Garfielda

Oh my, oh my what am I going to do? A problem I'm totally confused on how to solve? Since choosing to be a pet parent to 2 pugs. I've been very careful with food amounts and quality...of course!  It is unlike me to have an overweight pet. I think if a cat or dog is a pound or two overweight it can be chalked up to that individual pet's frame/bone structure. But I'm thinking in the last 3 months since Landon stepped into our world Piper is more than 1 to 2 pounds overweight.

She LOVES eating the puppy food. Landon's food needs to be accessible to him. He's an all day snacker. He doesn't eat at set meal times. Piper is quickly becoming the female version of Garfield...she's Garfielda! 

No, she is not still hungry after eating her own food. That's not the issue! She was fed the proper amount B.L. (before Landon) and she's still getting the same amount. This is instead about self control when a bowl of puppy food is around all day. She can't resist. Just like some humans that can't resist eating ice cream if it happens to be in the house or all the Rolo's out of the candy dish.

I have no idea what the answer is to this "Garfielda" problem. Possibly I can hope she won't like his adult food as much as she likes his puppy food. But I doubt that will be the case. Truthfully, I think the only answer is to change his natural breed specific tendency and do set meals for him too. But I REALLY DO NOT want to do that. I very much like the free feeding for Landon. It simply makes more sense to me, plus I don't want to mess with his breed specific tendency. So I will continue to do my best to watch Piper.  

Here's another thing, kind of a side note. There are numerous puppy books and puppy trainers out there still teaching pet parents the method of feeding I used with the pugs. Which is to have set meal times and not have food freely available. To teach a puppy to have set meal times you allow a puppy to eat its food for 15 minutes then pick up the bowl even if the pup hasn't finished. The puppy must then wait until the next feeding time for more food. While that sounds logical to help teach a puppy to eat at appropriate meal times. I never realized until Landon what else that method teaches a puppy. Which is...food will soon be taken away so he/she better gulp it down now while it can. Essentially as a pet parent I now believe that method I used with the pugs likely helped Simon in his efforts to become a hungry, hungry hippo with his food. So yeah that method is dead to me.

I just had a thought...perhaps I could try switching Piper over to the free feeding method? It would go horribly the first few days but then she might learn, just like Landon she has a bowl of food all day long to snack on. Sounds risky but I might try it.