Should a dog eat one or two meals a day? Opinions please

[westiemum]

 Haven't heard that in years!  I'm a twice a day feeder here - small in the morning and main at night.  Same as others, I just think its a long time for little ones to go without something in their tummies - so easy to give them something small before I charge out the door to work and to feed them again when I come home and before I settle in for the evening.  Good to know that it helps blood sugar levels - makes sense. 

[silentchild]

Twice a day here also, RMB in the morning and premade raw in the evening, but the evening meal varies a lot for example if I am training that day the evening meal consists of training food, or portions are lessened if I've trained during the day, etc etc. I've found that mine will throw up bile chucks if I only feed once, so twice a day works better for us.

Edited April 16, 2017 by silentchild

[sparkycat]

Definitely 2 meals a day here - there would be mass mutiny if I tried to change it  

[ness]

Mine get fed twice a day and one at the moment is actually being fed more like 3-4 times a day to try and get weight back on.

[Scrappi&Monty]

Sorry for your loss

 

We feed kibble for breakie and raw for dinner.  

Breakfast is around 7:45am

and Dinner is around 6:30-8:00pm. 

(I'm not sure how that affects their health though, or if it would be unhealthy to feed my dogs once a day, but I just feed twice because otherwise there's a doggy riot haha) 

Edited April 17, 2017 by Scrappi&Monty

[Little Gifts]

I'm just speculating here as I have no science knowledge of such things.

 

In the wild I'd expect that a wild dog would be foraging throughout the day and would need nutrients to match day time activities. They are not strictly nocturnal animals so do not save their hunting for only night time like some creatures. They would probably eat anytime they could get a meal and their activity level probably means those nutrients are used up pretty quickly and the chance of over eating is slim. So in captivity if they were fed only a night time meal and then go to sleep would that meal still be available to sustain them throughout their daytime activities? Does the canine system become attuned to the patterns of feeding and do some kind of slow release thing?

 

I feed twice a day. Same size each time (except for one dog which I've detailed below). It was how all our animals even as kids have always been fed. Even when I have cared for breeders dogs they have always been fed something twice a day even if the size of the meals were different. It's is not even something I've ever questioned! One of our current dogs does bile vomits if she gets over hungry during the night. She wants to be fed at 7am and 5pm every day and some nights will start asking for snacks from as early as 8.30pm. We give them because she knows her body better than us. But if she doesn't ask we don't offer. So we have to juggle quantities at meal times based on the amount of snacks given out the night before. I would never be doing this if she didn't seem to need her food spread out at night time.

 

If your dogs are doing fine on one meal a day then I don't see a need to change unless their health starts to indicate a different arrangement is needed.

[Kajtek]

My bullies love their food so I feed twice a day to double their enjoyment.

[DeltaCharlie]

I feed once a day but never at the same time. Usually at night (anywhere from 6pm-midnight), but sometimes it's in the morning or early afternoon. Any dog that needs weight put on gets a second meal (same size as main).

[Scrappi&Monty]

Yeah, I feel like people with big dogs often just give one meal a day, but people with smaller dogs tend to feed 2 meals. 

I know my uncle has an old mastiff bitch and a young boxer x mastiff bitch, they get fed 1 large meal a day. Pop used to feed his dogs 1 meal I think, he was a shearer with working dogs and pet dogs. 

We feed both our dogs 2, I don't know why but we just did. Scrappi was fed 3 or 4 as a puppy so we just weaned him off the extra meal when he was maybe 4 months old. 

[SeeEmArgh]

I feed the same amount of raw twice daily, morning and evening. When I re-homed my boy he was food aggressive and the increased amount of food and regular feeding has stopped that. He was a little under weight and was only being fed one meal a day. He is 5kg heavier, looking healthy and I can do as I wish with his food while he is eating.