Consider this scenario: you are a child and instead of giving you specific meals, your mom plops all of the food you can eat during the day down in front of you in the morning. You might not even see her do it. You just arrive in the kitchen in the morning and there, where your food should be, is enough food to feed yourself for the entire day.
What do you do? You probably eat way too much in the morning, make yourself sick, and then come back to graze throughout the day. You might still have a little food left by dinner time, by sometimes you don’t. You go to bed and you, because you didn’t eat dinner, you are ravenous. Again, the food is just waiting for you, and you binge on it. A vicious cycle ensues of extreme hunger, overeating, feeling sick, hunger again, and anxiety.
This is exactly what happens when you just dump a lot of food into your dog’s bowl in the morning and let them eat it throughout the day. Maybe you just constantly try to keep it full so they never have to worry about food. Why is this a problem? It is going to lead to some very serious problem behaviors. You have eliminated yourself as the food-giver in the household. Your dog doesn’t see where the food comes from, it is just always there, they always have access to it, and you are meaningless.
What’s wrong with leaving food out all day for your dog? First of all, it can lead to obesity in your dog. Many dog breeds will only eat when they are hungry but many other breeds, especially large breeds, will just continue to eat and eat as long as there is food. If you have more than one dog, it can lead to fighting between your dogs or with your more dominant dog or dogs bully another dog out of their food. Worst of all, it breaks down the structure and boundaries you have tried to construct in your house.
This leads to dogs have accidents in the house, barking, jumping, fighting, and even aggressive behavior if these problem behaviors are left unchecked. Food is a huge part of establishing rules and structure in your home. How you feed your dog will affect his happiness in your home.
Consider the above scenario again, but with one change: instead of food being left out for you all day, you are given one large meal, at a set time of the day. While this might sound better, especially when it comes to establishing structure in the home, are you, as a person, satisfied and happy when you are given only one meal a day? Probably not. Your dog might actually develop more serious anxiety issues if they are fed once a day, even if they know exactly when that food is coming.
What can you do to avoid problem behaviors associated with your feeding routine? The best thing to do is to actually establish a feeding routine that will satisfy your dog. Feed your dog twice a day, usually once in the morning and once in the evening is a good idea. Give them half of their daily food requirements and given them a limited amount of time to eat it. Especially when your dog is young, pick up their bowl and any leftover food and put it away after about fifteen minutes, to establish the ritual and clearly build the necessary boundaries around food.
