Do you feed your dog a set amount at prescribed times or do you let them eat freely through the day? Let me know why for your decision and how you use your dog.

Once in the morning.

We fill a big bucket of food and one for water and keep them full for them. They don't eat a lot of it, they hold out as long as they can for table scraps or something better.

I always try to let them have food all the time when they are puppies. It has worked good until the last dog I got. He would eat the whole bag if you let him and look at you like where is the rest. He gets a cup in the morning and a cup in the evening of high quality dogfood

Full feed here. Found they actually eat less that way. We have redbone, Mountain curr and 2 mixed breed not worth the price of a bullet to shoot.

Every dog I have gets a bowl of food in the morning. It’s not up to me when they choose to eat. She is a 135 pound Newfoundland and pretty much useless other than being a wonderful companion for our family.

measured amount daily.

Auto feeder

Our lab gets fed 2x a day and she is starving to death at feeding time. I am sure she would eat herself to death if she had free access to food all the time.

My dog used to get fed when we got off work, as she was a working dog and I didn't want to take the chance of feeding her of the morning, now that we are both retired she gets fed a set amount in the morning.

Feed them? I figured everyone just let them out to fend for them selfs. That keeps all the pest away from the house and saves $100 a month on dog food.



Edit:. You can pick up road kill to help them out without adding much expense. Better for them that dog food with grain in it also.

Lab gets one cup in the morning and two in the evening. I bump it up a little during the hunting season.

Moosetrot

morning and evening, my goldens don't let it sit long in bowls. LOL. They have the special slow feeder bowls. Gone in 1-2 minutes max

1 cup in morning, 1 cup in evening. If he starts getting overweight I will cut it down and when he is very active I will bump it up or add treats.

I don't want a fat or unhealthy dog, and I also think it establishes dominance and respect from the dog when they know who runs the food dish.

Free feeding. Like ADC says, they seem to wait to eat to see what leftover/ scraps come their way.

Ours get fed twice a day ( Morning and evening ) and a few treats in between. Dried premium food with a little canned food or cooked meat mixed in. This has worked well for me in the past and I see no reason to change

Murphy's food dish is always full, and he's in good shape. If he eats extra table scraps, he just cuts back on his kibble intake. I'm never really sure how much he eats. I try to estimate and bring the right amount when we go backpacking and such, but I always end upbringing too much.

All my dogs have been very active with high metabolism they all got free choice and none ever got fat

I feed different dogs different ways. I used to mostly free feed and never had more than mild issues for years, until we got Sherman, a neutered male, Kangal/Great Pyrenees. He would eat all the food that was available and eat out of the bags or other storage containers, if he could. He ballooned up to 237, which I weighed him at and then probably got into the mid 240s. We started putting out food for the house dogs just once a day, in a bowl per dog. Sherman would wolf down his food and then intimidate the other dogs, off of theirs until he got to our 23 pound feist, Dingle, who was Alpha, whose food Sherman would not touch, until she was out of the room for a few minutes. Now we keep the food locked up in sealed containers, feed just once a day and feed Sherman in a separate room.

Once Diane didn't put the locking ring on the dog food container and Sherman ate all the food in it, while we were gone, around 35 pounds. He was miserable. I had to take him out every 20 to 30 minutes, most of the night and he kept moaning.

Keith

Depends on the dog and/or dogs. Some dogs will competitively eat around other dogs until its gone. Some you can free feed and they will take what they need. Others will gorge themselves. Feed accordingly to their traits. Nobody want's a fat dog...but we've all seen malnourished dogs as well.