Hello, hello! How’s it going? Today is trucking along smoothly over here.
After barre and breakfast, I published my morning blog post, caught up on some emails and headed out to get this little stinker some food.
Sadie eats Orijen dog food and we often feed her large-breed puppy food because she’s so dang scrawny. Vizslas as a breed are very lean dogs and Sadie has access to food 24-hours a day (she’s a free-feeder), but she has always been a feast or famine-type creature and will eat a bunch one day and then nibble sporadically the next. Our vet(s) have never been concerned, but one suggested giving her puppy food as an adult, so we filter it in every other time we buy her food.
The only time Sadie becomes extremely interested in her food is when other dogs are around. Then her food quickly becomes the most delicious thing ever and her dominance is asserted. It’s kind of amusing (and unexpected) to see since she typically rolls over and pees a little when she meets other dogs on our walks together. Alpha Sadie comes out in our house around her food bowl and “her couch” (aka the couch we always snuggle on with her).
After picking up some grub for Sadie, I stopped into Earth Fare because I needed to buy a few ingredients for a freelance recipe development project.
I couldn’t leave without grabbing a snack for the road and polished off a small bag of Krave teriyaki pork jerky on the car ride home.
I first sampled Krave jerky at Wanderlust this summer and have loved every single flavor I’ve tried to date.
Once I made it home, I took Sadie out on a quick lunchtime walk around the neighborhood before working in the kitchen on a project, writing on my laptop and snapping some photos.
Lunch
Eventually it was time for lunch and I made myself a spinach salad topped with chopped broccoli, sliced ham and lots of feta cheese.
The feta cheese was fantastic but the tub of “watery cheese” in the fridge totally grosses out Ryan.
Lunch did a semi-decent job of keeping me full, but I found myself feeling rather snacky about an hour later, so I put together a small snack plate with Almond Nut Thins, The Laughing Cow creamy Swiss cheese and cracked pepper.
Apparently I’m craving lots of ham and cheese today!
Enjoy your afternoon!
Question of the Afternoon
- Pet owners: Are your pets big eaters or do they have somewhat strange eating habits like Sadie?
![\"Quantcast\"/](\"//pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-1e3-7hOJ_U8Bg.gif\")
Our Westie Ruby eats and eats and EATS when we watch my parent’s dog at our home. I think it’s a competitive thing, haha!
On a side note – I LOVE the pants your wearing!
Thanks!!
My dog would eat all day and become obese if I free fed her! She has slowed down with her eating as she’s aged, but she never misses a chance to eat!
love your workout pants!! & that jerky sounds ah-mazing!
My little German Shepherd is a big eater, and she’ll gobble up anything she can get her paws on. My Golden Retriever used to be that way – he once stole half a pizza off the counter! – but as he got older much less so. He’s actually really sick right now so he’s hardly eating, and I really WISH he would get up and try to steal some food off the table.
As for the people food, haha…I’m with Ryan. I just can’t handle any food that sits in water like that. Skeeves me the heck out!
WHOA love those pants you’re wearing! and that cheese/ham snack sounds really good right now 🙂
Cute pants! It’s so fun to wander and find new places when you’ve just moved!
We fed Austin Orijen when we first got him, but it was a little too harsh for his sensitive tummy so we switched to Sammy Snacks (now called Ancestry). It’s locally made in Charlottesville, VA so we love knowing that we’re supporting a small business and he LOVES the taste. Austin is a free feeder too — his food is set out at 8am, but he doesn’t touch it until 2 or 3 AM. We’ll feel him jump out of bed and then a few seconds later, chomp, chomp, chomp coming from the other room. He’s so silly.
Ha! How funny!
Aww, this made me laugh out loud! I love dogs.
Our cats are free feed but in a weird/interesting way. We feed then wet food 4 x a day in their bowls. They then have to forage for dry food using toys. This basically stimulates cats hunting (in nature cats will hunt and kill 10 animals a day) nature. We started them with easy toys that had multiple holes and have gotten more difficult ones as they’ve gotten better at it. So they have constant access to food but they have to work at it.
My dog is a sporadic eater, but has always kept his weight in check so the vet says not to worry. But sometimes he goes two days without eating! I think he gets preoccupied with playing and forgets.
My black lab will eat herself sick but our beagle/bassett only nibbles. Unfortunately we have to cater to the lab and only feed them limited amounts. Otherwise the beagle won’t finish his food and the lab will eat it for him. Which results in a very unhappy dog and an obese lab.
This is actually a big concern of ours whenever we talk about getting a second dog!
This is DEFINITELY a concern! We sometimes babysit a friend’s dog who is very food obsessed. It’s nearly impossible to get my dog to eat when he’s over because Frank (my dog) isn’t really that interested in food on demand, and if I try to block off a space for him to eat in, he thinks he’s being punished!
Our dog could not be less interested in food — she will eat when she’s hungry (always has access to food) but can go 1 day or 2 without eating at all . . . she may graze or completely ignore it. She does drink tons of water, though!! The vet says not to worry but every dog I’ve had in the past was definitely motivated by food !!
My standard poodle is totally a feast or famine type dog. It freaked us out when she was younger but now we are used to it. Some days she wants to eat a ton and some days she will go to her bowl and pick up ONE kibble, roll it around in her mouth, then spit it on the floor and leave it. Such a weirdo. She also burps like a human after she drinks water. She is also just like Sadie…excited pee/non dominate until another dog is around her food then she scarfs it down in 2 seconds flat. Sounds like they could be besties!
My pup Puddin’ is free fed and she seems to wait to eat until we are home and hanging out with her. Dogs are silly.
We always say Sadie starts to eat whenever we’re about to leave!
Our labs would explode if we allowed them to be “free feeders”. (<– I had no idea there was a specific term for this. Interesting!) Haha! We feed them morning and evening, and they just go CRAZY and pretty much act like they've never been fed in their lives. Crazies!
I tried Krave Beef Jerky for the first time at Blend Retreat and totally loved it!!! I love that it's flavorful, made from quality meat, and is pretty chewy and not crazy tough. Tough beef jerky makes my jaw hurt!
I LOVE your leggings (or capris?) – where are they from?!
They’re leggings from Reebok! 🙂 And thanks! I also totally agree about Krave– looove that it’s not overly tough.
I have 2 large dogs. They vary from day to day how much they eat. They are free feeder dogs too. After going through about 10 different brands of food due to our female dog’s, Sadie, allergy issues, we finally found one that is working. We put their bowls of food out in the morning, sometimes we come home to empty bowls, sometimes we come home to half eaten bowls. We feed them again at night and the same thing, they will snack and nibble on and off all night long. No real pattern, just varies. My vet says its normal and no issues, cant force them to eat if they aren’t hungry! 🙂 They do get really protective of their food if other animals or even people (as if they will eat their food) come around. Its quite funny!
Haha! Oh come on, you know you’re trying to sneak a taste… 😉
I am always amazed at dogs that can free-feed. I’m convinced that if we gave our lab access to enough food, she would literally eat herself to death. There was a mishap one time at my parents’ house where she ate her own dinner and their dog’s dinner (their dog is a 180 lb. St. Bernard, so you can imagine how much food that was) and her gut was so huge I thought she might explode!
I’m a cat owner and little Marty gets his food ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. I don’t know how it happens, but I vacuum every other day. I thought putting less in the bowl would help, but no. At least he’s cute.
My dog is like Sadie — some days, he eats every meal right after we put it out. Other days, he will nibble on his breakfast all day long.
The cats, however, have always been free-feeders until recently. One of my cats was recently diagnosed with kitty IBS and has been put on a strict bland food diet and can only eat a limited amount. It’s kind of hard to keep cats on a feeding schedule, but it has definitely improved my poor kitty’s symptoms so it’s worth it!
My Sasha used to come RUNNING when it was feeding time, but now that she’s older she isn’t as interested in food {unless it’s a treat, of course}. She has also become quite to snob and will only eat her food out in the backyard…just like her mom she enjoys meals on the patio! 😉
Our terrier was the same way! He was always very thin and active. On some days he would polish off his bowl (and stealing a few extra bites from his “brother’s” bowl if he wasn’t paying attention) and then he’ll barely touch his bowl for several days straight (just barely nibbling here and there). His doctors were never concerned either… his energy level was always up there! I adopted him from the humane society and he was a stray so we always thought that was an eating habit of his. I guess dogs are just like humans! We all have different traits. =]
As soon as I fed my dog breakfast/dinner, it was gone almost instantly. It definitely wasn’t left to sit around. He was like that since he was a puppy. It’s funny how different dogs are. Their personalities really shine through when you spend some time with them.
I have two dogs and they are free-feeders. Our schedules are so hectic that they need to be able to eat when they are hungry. However, they will not eat unless either my husband or I are home. Our golden retriever does not eat until both of us are home. He is so strange!! He also lays down as he eats with his head stuffed in the bowl..such a nut. Our dachshund takes one piece of food out to a special spot and eats and goes back and forth several times! I would say they are moderate eaters, not too much and not too little.
I love Sadie stories..she cracks me up!!
I miss your homemade workout posts!
Our English Setter has two set meals every day, because if we didn’t he’d be huge! We have to make him sit and wait for his breakfast/dinner because we wouldn’t be able to get the bowl down otherwise. Glad to see Sadie is adjusting well to her new home 🙂
We rescued our dog from a local shelter and she was so skinny when we first got her that you could see her entire spine and pelvic girdle. So of course I had to fatten her up ASAP. My boyfriend would laugh at me because I would literally pour gravy and oil on her food in the hopes of her gaining weight! It worked though and now the vet suggested that she lose a couple of pounds lol. I just can’t help feeding her what she wants after seeing her so skinny!
My dog is extremely food obsessed. She gobbles down her food as soon as she’s fed at night, and has laser focus on anyone who has food at any given time. Some dogs love their toys, Molly loves her food 🙂 I’m pretty sure if she was free fed, she would eat herself sick.
Right now my babycat Nova (she’s a seal point Siberian) is free fed wet and dry kitten Royal Canin. She was underweight when I got her and is still a little “ribby” as my vet says. I’m trying to get her to eat more wet food at once and on a schedule, since dry food isn’t the best for cats. I feed her in the morning when I wake up or get home from work when I’m on nights, leave 1/4 c dry and then wet again in the evening. I might feed her more wet when I’m not at work. And right now I’m mixing two textures of wet together cause at first she liked pate, then little chunks, and so I’m trying to get her over her finicky nature. She’s six months old at the end of Oct, and I’m having her fixed then, so I’m sure her food will have to be limited once she is done growing and reaches a good weight.
I have a 170lb Great Dane. Everyone always asks if he eats a ton. He did when he was a puppy and growing, but now that he’s 6 he eats the same as a normal size dog. We feed him Blue Buffalo, but my parents have spoiled him and he won’t eat it without some extra chicken or ground beef thrown in.
He is in SUCH a routine. He comes and finds us wherever we are at 7:00 and lets us know it’s meal time. After he eats, he goes straight to the freezer where we store his conch filled with peanut butter and beef jerky. Guess dogs like “dessert” after meals too 🙂
Would love to hear more about the freelance work you do!
Earth Fare is the best! I love their fresh made juices.
Our black labs acts like she’s NEVER BEEN FED every single time we get her food out. She even sits there and “sucks in her belly” to look skinner 🙂 Not even kidding, that girl, she is a diva!
My dog is a free feeder too. We fill his bowl up in the morning and it’s 100% expected to be untouched when we get home in the evening. Some days he’ll go without eating, some days he’ll only take a few bites, and sometimes he scarfs it down. Oh, and he has this weird thing where he’ll grab a couple kibbles in his mouth walk into the living room, spit them out, and then eat them one by one. He’ll repeat this a couple of times, and then finally stand at his bowl and eat. Such a weirdo.
So funny, my dog has nutty eating habits just like Sadie! Lately I’ve been putting her food out first thing in the morning as usual, and she hasn’t been eating her breakfast until 6 or 7 pm… at which point she whines for her evening treat, then eats her dinner right after. I keep calling her the resident binge eater!
My dog isn’t a free feeder, so she usually eats whatever I give her, when I give it to her. She was over eating before so our vet recommended we only give her food at designated times. I do sometimes leave a little bit of food out for her though incase she needs a little snack.
Chloe, my doberman, is a picky eater. We finally found a food she will actually eat regularly. She’s a skinny minnie and always will be from her liver disease. If she’s extra picky I’ll give her some chicken broth, but that’s a rarity. I never thought about puppy food, may have to talk to the vet about that.
We have food in her kennel constantly, while our other two dogs only get fed once in the evening. The other two are piggies.
I just went to a cheese tasting! I’m always craving cheese!
My dog JJ has random eating habits too! He grazes randomly all day long, and tends to eat the most riiiight before bed time. But kinda like Sadie, when he’s around another dog, he chows down like he’s never eaten before! Such strange pups, but we love them anyway! 🙂
I have one skinny cat and one giant balloon. Once when I had just the one cat (fatty), I went out of town for the weekend and she ate an entire package of hamburger buns that she stole and ripped open off the counter in addition to a weekend’s worth of food. She also goes insane for Cheetos. Will paw at the bag and meow at the cabinet. I’ve never seen a cat so obsessed with human food (and she came that way!). The skinny cat wants nothing to do with human food and eats like 3 pellets of kibble a day.
And the part I intended to say, but left out in my droning on about my cats (big surprise), is that do NOT free eat. I can’t even imagine what she would look like if she wasn’t on a strict diet.
we have HUGE feta container.. like restaurant style in our fridge. Thanks to being married to my greek fella ; )
Costco has Black Cherry Krave Jerky right now!
Well, I’ve mentioned before that my cat Molly is OBSESSED with chickpeas. She has another weird eating/drinking habit. She will only drink from her heart-shaped water and food bowls. If my husband and I are away for the night, we’ll leave extra bowls of water and food for her (in regular bowls). She rarely touches the regular, white bowls. She must prefer her special ones!
When we fed our lab mix grocery store dog food he was never really that interested. We would actually often have to sprinkle grated cheese on top of it to get him to eat it. Then, when he was dealing with some allergies, we tried some higher quality foods and he went nuts! I think it was really the quality of ingredients that made a difference for him. We tried Orijens for a bit, but have switched to Taste of the Wild due to availability and convenience where we live. Sure, his food is much more expensive now than the stuff we bought at the grocery store- but I feel good knowing it’s human grade ingredients, and that he actually likes it!
Krave has the best jerky!
My dog is exactly the same as Sadie. He’s not a big eater and could care less about his food until another dog is around. I have five half full bags of dog food in my garage because I went through every brand to try to find something he liked, just to come to the conclusion that food just isn’t high on his priority list!
My husband cooks dinner for our dog because she has so many food intolerances. Now, all she wants is “real” food and has kind of become a pig. Not crazy about that as she never used to be.
I have a little rat terrier/Italian greyhound and his food is left out all day. We usually pick it up around 8pm and then down when we wake up. He gets wet food (yuck!) at night. But he grazes through out the day. Eats more in the AM then at night.
Both of our labs have what the vet calls “a little bit of a weight problem.” Our black lab would graze all day if we let him, which is why we feed him twice a day. Our yellow lab, on the other hand, is the complete opposite – he nibbles throughout the day but never seems to finish his food. As you can imagine, it’s tough keeping our black lab away from of our yellow lab’s leftovers 🙂 We should probably just feed them both twice a day at the same time and take away their bowls. While we’re at it, we should also start limiting the peanut butter Kongs at night, hmm…
Julie, you might try mixing in some wet canned dog food with her dry food! My dog is a goldendoodle and the same way about his food–he’s pretty disinterested. But we’ve started mixing in a few spoonfuls of canned food with the dry at every meal and now he gobbles it all right up! Except if it isn’t mixed enough he’ll pick around the dry part and just eat the wet stuff. Haha. Kind of a diva 😉
I free-fed my dog for 3 years and after the new year this year I switched her to a feeding schedule. She used to just pick/gorge like Sadie does and I found when I switched her it really improved her eating habits and digestion. It also makes it easier when traveling with her or feeding her around other dogs, because she knows it’s time to eat and she’ll eat, rather than me worrying that she’s starving because I can’t keep her food out all day. Plus, I know exactly how much food she’s eaten in a 24 hour period, and it makes it easier to know when things might be bothering her, food wise.
Sadie is so cute, btw!
It’s so funny to hear about dogs like Sadie! Mine eat their meals in 20 seconds flat and act like it’s the first time they’ve been fed in a week. I think it’s crazy, but they definitely have little internal clocks going! They expect their breakfast absolutely no later than 6:30 every day. Hunger knows no weekends. : )
We have taught our dog to wait for his food & eat on command, but the second he gets into my mom’s house he is practically SPRINTING towards our family dog’s food bowl (she’s also a free feeder, and is 14 so she barely eats unless she feels like he might just eat her food haha). We have tried a couple different brands of dog food, but have found that on our budget, Kirkland is the best deal & keeps him healthy & energized! We always check dogfoodadvisor.com before we purchase. We also put a teaspoon of organic extra virgin olive oil and some sort of veggie in with his food. (olive oil for his coat & skin, veggies help round out his diet & keep him from eating grass!). His favorite veggies are kale & brussel sprouts. He’s such a diva 😉