Introduction

While Nadine Gourkow knows that people love to give their dogs anything they want, food is not one of them. Well, you can give them food, you just should not leave it laying out when you are not at home. There are several reasons for this, and we are going to discuss a couple of them in this article. So, if you think you should be free-feeding your dog, we are going to provide you with several reasons why you should not.

Input and Output

If you don’t know when and how much your dog is eating, you are not going to know when our how much they need to use the restroom. This is especially important when you are trying to housetrain a puppy. Older dogs tend to have bigger bladders and more control. Would you just leave food out for your infant to eat whenever they wanted? Then you shouldn’t do it for your pets. Dogs have little self-control when it comes to food. Therefore, you need to establish specific times when they get to eat. Once you leave for work, it is time to put the food away. If you work long hours, you might want to consider having someone come to your home to check on the dog and make sure they are taken care of.

Appetite

One of the biggest indications that you will have that your dog is not feeling well is if they stop eating. There will be no way for you to know how much they have had to eat if you just leave the food out on the ground. Well, you could if you weighed the food and only had one dog. Aside from that, there is no way to tell which dog ate the food or how much they have eaten. If you are really concerned about your pet’s health, you will make sure that you will pick the food up when you head off to work. That subtle indication of them not eating may be the difference between life and death for your dog.

Meal Manners

As we hinted to in the above article, you may have multiple dogs. If you are not around, it will be impossible to see which dog is eating and which dog is not. Additionally, you may have a dog that is intimidating the other dogs into not eating. You will not know this is happening until you see a significant loss of weight from one of the other dogs. If you are there when they eat, you can address any intimidation tactics shown by the offender. Otherwise, you couldn’t possibly know it is happening.

Conclusion

Nadine Gourkow hopes that this has convinced you to pick the food up before you leave the house in the morning. While you want to make sure your dog has plenty of food and water when you are gone, you will be doing more harm than good. You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your dog, so you need to make sure that you are caring for them properly. Part of that is making sure they eat at regular times. It is good for both parties.