Noisy food time

Hi all,
We have two cats, a five year old dog and a 5 month old puppy.
In order to not have chaos at food time, the older dog (Loki) get put behind a stair gate in the hall, the puppy (Merlin) goes in his crate and the cats eat in the kitchen.
This works well but the dogs (led by Loki) whine and cry. I wait until they are quiet until I let them have the food but it happens every morning and it's really really stressful!
Any ideas on getting them to be quiet would be gratefully received as they are driving me nuts!
Thanks

In which order do you feed them? Changing where and how you feed them usually helps.

If you could perhaps feed the cats in another closed room and the pups in the kitchen so everyone can dine at the same time? We aren't picky about our counters and the dogs adore cat food. We feed the cats up on the wall divider in the kitchen. Much too high for the dogs, just right for a hungry cat.

To try and answer all questions
Loki whines the moment he hears food being prepared and I tend to get his sorted first and put it down for him but make him wait until he is quiet. Then Merlin (the pup) gets his, unless Loki is being a real pain and Merlin is being quiet, in which case Merlin gets his. Then the cats.
Loki has been like this forever - it's not the pup that has made him like it.
I put Loki in the conservatory tonight which was a little better, if only because I forgot to shut the back door so he went into the garden - he banged on the door to the kitchen once or twice but then he was quiet.

I don't think I'd want to feed the two dogs together in a room as Loki would snap at Merlin if he tried to eat Loki's food, and I don't like cats on the tops.
It would still be a case of getting the ratbags to wait quietly while I was opening packets and spooning out food etc!
I don't give them the food til they are quiet but they don't seem to learn, one meal time to the next.
I'll try (almost) anything to get past this though!

The way I'd tackle it would be to go to the food preparation area, if noise starts, go sit back down again and repeat, repeat, repeat until I could go to that area without the uproar. Next step would be getting out the food, noise starts, go sit back down.

I'm sure you get the picture. It would mean a few days of delayed meals and frustration, but, in the end, they would all get the message that only good behaviour brings the food

Sounds like a plan! I'll try it. I think I'll need to move things around a bit in the mornings (they normally get fed before I get my son's breakfast and stuff, but this could take some time so I better get his school stuff ready first!)
I'll let you know how it goes!

The thing with having many pets is you have to prepare their food in advance. Right now I have 4 puppies and 2 adult dogs at home. My problem before is that the puppies like to nibble with the adult's food. There's a lot of growling all around. So now, what I do is I prepare their food together and I do not place them on the floor until they behave. I also make it a point that I separate the adults from the puppies to prevent aggression.

How many times a day do you feed? If it is more than once then when you prepare the first lot have a spare bowl to put the next lot in so that when it is time for them to have the second meal it is already in a bowl to put down. You can keep it in a cupboard so that they can't get to it.

That's a good idea Brenda1. Unfortunately we're going to start feeding raw soon and won't have room in the fridge for two bowls but while I'm waiting for freezer to be installed and food delivered I might try that.

This morning I decided it would take to long to do the 'sitting down each time they whined' thing and decided to do that this evening when there wasn't time pressure. When I put the pup in his crate, Loki went and sat in his bed (in the living room next to pups crate) so I thought I'd give him a go there and told him to stay, and he was actually really quiet!