● "Puppy and adult dog feeding schedules?"

THAT is something you should have asked the breeder of each pooch when you first got it.

You didn't even think to tell us what breed or breeds each of your pets is.

See https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GSD_Friendly/c...

Thanks to Yahoo's more recent programmers adding columns each side of the original messages-area, at first you won't at first be able to see the right side of several lines.

But if you quietly scroll down until you see a >

in the edge of what's blocking your view. then click that > , the message-area will widen and the text be fully revealed.

The adult AMOUNTS are not intended for a wee 15 lb adult pooch, they are for 22-32 kg (49-71 lbs) adult bỉtches and 30-40 kg (66-88 lbs) adult dogs. But the ingredients & their ratios are suitable for any canine. It is over to you to observe and work out how much each of your pets actually NEEDS at each meal.

● "We typically leave food and water out for her to graze."

😡 VERY BAD!

Cows graze because the cellulose walls of grass are so difficult to digest that Monday's grass might not be digested until Friday or Saturday or Sunday!

Dogs evolved as carnivores - their digestion evolved to suit raw animal proteins - birds, eggs, fish, insects, mammals, reptiles.

Study https://www.avma.org/News/Journals/Collections/Doc... - it is an excellent bit of research showing the bad effect of "on demand grazing" versus "normal meals" on the development of pooches' bones.

Once you've read & understood that report, change your system to:

💥 3-to-4 meals per day for pups,

💥 2-to-3 meals per day for adult dogs.

And place their food dishes in different corners of the room so that you can stand between the pooches and NOT let the greediest one reach & annoy the slowest one before the slower dog's dish is empty or abandoned.

They can share the water dish.

● "I am adopting a 12 week old puppy this week."

🤯 Oh my GAWD! That is is WORST age to re-home a pup! Pups should be re-homed at 7-to-10 weeks old so that they are in the "confident & curious" life-stage and have time to adjust & bond to their new human and their human has time to provide all the familiarisation-&-confidence-building experiences needed before Pup is 13 weeks old and moves into the "need security" life-stage for a month or so. Otherwise the breeder should keep them until they are at least 4 months old.

● "How often should I feed the puppy and how often should I feed the adult dog?"

THAT is what your very first line asked for. So I linked you to the schedule I have used to raise a bit over 300 pups and a couple of dozen adult GSDs. Dogs crave ROUTINE, so it won't matter to them whether you feed them at 7am, 3pm and 11pm, or at 11am, 7pm and 3am, just as long as the feeding times are regular and the intervals between meals are regular.

● "Any advise on transitioning my adult dog?"

If you mean "weaning the adult dog off one feeding schedule & food to a different schedule & food", I have never needed to bother.

When my dogs ran out of one kind of meat I switched them straight to the next kind of meat.

If your pets are so terribly-bred that they NEED a gradual changeover, I hope you abandon that breed when the current ones die!

Get your future pets from breeders who choose mating partners very carefully - often driving or flying the brood to the other side of the nation.

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😛 To discuss GSDs, join some groups such as

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by sending an e-mail about yourself to the Subscribe address on that page.

The people in them KNOW about GSDs. Plus you can include actual photos in your posts.

To find other groups or breeds, type the breed-name into the top field of

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then choose a couple of groups to Join - use the group's

Message History

on its /info page to make sure that it still has members who are ACTIVE.

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to your browser, so that you can easily look up all sorts of information about dogs, especially GSDs. It is an "encyclopaedia" group (to which members can ask for new sources to be added), not a discussion group.

Kreaky Kiwi - first pup in 1950; GSD breeder & trainer as of 1968

Never free feed (graze), both need to be fed on a set schedule, just do it. Train them beginning from day one to sit quietly while you prepare the food and place it down, they're not proceed to eat until you give the command to proceed, a word of your choice.

In the beginning you should supervise so you can immediately correct them if they even begin to the eye the others food. They will do better and learn quicker on a set routine/schedule. Chose an area and use that area to consistently. Eventually they will automatically go to that area, sit, and wait for you to prepare, place food down and wait for your command to proceed be it word and/or hand signal or both, whatever you choose.

The puppy should be eating the same thing it was being fed from the place you adopted it from. Sudden/frequent diet changes cause intestinal upsets. There is no need to change a diet at all if they're doing well on what they're being fed, unless vet recommended due to medical issues. A small breed pup/mix, may go onto two feedings a day. am/pm, large breed/mix three times a day, am/midday/pm until age 6-9 months. A total set amount according to body condition/activity, split equally into those 2-3 meals.

Depending on the individual dogs, your training experience, both should be mostly trained by the time the pup is six to nine months old. All diet changes should be done gradually by mixing old with new over a period of ten days to two weeks.

Once trained you should be able to walk away and let them eat in peace.

NO dog should ever have food left out "to graze". The adult dog should be fed twice a day. Put down enough food for one meal and that's it.

A puppy that young needs to be fed more often. You should be feeding it (and the adult dog) a quality food that's grain free and made with real meat. At 12 weeks it should be fed three times a day. Between 6 to 12 months you can switch to twice a day. NEVER feed an adult dog once a day as it will be so hungry it'll gulp down its food and can end up with bloat.

Not sure about the temperament of your adult dog but at least for now feed them SEPARATELY. Some dogs can be food aggressive so if this small puppy walks up to the bowl while the adult dog is eating it could end up attacked. Adult dog food also doesn't have enough protein or fat for a growing puppy.

I would feed the adult dog twice a day, in the morning and evening. Feed about 1/2 the total daily amount each day. Leave the food down for about 15-20 minutes and then pick it up. Don't feed the dog again until the evening feeding, and even then, only give him half the amount. After a day or so, this will work. I would feed the puppy twice a day as well, at the same time you feed the adult dog, but keep them separated when feeding so they cannot eat the other's food.

You feed an adult dog food for adult dogs, and you feed a puppy puppy food and you feed them on a schedule as if you choose to free feed you have no control over which is eating what or how much which is eating of what.

Puppies need a higher element and protein food because they are developing and growing while older dogs that are no longer growing dont ....

That sounds like a good plan, especially if you aren't planning on crating the puppy when you leave the house.

Most adult dogs need to eat twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. You might supplement that with training treats, a dental chew bone, or a toy stuffed with food each day as well, but it isn't necessary.

Transitioning your dog to this new schedule will probably take a few weeks. Start by serving 5 or 6 small meals throughout the course of the day and into the evening. Call your dog over and start a routine like making them sit and stay before the food is put out. Leave it out for 30 minutes and then pick up whatever is left. Make sure that one of these meal times is right before bed to prevent your dog from waking you up in the middle of the night hungry. Also

keep in mind that changing your dog's meal schedule might also change when they need to go outside to pee and poop. Watch them closely and expect a few accidents if you don't let them out in time.

Gradually reduce the number of meals until you are only feeding them twice a day.

Before you start this you'll need to figure out how much your adult dog should be eating each day. Here is a website that provides a rough guideline for caloric intake based on weight: http://tails.co/requirements.html . However, your dog's optimal number of calories will also depend on how much exercise they get each day. You can call your vet's office and ask for advice.

Once you know how many calories they should be eating, you can subtract any treats you give on a daily basis and then divide the rest by the number of meals you will be feeding. For example, if your dog should be getting 525 calories/day and you are going to feed 3 meals and give a dental chew bone that is 90 calories, each meal should contain roughly 145 calories. If your dog food has 300 calories per cup, each meal should be about half a cup of food.

Unless your dog has special needs, this doesn't have to be exact. Monitor your dog's weight and personality each week. If they start losing weight or seem overly grouchy, feed them a bit more at each meal until they return to normal. If they start gaining weight then cut back a little bit. If you have any concerns, call your vet.

Puppies 12+ weeks old need to eat at least 3 times a day, and eating more often won't hurt. You can put them on the same schedule of many small meals each day and then slowly transition them down together. You might even wait until your puppy is old enough to only eat twice a day (around 7 months old) to move your adult dog to that as well.

Here's some more info on feeding a puppy: http://www.akc.org/content/health/articles/puppy-f...

Best of luck!

You can feed the dogs at the same time but in different rooms, because that will be easier. Puppies should eat 3 or 4 times a day, and you can do the same with the adult too.

When the puppy reaches adulthood, you can feed them both once or twice a day. If you are still feeding them different diets for any reason, you can separate them and give them both 20 minutes to finish their meals.

I got two dogs & they eat in different rooms twice a day. I used to free feed until I got a dog that would eat & eat & eat & he got rather fat, so I stopped free feeding. I would rather free feed if the dogs only eat what satisfies them & aren't gluttons for food.

Feeding instructions are on the bags of dog food. Adult dog gets adult dog food, puppy gets puppy chow. Both bags have instructions.

Adult dogs do fine on two meals a day. You don't have to do anything special to transition. Put one meal down at a certain time. If the dog has not eaten it within 15 minutes, remove the food and offer nothing else to eat until the next meal time. Do the same then. It probably won't be more than a couple of days until the dog figures out that it had better eat what's offered when it's offered. You can google how often to feed a puppy at certain ages. It changes every couple of months until the dog is an adult.

The adult dog should be fed two meals a day. The puppy should be fed three meals a day until at least 6 months old.