NBR-Open Feeding Dogs

thumper11 · January 2013

We are contemplating open feeding the pups. Growing up I always measured the dogs food out, never thought about it. But now that I have "fed on demand" with LO it's got me thinking I may be doing the dog thing wrong. (Sorry if it offends anyone that I'm comparing dogs and babies!)

I feel like my golden has some food aggression and I'm hoping open feeding would take care of that. She gets pretty snippy with my lab but has never be snippy with me (I've tested taking away her bowl to see what she would do, and she doesn't care if I get close but FREAKS out if the lab gets close)

Do any of you open feed? If I tried to start now do you think they would make themselves sick trying to eat all of it? I'm in an apartment so I don't really have a place for them to go get sick without making a crazy mess for me.

What do you ladies think?

snickersforeveryone · January 2013

I've seen both ways, and always noticed a lot more aggression with open feeding. Each of our dogs has their own spot in the kitchen, and we feed them twice a day.

mrussello · January 2013

I started out measuring my dachshund's food when he was a pup. As he got older, I just put the amount for the day in a bowl and he rations it himself. He drops a toy in the bowl, grabs a mouthful of food, takes the toy and runs away.

Maybe try adding a little more throughout the day until they get the hint that its not going any where and they aren't choking it down.

KrazyKat35 · January 2013

We feed ours twice a day. It is to each their own. What works for some may not work for others.

APendola · January 2013

When I had Just one dog we did open feeding. He wasn't a good eater so we just out a bowl for him to have when he wanted.

Now that we have two, I could never use this method. I would end up with one fat dog and one skinny dog. If you have more than one it would be hard to know how much each is getting.

If my bad eater doesn't eat at meal time, we take it away and offer it later in the day otherwise it would be gone in seconds.

thumper11 · January 2013

Thanks guys! We also feed twice a day and they have their separate spots in the kitchen but I was hoping to entertain the idea. Maybe we will have to continue doing what we are doing.

caballablanca · January 2013

With open feeding, dogs will tend to get fat. Also if they were sick and not eating or eating less you wouldn't notice as fast.

cwm11985 · January 2013

Same as many pp's. We do twice a day in two different places. Our pitbull would never go after the lab's food; but, the lab would attack the pitbull's bowl in no time which in turn the pitbull would have some nasty things to say to the lab. So, open feeding really just wouldn't work here because we can't leave the pitbull's bowl out in the open.

bookworm982 · January 2013

I used to train seeing eye dogs. Please don't open feed your dogs. It puts them in control of feeding and can lead to more aggression. Open fed dogs (especially retriever breeds) tend to overeat and have health problems due to obesity.

I know where you are coming from on the feeding on demand idea, but remember that in the wild dogs would have to work hard to get their food and wouldn't eat everyday. Domesticating them and then offering overabundant, high calorie food changes everything.

Good luck with the aggression. have you tried feeding them in separate rooms? That might help.

reinedecajun · January 2013

We do a solid 1.5 cups each, twice a day. If we open fed they would eat all day and with 4 dogs, no effing way.

BransonsBecca · January 2013

We don't open feed with our 3 labs. Although they are a tight pack, we still see signs of food aggression. We actually feed them at the same time, just in different places. It is better when they can't see each other. Since ours are in the basement, we feed one in the laundry room, one outside of the laundry room, and our alpha dog gets to eat outside. But not seeing each other has really helped!

BubbaJug · January 2013

Free feeding created a lot of aggression at my house (and fatness)... I have one dog who eats very daintily, but when we were free feeding, he'd get nasty and not let his little brother eat any. This has caused the little brother to scarf his food as fast as he can whenever he sees it as I'm sure he's afraid it'll get taken from him again (he ALWAYS ate)... They do eat in the same room and we can take the bowls away from either of them with no problems.

OUKatie · January 2013

Before we were married, our shih tzu was open-fed because that is how DH's roomates fed their dogs. None of the dogs were food-aggressive (or terribly concerned with food) so it worked extremely well. We recently rescued another shih tzu (which is why I haven't been around!) and she is very ambivalent towards food. I think free-feeding would work well for Lola and Molly. Our cocker, however, is a food hog and will eat everything in sight as fast as he can. He doesn't seem to have a "stop eating when full" switch" so we do not open-feed and have to casually monitor meal times at our house. It's nice that I don't have to worry about Claire ever eating dog food, though...

ETA: None of the free-fed dogs were fat or aggressive about food. They were pretty chill about it, in fact. I think it just depends on your dogs.

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