Feeding, two dogs

[Dogadvic3]

Looking for advice on feeding two dogs with different eating habits.

Dog 1 is 1.5 and a proper gannet. She eats her food quickly and will hoover up anything edible. We had her from a puppy and she’s always been very food motivated.

Dog 2 is 3 and more of a grazer/slow eater. We only got her very recently as an adoptee.

They are fed in different areas but 9 times out of 10, dog 2 doesn’t eat her food straight away. I can’t leave it down because dog 1 would snaffle it, but I don’t want to leave dog 2 penned up until she eats. I wfh so I’ve been trying to take dog 1 away to give dog 2 enough time to eat but it’s not always possible.

Any suggestions on handling the situation would be very helpful, thank you.

Have you tried a slow feeding mat for the gannet?

She has a slow feeding bowl which she still clears in about a minute! Dog 2 has a normal bowl.

I use a slow feeding bowl for my gannet as he has a tendency to jump in the other dogs bowl when he finishes. it now takes him 3 mins to finish instead of 30seconds 🤣

We let gannet dog eat first then let snail dog eat at his own pace while we distract/keep gannet dog out of the kitchen. If snail dog doesn't show interest, we put the bowl out of gannets reach then try again a little later/when snail dog sits near the out of reach bowl.

That’s pretty much what we’ve been trying to do but it’s been quite hit and miss. Snail dog is also quite clingy at the moment so if we try and leave her alone to eat she cries or just follows us.

Could you feed both dogs at the slow dog's pace? So feed them both a little bit, not a full meal, then feed them both the rest at the same time.

Hmm. That’s not a bad idea but I think even if we gave both dogs a small amount at a time, gannet would still try and eat both lots.

I suspect we’re just going to have to carry on with what we’re doing but I just wondered if anyone had any magic bullets. It’s just not ideal because we have to supervise which isn’t always possible or keep putting down/taking up snail dog’s food which I don’t like doing as it feels mean to her.

Could you barrier them off from one another at mealtimes? For example, one in the kitchen, one in the utility room.

We have this. Our slow eater went for the fast eater when he tried to snaffle both meals and now he just eats his and looks sad until the other one has finished. We obviously didn't olan this but they sorted it out themselves. Otherwise I'd shut the fast eater away after his meal in another room.

I have similar. They are fed in different rooms, and I hang around the kitchen while slow poke nibbles away.

Gannet dog has been trained ( sort of) not to approach her bowl while she is eating , but if I am not there to police it, all bets are off. I could never leave the bowl down for her.

Trouble is, neither of them really care if the other one joins in, so won’t sort it out themselves, but they eat different foods for health reasons, and gannet dog would be a fat barrel if not controlled.

How long does the grazer take to eat? Are we talking 5 minutes or hours?

How often a day are you feeding?

I'd be tempted to offer the grazer more frequent smaller meals, and keep the gannet away for these times. Only leaving food down 5 mins or so

Both fed twice a day and they are fed separately away from each other.

Grazer can be literally hours.

I measure their food because gannet would be a fat chunker if I let her eat whatever she wanted. Grazer is overweight and on a controlled diet (she was overweight when we got her). She does growl at gannet if she approaches her food but gannet is sneaky and relentless - the other day, I gave both a chew but in separate rooms. Gannet manged to eat hers in record time then slipped in without me seeing and grabbed grazer’s chew which she’d half eaten then put down.

Grazer can be literally hours.

In that case, I would give each of them a set amount of time to eat, then remove their bowls. If grazer doesn't finish, then they'll have to wait until their next meal.

I know that sounds harsh, but it worked perfectly with our fussy beagle (yes, you read that right, a fussy beagle!).

All of ours are seperated and given about 30mins max to eat, less if they have all wandered off as I take that as your finished. Whatever’s left gets lifted up and removed.

It’s the easiest way to encourage one to eat and avoid conflict between groups.

I have the same situation. I feed the fast eater in the kitchen, we have door in the kitchen which leads to a lobby where there's the utility room, toilet cupboard and back door so the slow eater eats there. We just push the door closed but not latched so when slow eater is done he pushes the door open and fast eater can go in and lick the bowl
Fast eater can't open doors towards herself she can only push doors open so this works well for us

Unfortunately, we have limited options in terms of separating them due to the size and layout of the house. We’re in a semi with a kitchen/diner taking up the whole of the back.

Gannet’s food goes on one side of the counter and grazer’s on the other side. We have moveable boards to prevent them going into rooms and use one of these to create a divider but grazer (understandably) doesn’t like being shut in and cries if we shut her in.

I think maybe we’re going to have to take the harder line and remove her food if she doesn’t eat it within a reasonable time frame but it does bother me that she might be upset. Forex, tonight, I put her food down at 5pm and she still hasn’t eaten it all despite lying right in front of the bowl and nibbling a bit.

Okay from your update this sounds a little less slow eater and more resource guarding a touch, in that she isn’t too bothered about the food yet is worried about the other dog getting to it hence is lying beside the bowl. She could also just be worried about the younger dog ‘stealing’ the food so isn’t relaxed enough to just get on with eating it.

In this case I would seperate completely. One outside and one inside? Do you have enough basic obedience (don’t mean that rudely!) so that if you stand between the dogs you can stop dog a approaching dog b? Sometimes one dog knowing that the owner will intervene is enough.
Crate is another option, maybe the more foody one as it’s much easier to train a dog that a crate is a good thing with food!

Personally I’ve never noticed any of mine being upset when I remove uneaten food but I would be careful in this case not to cause any issues with food removal. I would swap/distract before lifting it just incase but leaving it down may just cause her more stress than removing it. If the dog has had opportunity to eat and hasn’t then I wouldn’t feel guilty about taking it.

Our Slowcoach gets about 5 minutes. Then the door to where Gannet eats is opened a crack. If Slowcoach has any intention of finishing her food, she snaffles it then. Otherwise it gets out away.

Slowcoach has worked out that she doesn't get hours in which to finish her food, though we have compromised in that she gets a diet she finds more palatable than the working dog kibble that Gannet stuffs down.

Oh, interesting, I hadn’t thought of it in terms of resource guarding. She doesn’t always lie near her bowl but when she does, there’s a definite warning off of the younger dog.

I just threw her food away as she’d literally been lying next to it for two hours without eating it but put a handful of kibble on the floor for her and she ate it all straight away.

I feed one in the kitchen/dining room and one in the living room

Slower one who would leave it to graze gets it taken up after ten minutes

My mum has two cats, one is a glouton, the other one is a slow eater.
They solved that by buying food bowls with a sort of sealed lid that opens up when activated by the cat's microchip, surely it must exists in bigger size for dogs.

Your updates sound more like guarding to me too, but it could also be that she doesn't like eating out of a bowl as you say she wolfed down the kibble you scattered.

Have you tried different methods of feeding her? As well as complete separation, I would try things like a snuffle mat or lick mat, or even just a plate instead of a bowl, or a different material of bowl.

Mine hates eating out of plastic bowls for example so he has a metal one!

I have a snuffle mat so will give that a go tonight when I feed her. It didn’t occur to me that she might just not like the bowl. This morning, she actually ate her food within 30 mins of me putting it down. I tried leaving gannet outside and grazer inside then left grazer alone in the kitchen but she started crying. When I went and stood in the kitchen with her, she started eating.

I second taking grazer’s food away if she hasn’t eaten it within a set time, especially if she’s overweight. You can sit with her while she eats, and feed gannet afterwards. Or maybe feed gannet from the snuffle mat to slow her down while grazer is thinking about eating. Or feed gannet first, so she isn’t tormented by another dog eating when she’s hungry, and then feed grazer separately, but again a time limit on how long she’s given to eat. My elderly dog suddenly became very picky and a slow eater after having been a life-long gannet. We got to the stage that he would only eat frankfurters from my hand before I spoke to the vet. Her advice (after running health checks) was to remove his food after x time. He recovered his appetite within days 😂😂.