Do I wait?

Ok Kizzy is 16 weeks old now and doing great,is a proper greedy pup,never had any problems with feeding

She is currently been fed Burns Mini Bites and is still on four meals a day and eating all of them,usually fed at 7am,12 midday,4.30pm and last feed at 9pm.

Both Meg and Tyler dropped a fed themselves,however Kizzy is at the moment showing no signs of doing so.

So do I wait a little longer before increasing her food and dropping her down to 3 meals a day ?

Hi Sal at 16 weeks Kizzy should be fine on three meals a day (I usually drop to three meals at 12 weeks, then to two meals at 6 months).

Regarding the quantity, if feeding a manufactured feed I would use the manufacturers recommendations as a guide, work out the total daily food requirement and divide this by the number of meals in this instance three.

Thanks Mini

You should be feeding a puppy chow now. Switching to an adult chow for the larger breeds at 4 months, slows growth and helps develop sturdier joints.

Your dog definitely should be narrower at the waist than the hips and chest. You should be able to easily feel the ribs, but not see them. Each dog is different. Standard recommendations are a good place to start, but each dog must have its food and exercise adjusted to its individual needs.

No need to still be feeding 4 meals a day. Highly experienced, professionals cut back to 3 at 6 weeks and 2 at 3 months at least for larger breeds.

Really ?? that's news to me.

Normally a puppy will start to wean itself off the 4 meals & to do so at 6 weeks would mean the puppy being fed three bigger meals a day which can & does cause digestive problems as the food is not spread out enough for the puppy to fully digest the previous meal before the next one is offered.

If you want to reduce the number of meals then do so, only remember to increase the size of the other three meals so that the puppy is getting enough food.

Thanks for the advice,
I keep my dogs on puppy food until I feel they are ready to be switched over to Adult,in Tyler's case he was around 10 months and he was switched to Burns Adult,Meg I switched earlier on recommended advice from those who own my breed.

Kizzy I shall see how she goes but have no reason at the moment to even think about changing her on to Adult food.

She changes week by week,obviously as she is growing,she is not overweight and is looking good,exercise she is getting two 20 minute walks a day,not going to over do it while she is still so young and her bones and joints are still soft and growing.

Joedee I agree and this is in line with what most experienced dog people would say.

The 'highly experienced' but anonymous professionals Labman insists on quoting also recommend leaving puppies shut up in crates for most of the time on wire mesh without bedding or water/using 'training' devices like a mouse trap which could cause serious injury to a dog/forcing a small puppy to submit by lifting it up by its middle leaving its legs unsupported and continuing to do this for 15 seconds at a time until it ceases to struggle.

Labman's advice breaches the guidelines of his own countries animal welfare organisation The Humane Society of the United States see below
quote..

I'd start weaning her off her last feed around now. As you say some dogs do it themselves, but some are just greedy pups! Loki would have eaten ten times a day! Rogue is still on four meals, but her last one is at 7pm, and she doesn't eat again till 6am. This isn't ideal, but she refuses to eat any later in the evening, so I feed at 6am, 9am (with the others), 2pm and 7pm (again with the others). She will drop to two meals at around 6 or 7 months and there she will stay.

For some reason Labman assumes everyone but him has fat dogs???? Not sure why that is.

Thanks

I sort of thought of altering feeds to 7am 2pm, then 7pm.

The only one I am having trouble with weight is Meg, and is only since been spayed so am in the process of swapping her food to a light food.

Ive had greedy Cavaliers, which would have eaten constantly out of the packet all day if they could lol. I would do what Minihaha says and that is drop to three feeds at 12 weeks and 2 feeds at 6 months. But work out the recommended food amount, and divide by three. My dogs always get two meals as an adult, as I feel its far too long to just have one meal a day.

You could always give a puppy bonio (or something small, and 'plain') at the time of the missed meal for a while, just so they dont think youve forgotten to feed them.

As to when to move to adult food, every food formulation seems to be different, some are just for pups, some are for large breeds, some have a junior version. It depends on the brand. From memory Burns nutrition helpline was good last time I needed to ring it

Oh...and UK Guide Dogs arent fed on the same guidelines as US ones believe me If anyone wants to know, PM me, I have the UK Guidelines in my kitchen