HI,

I have a lab that I currently feed twice daily and would like to switch so
that I could leave food out all the time for her.

Does anyone have any experience with this. I am afraid that she will just
gouge herself until she is sick if I just start leaving food in her dish all
the time.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Doug

Doug spoke these words of wisdom in
:

HI,

I have a lab that I currently feed twice daily and would like to switch
so that I could leave food out all the time for her.

Does anyone have any experience with this. I am afraid that she will
just gouge herself until she is sick if I just start leaving food in her
dish all the time.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Doug




I have two neighbors with 3 dogs that continuously feed. One Lab, One golden,
one mixed breed, and they all look like engorged ticks. All simply because
they can't be stuffed to set a food dish down every once in awhile, now how
hard is that.. really?

"Doug" wrote in message
...
HI,

I have a lab that I currently feed twice daily and would like to switch so
that I could leave food out all the time for her.

Why?

Does anyone have any experience with this. I am afraid that she will just
gouge herself until she is sick if I just start leaving food in her dish
all
the time.

I have been able to leave out dry food for beagles to self-feed. Never had
a problem with it. However, they were started out free-feeding so I don't
can't say how well it would go for you to switch. Labs are notorious for
overeating and the related health problems are so great that I think you
should have a really good reason for trying it.

What happens with the food that you put down now? Does she immediately
clean her dish or does she sometimes prefer to walk away saving some for
later? If she inhales her food and looks around for more, then I would
guess that you will have a hard time free-feeding.

There are some real advantages to a feeding schedule. You can tell
immediately when your dog is not eating normally. You *know* how much your
dog is eating so you can increase or decrease the amounts when her activity
level changes, thereby regulating her weight before it's otherwise
noticeable.

And I found that free-feeding the beagles dry food was actually somewhat
wasteful. The food goes stale sitting in the bowl (although a lab might not
notice!) and I would periodically have to throw out a bowl of food to put in
fresh.

Judy

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:36:14 -0500, Doug
wrote:

I have a lab that I currently feed twice daily and would like to switch so
that I could leave food out all the time for her.

Does anyone have any experience with this. I am afraid that she will just
gouge herself until she is sick if I just start leaving food in her dish all
the time.

Some dogs can be free fed, but labs aren't a good prospect. They are
the garbage disposals and bottomless pits of the dog world. Labs are
convinced they are always starving. You might well have a very fat
lab and a huge food bill if you leave food out all the time.

Why do you want to free feed? Isn't feeding her twice a day working
out? If it's because she seems to wolf it down and you think she
might still be hungry, better to add a little to the bowl than to free
feed. Even then, remember that labs are always out to convince you
they need more food, so looking like she wants more doesn't mean she
needs more. Keep an eye on how she looks so you don't add food just
to find that she is getting a weight problem. Extra weight is hard on
dogs.

--
Paula
"Anyway, other people are weird, but sometimes they have candy,
so it's best to try to get along with them." Joe Bay