How do you manage your doggies when you need to go out at night.

[pippa]

I need advice please. My three get their evening meal at around 9-9.30 every night.

It's rare that we need to go out at night and leave ours at home alone as there is usually someone here, but when we do have to be out late (maybe 10-10.30) and miss their exact feed time Pippin seems to start looking for his food bang on time( we guess), like he does when we're here and then when we return home to him, and sometimes the other two, barking like mad to be fed and not sure how long he's been at it, he really works himself up!

There is a family do coming up which means everyone out together until after midnight, I'm thinking of feeding them around 7.30 and hoping they won't (pippin really, as the other two would just sleep) look for more at 9.00....

Pippin is like an alarm at feeding time! he won't stop until he gets a response and he's gotten worse since he started on his epilespy meds last year...he can sniff a crumb of food from anywhere and is obsessive about it, we've often had to move fridges, cookers etc. as he sniffed a crumb or bit of dog biscuit that was underneath! you have to see it to believe it he's so determined!


Anyway just wondering if anyone else has a greedy little guy and has any ideas of how to deal with not being there when it's feed time. I don't have anyone to call in and feed them on this occasion.

Also wondering if anyone one else has a dog like Pippin who seems to live life on a timetable around food...a timetable he doesn't like changed at all and how it can be better managed.


I usually work around it somehow but can't on this occasion and it made me realise- as my kids have started moving out one by one- that we need to sort this or refuse to attend social occasions because of a tiny, loveable, little bundle of fluff with a huge personality:)


Oh and a long walk to tire him out and games of fetch before we go doesn't work!!

[Wagtails]

My Megan (aged 11) is also an alarm-clock on legs! I actually feed all my dogs around mid-day, but they also get a little bit of rice (for disguising pills) at 8 pm, and it is always Megan who comes to find me and tell me it's time.:d*g:

If ever I am going to be out at their usual feeding time, I always try to feed them a bit earlier, rather than make them wait, so I think you would be wise to do that for your special occasion coming up. Hopefully this will avoid any barking or crying as it gets to 9pm, if their tums are full.

Perhaps, if you are likely to have to be out more in the evenings in future, it would be a good idea to bring their eating time slowly forward a bit? Then you would be able to feed them and settle them down before leaving the house in the early evening.

Is it an option to leave them with a Kong or something similar? I know it's a bit of a problem with mine because one of them would just dominate the others and probably end up eating all 4, so I only leave them with easily chewed up small pieces of tripe stick (which they have usually demolished before I even get to the front door!):*nana:

I'm sure you will get lots of advice from other people on here before too long. Hope you enjoy your special event.

[Karlin]

Well, one approach for the future would be to stop always feeding at the same time. If you remove the structure of an exact feeding time, it resolves the problem. Also maybe switch to feeding in the morning instead, which would also solve the issue? Do you feed once a day or twice? I feed once in the morning after walks and they get a few small treats during the day and a little biscuit at bedtime. :)

I'd generally recommend feeding earlier as well -- for the same reasons people don't generally eat right before bedtime -- they end up sleeping on a full belly and get extra pressure to need to relieve themselves during the night. Or at latest I'd feed at 6-7pm to give a few hours of digestion before their last trip out at night.

[Karlin]

Good ideas from Marie-Anne too; posted while I was posting so didn;t see.

Kongs I'd only give in separate crates or spaces if no one is there to supervise --they can end up fighting over them -- but they are great for making meals a bit of brain-work time, too.

[jacies]

Mine get their main meal at about 5pm, I also think 9-9.30 is rather late. They get a bit of cream cheese at about 10pm when Chaos has a tablet and a biscuit about 11 after they have been out for a last wee. I think I would try to start feeding earlier, maybe half an hour every evening. Don't know if your clocks are going forward in a couple of weeks time or not but if so your dogs would not be expecting to be fed until 10-10.30 by their internal clocks. I am sure they would not mind getting fed earlier than before.

[*Pauline*]

I feed at 4-5pm and if I have to go out around that time, even if it's not for the evening, I can feed as early as 3:30pm as I want Dylan to have time to relieve himself. I allow 30 mins for this, it doesn't usually take that long but just in case.

[waldor]

We rarely feed our dog at the same exact time every day. Sometimes Sophie gets fed at 5 p.m. when we're going out for the evening, and sometimes it's as late as 8 p.m. if we have eaten our dinner late, at home. She knows she'll get fed *after* we eat, and never complains when we feed her at 5 p.m.. :) Same with breakfast.... she gets fed after we eat ours.

[pippa]

Thanks so much for all the advice, as advised I am going to start moving their meal time to suit us and vary the times but not leave it too late...i'll try work it between 5.30 and 7.30.


The only reason I used to feed late was that Pippin used to wake us at 5 am in the summer! but we have taught him to wait until we are ready to give him breakfast and he now gets it between 7.30 and 10 am depending on when whether we are in work or not.

I feed them twice daily smaller in the morning and a biscuit in between sometime during the day. I find two small meals better than one main one for them.

I'll let you know how it goes, fed them at 7 this evening as my husband fed them at 7.15 this morning.

Thanks again, this is a great forum:)

[jld]

I feed mine around 5:00 - 5:30 every evening and that seems to work well for them and for us if we have plans.....

[Tania]

We feed ours between 7am and 9am, a small treat lunchtime like a baby sweetcorn/carrot/neem stick then
teatime is about 4-5pm.