Zack is not strongly food-minded as some dogs are. He does like special foods, but he's never been a dog to sniff your hands looking for food even when you were just giving him a treat a minute before. He forgets.
I have always free-fed my dogs and my cat long before i had Zack. I never knew there was a name for it.
Zack is the first pet i've ever had who showed disinterest in his kibble, but t his may be because i've been more "into" him in a maternal kind of way. with my other dogs it was like we were pals. zack is like my child, and as with my daughter, i'm more thinking in terms of minute details of his life.
He wasn't interested in his kibble and i wanted him to love it so i could feel good that he enjoyed his food. I read about "not free feeding," and taking up the bowl if he didn't eat after 10 minutes or so, and that he would eventually figure out that in order to not go hungry, he would have to eat it when i put it down there.
This system did not work for me simply because i couldn't remember to take the food up. I guess i've been leaving it down so long for so many pets without any problems that i can't make it important enough to remember. I meant to pick it up and hours later, i'd see it sitting on the floor and I'd think, "Oops."
But I found that even though i left it down, Zack never grazed. He would leave it there for hours, and then he'd get hungry, and he'd eat it all at one time.
I knew how much he was eating because i knew how much i was putting in the bowl.
I knew if he was off his food because he wouldn't eat it at all, and he'd act not his usual chipper self. I would know if he had diarrhea because he mostly poops in the backyard and i clean it up frequently throughout the day.
I now i have two cavaliers, my daughter's belle has been living with us since late January. She was also a free fed dog who was not particularly interested in her kibble, and she was quite thin, she went way in at the waste and she didn't weigh too much.
When she moved in it got harder to know who was eating what and how much.
Those two are not at all uptight about eating together. I have always put down two bowls with the same amount in them, and the food would just sit there because neither one much cared about it. Then, later, I'd hear "crunch, crunch, crunch," and i'd look and they would both be eating, and they would take turns at one bowl until it was empty, and then together they would move on to the other bowl. One would take a bite of kibble and carry it over to the carpet to eat it off the floor, and then the other would do the same and they would alternate.
Lately though I've noticed that they each will stand at a separate bowl and eat beside each other until their food is gone. There continues to be variability in their patterns though. Sometimes they still take bites and put it on the floor and then eat it from there. They don't seem to notice each other's presence, at least not in a way where they are upset. They seem to enjoy being together. They were both lonely only children until belle moved in here, although they each have a cat sister.
Zack was at what i considered to be a maximum size for his frame, so i am feeding reduced fat EVO, even though Belle, as I said, was quite thin, and possibly a little too thin. Belle may be eating more than Zack because as Lisa said the other day, "Belle you are getting a bit chunky." She's still svelte and goes in at the waste but she's filled out a little in what i believe is a good way. Zack's size stays constant, or possibly he goes down a little, which he can afford to, but basically he stays the same.
If there was any sign of becoming overweight, i would reduce the portion sizes. I'm glad i haven't had this problem, of one needing to reduce and the other not.