Dogs love to eat, and people love to feed them. Though some dogs are picky eaters, many of these can be helped with simple changes in routine. How and when you feed a dog is a part of good care. You can also use food to solve problems that seem completely unrelated to eating.

Picky Eaters

Sometimes a dog doesn't eat well because the dog doesn't feel well. Certainly with a puppy, a dog new to your home, or a dog who normally eats heartily, you'll want to have your veterinarian check for medical issues. Puppies need a lot of fuel, so be especially quick to seek care for a non-eating pup. Do the same for any dog with other symptoms in addition to lack of appetite.

If your dog is ill, follow your veterinarian's feeding instructions. The instructions for picky eaters here are for healthy dogs only.

Be careful not to give a dog too much food at one time, because the result may be diarrhea, vomiting, or other complications. This is especially important to know when starting out with a starved or malnourished dog. Overloading the dog's system just delays the time you can get meaningful nutrients into the dog, so take it easy. Start slowly and give the dog's systems time to adjust before you begin to feed the robust amounts you yearn to give this needy creature.

Ask your veterinarian for guidance on amounts and schedule. A dog in this condition needs to see a veterinarian when you first acquire the dog, anyway.

Besides the possible gastro-intestinal setbacks, feeding even a healthy dog too much at one meal makes it more likely the dog will turn up a nose at the next meal. This isn't a good habit to start.

It's best to feed at least two meals a day (more if your veterinarian recommends it for the particular dog), and to have the dog promptly eat the food as soon as you give it. With this as your goal, you're likely to soon have a dog who is easy to feed, comfortable, has normal stools on a regular schedule, and is responsive to food when you use treats for training. You'll also quickly note any loss of appetite, an important means of knowing when your dog needs medical help and getting treatment in time to save your dog's life or avoid a minor illness from turning into a major one.

Start by offering a good-quality dog food (cheap dog foods are not bargains, because they often cause health problems) at regularly scheduled times. Give the dog 10 to 20 minutes at most to eat, and then remove the food. Offer another meal at the next scheduled time. Give NO between meal snacks of any kind! Healthy dogs will start eating on schedule within a few days of starting this routine, if you stick to it.

Don't play around with the food, changing brands or adding goodies after the dog rejects it, in hopes of tempting the dog to eat. The dog needs to understand the routine, and the routine is that we eat twice (or whatever number) of times per day, we eat what is put before us, and we eat it promptly. If we don't, it goes away!

Multiple Dogs

In households with more than one dog, it's best not to let them get into each other's dishes during meals. Your dogs may have cheerfully shared a dish for years, but the slightest change can upset this delicate balance and lead to the bloodbath of the century.

Dogs who would never fight over anything else will often fight over food. Once that happens, they might begin fighting over other things, too. It's much safer to simply avoid the risk in the first place.

Watching your dogs closely may reveal they're actually less comfortable with sharing food than you think. One of them may be distinctly getting bullied and not getting a fair share of the food or being allowed to eat promptly. One of them may be overweight from eating too much. You can't adjust the amounts until you change the dogs to individual, private food dishes.

It's best for a dog to never feel the need to worry that anyone or any other animal is a threat to the food. You give your dog a greater sense of security when you prevent other animals from approaching the food dish during meals. If you have animals other than dogs, don't let those animals bother the dog at mealtime, either.

You'll want to do some conditioning to make it reasonably safe for humans to approach the dog's dish during meals. See the article Food Guarding for more information on this conditioning. Some dogs start guarding their food dishes because they're bothered by other animals during meals, and continue that food-guarding behavior with humans. This is another important reason to separate your multiple dogs at mealtimes.

With highly trained dogs, an adult skilled in handling those dogs standing there to supervise may make it possible to feed the dogs in the same room, dishes spread several feet apart. In most cases it's better to physically separate the dogs for meals with crates, baby gates, or closed doors. The adage better safe than sorry definitely applies to separating dogs from each other at mealtimes.

If you have an adult dog eating two meals a day and add a puppy or other dog eating more frequently, just give the adult dog something whenever you feed the new pup. As you gradually reduce meal frequency for the new dog, you can do the same with your first dog. Or you can keep the increased feeding frequency if it fits your schedule.

Free Feeding

Some dogs go their whole lives eating without a schedule, having food left out all the time. Several things can cause this to suddenly become a problem, though.

If you add another dog to the household, or another dog comes to visit, you'll need to separate the free feeder from the other dog whenever they eat. The free feeder will suddenly not have constant access to the dish.

Dogs can develop medical problems from going too long without food. The free-feeder dog is of course not aware of needing to eat every so many hours. As a result, these dogs become candidates for things like seizures from hypoglycemia.

Free-feeding dogs often become overweight or underweight after awhile, resulting in the need to adjust food amounts. You'll need to convert the dog to scheduled feeding then.

Some boarding situations will require that your dog be able to eat on schedule rather than free-feeding. This would be especially true if a friend or relative with a dog needed to keep your dog for you.

Free-feeding a puppy makes housetraining more difficult. When a dog eats on a regular schedule, bowel movements occur on a regular schedule. That helps you figure out when your dog will need a potty outing.

Changing from Free Feeding to Scheduled Meals

To teach a dog to eat at meals and not expect free-feeding, you have to take away the free food and feed only at mealtimes. You have to be completely consistent about it, so that the dog doesn't think it's "just for today." Follow the same instructions as for the picky eater.

Make sure the meal frequency is suited to the puppy or dog. For example, a toy-breed puppy being switched to a twice-a-day schedule would wind up waiting 24 hours between meals if she refused a meal. That could leave her open to seizures from hypoglycemia. In such a case, try feeding four times per day instead of two. As the pup matures, you can reduce the feedings gradually to two.

It's always okay to feed more than twice a day, provided the dog eats promptly and well each time. This doesn't mean adding extra food, but rather dividing the proper amount of food into smaller, more frequent portions. One advantage to this can be with the overweight dog whose food needs to be reduced. On four feedings instead of two, the dog gets less ravenous between meals. Many people actually feed several times a day without realizing it, when they routinely use food treats for training.

Begging at the Table

Just as treats are a good idea in some situations, they're a bad idea in others. Do you have a dog who begs when people are eating? That's a dog who has been given people food when people were eating!

This is not a dog-training problem-it's a people-training problem! Get everyone to stop giving the dog people food when people are eating, and sooner or later the dog will stop begging. Dogs are smart enough to stop doing things that don't work!

Here's a good time to mention that powerful little factor of variable reinforcement. If you hold out and hold out and hold out against giving the dog food while you're eating-and then give in and give the dog a treat!-you keep the dog's hopes alive. This is exactly what creates gambling addicts! Never has to mean never, if you're going to teach your dog not to beg food from people when they're eating.

Since some dogs will progress to the point of actually mugging people-especially young children-begging can turn serious. Besides that, people have really harmed their dogs by giving them food that's okay for people but not okay for dogs.

As a general rule, no more than perhaps 10% of your dog's food intake should be other than a balanced diet. Take a small dog and add an overly-indulgent human, and soon you can have a dog with health problems, even ultimately fatal ones, because the person wasn't thinking.

If something you're eating is suitable for the dog, a good way to share it is to wait until the humans are finished eating, and then give the dog the food in a different location. If the dog misbehaves while you're eating, no after-dinner treat. Smart dogs figure out this pattern and become even more motivated not to bother you while you're eating.

Dinner and a Movie

Since dogs love food so much, it's a powerful motivator to use in training. Pieces of the dog's regular food are easiest on the tummy for this purpose, but healthy dogs can have other types of treats. When in doubt, check with your veterinarian about any particular food.

Remember that food used as treats still counts in the dog's daily intake, and adjust meals to allow for it. You might even decide to feed some meals AS treats. When a dog is in need of physical or mental exercise, hiding the food for the dog to find can be just the ticket.

You can also use a food-dispensing toy such as a Kong or Buster Cube to make mealtime more dog-entertaining. Anytime you put your dog into a crate is a good time for a treat, whether just a little piece or a food-stuffed Kong.

Treats can help with all sorts of training and behavior modification, from teaching a dog to talk (yes, it's been done!) to helping a dog overcome separation anxiety. A good time for a treat reward is when a dog is doing something you like and want to see the dog do more often.

Make the Calories Count

A little thought about what you're doing whenever you give food to your dog will have powerful benefits in a happier, healthier dog. Feeding time is a wonderful opportunity to build better relationships with our dogs at the same time we take excellent care of them.