When to switch a puppy to two meals

As a dog owner you would have known by now that dogs have very specific diets and require the best kinds of foods in high in nutritional value and supplements in other to grow healthily and free of disease and ill health. Your puppy dog just like their human owners needs to take regular meals a day for sustenance, to keep healthy, and provide the needed energy in calories for the day.

Knowing how much to feed your dog can be quite a conundrum as pushing on them so much food in more frequent servings can lead to obesity and other complicated health problems.

Talking about young dogs, it is important to get their nutritional intake in right amounts and in the right serving as they are in the growth spurt stage of their life cycle.

For different reasons, you have looked up reasons, confirmations of whether to switch your puppy dogs meals to twice a day. Perhaps the cost of your pooch’s food is eating in on your budget and you’d like to start your budget expenditure trims from your dog’s diet and you want to know if it is safe to do that.

Maybe, you feel you have been overfeeding your dog and want to make sure they get the right amount of food in order to stay healthy and grow without too many health hiccups as with regards their nutrition.

For whatever reason you find yourself reading this article you’ll have your answers right here.

CAN YOU SWITCH YOUR PUPPY’S MEAL TO TWICE A DAY?

Short answer, yes. With most puppies that are of the age of 6 months upwards, you can switch their meal serving frequency from three times to twice a day. But you should know that puppies that are younger would need to be fed about three to even four times daily as earlier stated that the puppy stage of your pooch is the growing phase and they’ll need maximum nutrients in order to grow and develop healthily.

SWITCHING YOUR PUPPY DOGS MEAL TO TWICE A DAY

Why should you change your puppy’s servings? When is the absolute perfect time to switch your puppy’s diet serving? How much should you feed your young pooch twice a day? All these questions will be tackled as you move down this article

Why you should feed your puppy twice a day

As earlier stated, your puppy can be fed twice a day only when they have gotten of age minimum of 6 months or older. When your puppy dogs are younger than this set age boundary they tend to have to at a lot as their growth and development requires they consume heavy amounts of calories, voraciously wolfing down food three to four times every day.

Puppy dogs are very active, almost always in a state of euphoria and are extremely excited. In order to carry out their daily activities, they require so much energy in Calories units which evidently comes from their consumption of massive amount of food  servings in high frequencies per day. This can take a toll on your budget if you had not been previously warned about how voracious they can be.

They expire the pent up energy growing, playing and engaging in athletic activities that they require more food more often and of course more energy to keep up.

Research as shown that on getting to a six months age advancement, their need for more energy reduces as they become older and more apathetic and hence consume lesser energy than when they were cute little four legged beauties.

In conclusion, if your puppy is six months or older, they are ready to adapt to a cut down in their food intake to twice a day. This is important because now, your puppy doesn’t nee as much energy to grow as it used to and performs lesser energy debilitating activities and so therefore, feeding them with more of the same amounts of foods might trigger healthy related issues like obesity. So yes at this stage it is expedient that you cut down your canine friend’s food intake.

When Is The Best Time To Feed Your Puppy?

It is advisable to split your dog’s meal into two and make them at least 10-11 hours apart. Pet nutritionist recommend that you dog be fed in the morning by at most 7am before taking them out on a walk and their second serving she come at dusk at about 5 or 6 pm in the evenings in order to give them time to digest their foods before tucking them in to sleep.

A very underrated advantage ro feeding your dog’s early before night falls is that the chances of your dog making a total gut mess in the middle of the night are reduced as they have enough time to go about their bathroom business way before going to bed.

How Soon After Feeding Can I Take My Puppy Walking?

It is not advisable to take your dogs on walks or let them engage I n physical activities just after eating as this can upset their gut system and cause abdominal bloat. Give your puppy an hour to rest to allow for smooth peristaltic movement in their gut and better overall digestion in short time before taking them out on walks.

Also do not feed them almost immediately after they have engaged in physical strenuous activity as would be evident in their panting and exhaustion. Allow them to be cool, calm and rested for a short while before feeding them any food in order to avoid their gut system being jacked up and causing problems for their gut health.

How Much Should Puppies Eat Twice A Day?

The amount of food that you give your puppy dog is a function of their size and dog species. Dog breeds vary and some are much more energy demanding than others and might require more food than others.

How much food your dog’s eat is also dependent on the kind of food fed to them. There are basically two types of dog food and they are classified as wet or dry dog food. The following guidelines down below are things you should take note of as regards to feeding your pooch.

Your puppy begins to appear chubby. 

Put your puppy to the weighing scale balance regularly and monitor their weight for any sudden or gradual increase in overall weight. If you notice that the normal average weight for your dog is increasing exponentially and you can also observe an increase in your dog’s size, then it is perhaps time to cut down the amount of food per serving you give to ypur dog.

Your puppy’s ribs are showing.

This is a sign that shows when your dog is being underfed. This should prompt you to increase their daily food amount higher progressively until they look better overall.

Read the feeding recommendations on the food package. 

Thee food pack manufacturer almost always put on the food package already tested and proven recommendations in grams per serving that will suit your pooches needs and be perfect for their growth and development.

Switching from puppy to adult food twice a day

Your puppy dog food is highly packed with nutrients and  is full of calories needed to meetb your puppy’s dog energy, growth and development demands. On maturity, say six months or older, these dogs have lesser energy demands and require lesser amount of foods.

It’s very much advisable not to switch up on your puppy diet too soon or too quickly into the adult food as that could cause an upset in their gut health. It is also advisable not to feed them puppy dog food for too long as it can lead to overweight, obesity and other health related issues.

Switching over from puppy food to the adult dog food should be done with utmost care and done gradually. Introduce the adult food gradually and progressively over time so they can adapt better to the new diet and only have to deal with less stress.

Make sure to always follow the feeding guidelines written on your dog’s food pack in order to ensure that your body gets the right amount of food in the appropriate quantities.

Conclusion

Your puppy dog has cemented its position as part of your home since you made the decision to get a loyal best friend. He has been a constant source of joy to you and on some days, a lot of work too. But you know for sure that you definitely love this one.

You want the best for your pooch and you want to start at getting the right kind of diet for him. Feeding with dogs is always a big task as their type of foods are very selective  and vary from breed to breed alongside the different energy demands that they pose.

If at any point you find yourself at a place of indecision on how to go about with the feeding of your dog, always ring up your vet to help you make a well informed decision.