Feeding your dog doesn’t have to be mysterious. When you recognize a few key attributes and concepts, you can create a good feeding loan for your dogs.
Dogs are creatures of habit. You can use this to your advantage by creating a regular feeding schedule and then sticking to it. Let’s look at how much and how often you should feed your dog.
How Much Should You Feed Adult Dogs
Most times, people are tricked by their dogs into more mealtimes with adorable puppy eyes. Most dogs require two meals consisting of bully sticks a day, but you can occasionally add healthy treats.
Ensure that you do not feed your dogs more than is recommended. Food labels can sometimes be confusing and misleading. Generic feeding charts can also use outdated information or over-calculate how much you should feed your dog.
You can determine how much to feed your dog by starting to know your dog’s estimated weight. Most large breed dogs usually weigh around 50 to 150 pounds, while small breeds might weigh under 20 pounds. Knowing the weight of your dog’s same-sex parent will also be a good guide.
How Much Should You Feed Puppies
Puppies grow rapidly. Therefore they need more food than adult dogs. Puppy nutrition is essential in developing a foundation for a dog’s future growth and its organ and bone development.
Puppies must be given a specific amount of calcium in their diet. Otherwise, they might develop orthopedic conditions or bone diseases like early-onset arthritis. In particular, Toy-breed puppies are usually prone to hypoglycemia.
Puppies should be fed frequently and in small amounts. A puppy’s first few months will need small meals of food throughout the day as they transition from their mother’s milk to solid food. From around four months, puppies would also begin eating three times a day, and after that, they can then graduate to eating twice a day feedings.
When you feed puppies three to four times a day, it can make them easier to digest and help keep their energy level consistent. However, you should not overfeed your puppies because overweight puppies might lead to overweight adult dogs.
Toy-breed puppies usually need about four to six meals every day for the first three months. After that, medium-breed puppies will need three meals per day, while large breed puppies usually need about three to four meals per day.
What Sort of Feeding Schedule Works?
Veterinarians usually do not recommend leaving food available to your dogs or free feeding. For multiple-dog or multi-species households, free-feeding might make it hard to account for different diets and to track each dog’s intake.
Additionally, free-feeding usually leads to obesity when they overeat. Sticking to a schedule can help your dog have good mealtime behavior, feel like part of the family, and avoid grazing. You should see a veterinarian and plan your dog’s feeding schedule.
That’s a Wrap
The veterinarian remains the best source of nutritional guidance for your dog. They can answer questions like what you should feed your dog, how frequently to feed them, and how much to feed them.
Feeding time is an important binding time. Therefore, you should create regular and routine feeding times as it builds fun into everyday activities.