds in the house.

How do you use it for potty training?

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/puppies-for-dummies-sarah-hodgson/1102483699?ean=9781118117552#/

Mine won’t poop or pee where they are sleeping. So I would just put them in the kennel and take the dog out immediately when I got home or got up. As a puppy, I would set my alarm and take them out every 2 or 3 hours. It didn’t take long for them to learn.

So….he spends all day and all night in the crate?

No. The night crate only lasted about 2 weeks. Just long enough to know she was potty trained at night. The day crating was off and on. I would put her in while I was at work. When I got home, she was let out. I would go to the store or whatever and leave her out by herself gradually for longer periods. When she got to the point she didn’t bother anything while I was out on short trips, I would start leaving her out of the kennel while at work. If she slipped up, I would start all over. Remember this isn’t a punishment. It’s to keep them safe.

OIC. OK. I kind of wish we’d been doing that from the beginning. At this point he’s just going to FREAK OUT if he can’t sleep with us….

When my son was high chair little I noticed that when I fed him, about half way through the food he’d start squirming and slide out of his high chair and run to the bathroom to poop.
Then I noticed that I always had to have a BM about 30 minutes to an hour after I eat. Of course, the BM was from the previous meal, maybe from the day before, not the one I had just eaten.
And that is when I realized that eating stimulates a bowl movement.
SO if he doesn’t eat after 4, goes out before bed, I’m right there when he’s eating his breakfast and should be ready to crapitate not long after.
And I can’t believe the shit I talk about on Fluther!

When we had our dog sniff we just kept her bowl full. She stayed a healthy weight her entire life.

Same here, normally. I’m just not sure what else to do. I just have never had this problem before. Not like this. I gotta get this under control. I wish I’d started out with crating.

Twice a day at 6AM and 6PM with a couple of dog biscuits in between. Water whenever they want it.

Well, no “accidents” today….fingers crossed. (And thank God my new filters came. He’s decided his favorite place to defecate is on top of the damn grate to the furnace filter that’s on the floor…..not my idea of good filter placement, but there it is.)

Day 2. So far so good.

Day 3…..maybe I’ll break out the steam cleaner.

Oh that was freaking hilarious. The grandkids are here.They’re really into training Cato.
Cooper is too, but he’s just 4. With some help from me he got him to sit and lay down. Then he said, “Good boy!” and gave him a treat.
Well, after that it just turned into a free for all, with Cooper telling Cato to “Lay down,” when he was already laying down, and he’d still get a treat.
Cato was real happy with this turn of events and his tail was wagging. “Wag yo tail, Cato!...Good boy!”
We were just cracking up!

Than Onna managed to pull a kitchen door shelf down and broke a jar of soy sauce. Broken glass and soy sauce everywhere. I went out and asked the guys if the shop vac could suck up soy sauce. Jenna said, “Yeah! We had a soy sauce explosion!” That left my engineers scratching their heads wondering what ingredient in soy sauce could explode! In the end I just wiped it all up by hand.

Then Cooper laid an egg.

Then I made a quiche.

Then Cooper brought a pile of lives into the kitchen. I handed him a bag and sternly told him to sack them up and take them outside.

Then I made a quiche.

Then I turned around to see Cooper dragging the shop vac behind him, pile of leaves on the table untouched.
“I need this,” he said. He LOVES the shop vac. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he brought the leaves in so he could have an excuse to use it.
So I turned it on. He vacuumed up one leaf at a time., by picking up each leaf and tucking it in the hose. Then he vacuumed up his sister

Then I made a quiche.

Then they ate popcorn like a dog.

As I was writing this I remembered I made a quiche and thought I’d better check on it! Rick says it’s good. I’ve had better.

Then they turned into cats that like brownie mix. Even Cooper, who normally doesn’t like chocolate. But he’s a cat now, not Cooper.

Also, they played in piles of leaves and just had a blast covering Cato up! Cato had a blast too. He’d wait, then just EXPLODE out of the leaves.

Typical Saturday for us. Figured you wouldn’t believe me without pictures!

I have video of Cato jumping in the pile of leaves then laying down while the kids piled leaves on him. That was cool. What.was not cool was his jumping on them and jumping at their faces. : (. We need to train the kids in their behaviours around dogs too.

Rick and I realized that part of Cato’s problem with jumping on kids, and licking them is our fault. He jumps on us in the morning and licks and licks to make us get up, and we laugh at him. That encouraged him. So we started changing that this morning. Cato jumped on me, I said, “No!” and pushed him off. He stood there on the bed looking at me. I pushed on him a little and said, “Lay down!” He fell right over! It was like….my very own cow tipping contest first thing in the morning!

Some advice, since this is a tricky issue: Careful there. Dogs lick human faces (and jump to do so) as a sign of respect and joyful love. It’s a little like pushing a young child away while he’s trying to happily hug his mum.

That’s fine, but it’s inappropriate. He was jumping at the kids, and jumping at their faces. His display of affection was not cool. He’s going to have to figure out another way that won’t hurt children.

Yes, I agree.

Thank you.

He’s good doggie. A smart doggie. A rambunctious, fun loving doggie. Last night he trotted through the living room where Rick was. Rick couldn’t help but notice that Cato’s head was averted away from him (Rick) instead of looking forward to where he was going. It was a little unnatural, so Rick got up to investigate…..the damn dog had snatched a roll of toilet paper and he knew he shouldn’t so he attempted to sneak it past Rick! Did I mention smart doggie?

Stupid dog ate the TV remote.

That’s going to be a bummer !

Someone will have to get up to change channels, volume, turn it off and on !

Don’t even have that option. It’s a flat screen “smart” TV.. it has Roku, Netflix, Prime and a zillion other channels. We have a zillion movies that we bought from Prime saved on it. There are no external controls.
I’ve been stuck watching God Sent Me A Friend Request. It follows 60 Minutes, which follows the NFL. CBS is the only “local” channel we have and we pay $6 a month to get it for football.

@Dutchess_III I’ll say this again: Kongs. You need frozen Kongs.

Break the chewing habit! My close friend had five years of information on a floppy disk chewed to oblivion took hm three month off and on to rebuild the info, first the dog ate the TV remote. (The dog was Rottweiler he imported from Germany for thousand in the 1990’s)

He’s going to eat something that is important to you or will cost you to remove from his gut.

I finally looked up a video of a Kong to see what the thing was. I agree, it could be a really useful tool in strictly specific circumstances. Again, I just hate using food as an incentive. Food should only have 1 use.
But I would use a Kong when we leave the house, and to keep him distracted when people come over.

Don’t have them at Walmart. Rick picked up some else that looked like a Kong. I assume a Kong is hard plastic and what Rick brought home is soft, chewy, plastic. It has one large and one small hole on either end. I filled it with dry dog food and poured water in to make the food mushy, and stuck it in the freezer.
On a side not, my niece (who is one of the most beautiful women in the world) posted a picture on Facebook, and tagged me, of what is left of THEIR Roku remote after their new puppy got a hold of it!

Kong is hard rubber and some are plastic.

Is Kong hard rubber or hard plastic? Cato chews rubber shit, hard or otherwise, all to hell in short order.

@Dutchess_III I’m glad you got one. It can really make a difference to a dog’s energy and stress levels. As to using food as incentive – consider that dogs are scavengers. Their job, their hobby, the thing they are supposed to spend 90% of their time awake on… is the simple matter of getting food.

By feeding them from a bowl twice a day, we’re taking all that away. With a Kong, you’re giving your dog a fun activity that lasts an hour instead of the ten seconds he needs to empty his bowl.

“Kong” is a brand name. ”A Kong” is the thing the brand became famous for.

While the brand “Kong” makes tons of different dog toys (stuffed toys, rubber balls, plastic puzzle toys…), a Kong is always rubber. For heavy chewers, the black kind is best. It is so hard that it won’t be destroyed. They are all pretty tough though. I have both red and black Kongs and most are about five years old. They’ve been frozen, they’ve gone through the dishwasher, and they have been chewed for probably 400 hours each. Only one (a red one) shows signs of wear. I think it’s because I washed it too hot once.

However, to protect your dogs teeth, it’s a good idea to encourage licking and discourage chewing. Wilson learned because I say ‘drop it’ when he takes the whole thing in his mouth. He doesn’t love that brief interruption, so he mostly licks these days. Another way to encourage licking is to use more liquid fillings.

Thank you. We’re getting there.

He is doing so well, I think.

He just watched the cat walk past him and didn’t move a muscle. He’s a sly one. He’ll let the cat go buy in peace and earns a treat. But then very next time, and could be seconds later, he pounces on her! When he does that he gets 10 minutes locked out side. But he hasn’t done that in a couple of days, so a combination of treats and time out is working.

Guess I’m kind of using this as a dog diary.

When I make the kong up, I just put his dried food in there, soak it for an hour in water, then stick it in the freezer. When it starts thawing it’s more of a licking thing.
But Rick was telling me that he was slamming it on the floor to dislodge bits and pieces of the food. I didn’t believe him…until I saw Cato, with my very own eyes, rear his head back and slam the kong on the ground, then eat up the 2 or 3 little bits that came out. He did this for an hour!

When I got up to go to the BR, planning on going back to bed, I got a kong out hoping it would keep him out of our hair for a while.
Nope. He just brought the kong up on the bed and kept slamming off of the bed and onto the hardwood floor. Jump up, SLAM!!, jump down (bounce, bounce,) jump up, SLAM…

Hm…kibble and water? Are you sure you are making his Kongs interesting enough? He should be too engrossed to notice much of anything around him.

Try canned food or kibble mixed with a jar of baby food. Carrots, potatoes, and chicken is a good type. You can add a bit of cheese, a small spoon of peanut butter, and egg or cream cheese as a special surprise inside.

Just when I though we were making headway. The UPS guy parked in front of our house. This is not unusual. In the past Cato would just go crazy. Yesterday, though, he just sat and watched. Didn’t bark, nothing. I was so proud of him.

An hour later, though, a sales man knocked on the door. I thought Cato was going to rip the fucking door apart trying to get to him. And I have no doubt he would have mauled the guy had he been able to. It scared the guy so badly he backed up 20 feet out into the pathway leading up to the door.
I wrestled Cato out the door into the back yard.

Oh, BTW, he managed to get his beautiful leather collar of of his neck and chewed it up.