# How do you know it's enough?



## ladybugmomma (Mar 20, 2011)

How do you know when your GSD needs more or less food? 
Dax is on Orijen large puppy. He gets about 1 1/4 3 time a day. Sometimes about 1 1/2 cups for dinner. So about 3 3/4 - 4 cups a day. He does look for food throughout the day, especially in the evenings. Does this mean he's hungry or do all dogs just do this?


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## ladybugmomma (Mar 20, 2011)

oh he is 15 weeks ( 3 1/2 months).


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

I know my dogs are eating the right amount of food when they're not too skinny or too chubby. My dogs are ALWAYS hungry, so that's worst possible way to tell! I could feed them twice as much as I do and they'd still think they need more.


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

I feed puppies as much as they want to eat three times a day until they are about 6 months of age or they start getting chunky. Most puppies do well this way and they can take care of increasing their intake as needed as they grow. You can't do this with piggy puppies that will eat until they burst though. 

As Debbie said, you look at your puppy's body condition to decide if they are eating too much or too little, not by their appetite.


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## Angela (Mar 22, 2011)

I put my hands on them on a regular basis, specifically targeting the hips, ribs and shoulders to judge if they need more or less food.


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## ladybugmomma (Mar 20, 2011)

Since he is my first GSD and large breed dog in general, I don't know how he should look  I can do the letting him decide 3 times a day since he's not a piggy at one time. 
If I do that though, how long do I give him to eat? What amount do you go to at 6 months?


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

I put out a couple of cups in his dish at a time and let him eat until done. If he walks away or lays down, I pick it up. The point is to get a feel for how much he's eating and put down a bit more than that so there's always some left. If he starts getting close to eating it all, put down more at a time. I'm not talking about just opening the bag and putting a huge amount down at a time, just enough so there's some left over, like a cup left over. Some days he will eat more and some days he will eat less due to increased activity and grow spurts and by having extra in the dish, you allow for these variations.

As he gets closer to 6 months, they usually start eating more than they need and begin to look a little chunky. Six months is not a magic number, it's an average age. If he starts putting on too much weight before that, you begin cutting back early. If he's still a lean machine at six months, don't cut back yet. You would already have an idea of how much he's eating, so you would stop feeding him as much as he wants and feed a little bit less than he was eating per meal. He will still be growing, but much slower at this point, so you would need to keep an eye on his body condition to gradually increase how much he's eating.

There is no set amount to feed. It's all dependent on what your dog needs to eat to maintain a lean body weight.


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## s14roller (Nov 18, 2010)

Angela said:


> I put my hands on them on a regular basis, specifically targeting the hips, ribs and shoulders to judge if they need more or less food.


Agreed.

Start off with the recommended food intake from Orijen and see how that goes. It shouldn't be too hard to tell if the dog is under/over weight...

I use the minimum range recommended for my puppy's weight according to my food and she looks great. My vet, breeder, and trainer all say she is perfect and a bit on the lean side which is where I want her.


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## jRDK (Jun 21, 2011)

i have a similar question situation too. my pup is 16 weeks old and i feed him 1 cup thrice daily. she is definitely not fat, and neither skinny. but when i feel her ribs i can literally count them. she is also very active and plays almost the entire day. do i need to feed her more? i was recomended the 1 cup thrice daily by the breeder from whom i got her.


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

You should start your own thread so you get attention to your problem. I don't know how long you've had your pup, but you have to increase the amount fed with age pretty quickly. You may very well need to increase how much you are feeding and this is why I much prefer the way I feed and not limit feed.


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