Ruby training update

So our little Ruby is now 16 weeks old, fully house trained and will hold all night to go out in the morning so usually around 8 hours. Infact, most mornings, we have to actually lift her out of bed as she just lays there yawning and stretching and wont bother getting up at all if she had her way. She slowly wanders out into the garden and pees/poops. Shes made it so easy for us (touch wood) we are actually considering finding her a friend in the future!

Shes loving training (or should i say the treats that go with it lol), she knows sit, lay down, stay, roll over, wait (for food or for us to walk through a door/gate first), take a bow, speak, leave it, drop, give paw, high 5, high 10, she has excellent recall off lead, even where there are other dogs or people in sight she will usually head back to us when we call her. Shes great when left alone, she stays in her crate and sleeps the time away and same as mornings shes never in any rush to get out.

Her only let downs so far is her obsession with jumping up and nipping at both our daughters (aged 7 and . Shes a little sod for being around any children but the smaller the more likely they are to get jumped on/nipped/clawed. And her weeing when greeting people, though shes getting much better with this. We walk her around the car boot on a sunday and she gets a lot of fuss off of random strangers and i feel this is really helping her be less exciteable when meeting people. We are working on both of these issues but neither is a terrible problem so i think we are very lucky to have such a well behaved little bundle of energy

The other thing we are having a worry about is her eating. Shes on dry food, but she only eats twice a day, regardless of times she just doesnt want more than 2 meals a day. Is this ok? Shes not skinny, and shes growing slowly but surely, and has plenty of energy im just a bit concerned as most say pups need 3-4 meals a day.

It sounds like you've fitted so much into the last few weeks , well done . Are you putting food down and restricting it to 15 mins , are you putting too much food down at one go ??

she gets as much as she eats in one go, she stops herself when shes full and we are going on that basis for the time being as she refuses to eat more than twice a day. i started reducing her amounts in the hope she would want another meal but she simply isnt interested. we feed her at 8 am, and shes not interested in food again until at least 3-4pm, sometimes later. i even tried leaving food down to see when she did, and see if she mooched in there to grab a snack midday time but she picked out a single biscuit and dropped it and walked off. fed her again a few hours later and she ate nearly all of it. shes growing well and very bouncy so i figure it must just be her way. i always put her food down for her between 11-12 anyway to give her the chance, i leave it for about 20 mins then it gets picked up again.

Is it possible she is getting full from the treats?

we did consider that so we stopped doing the treats for a couple of days to see (kind of looked at it as possibly she was hoping for more treats than eating her food), and no change at all. some days she is hungrier than others and she will eat a bit of lunch but its usually just before she seems to grow a bit then she slows again to the 2 meals. i think as long as we offer her the 3 meals a day and give her chance to eat then its up to her if she ignores it.

RubyRoo wrote:she gets as much as she eats in one go, she stops herself when shes full and we are going on that basis for the time being as she refuses to eat more than twice a day. i started reducing her amounts in the hope she would want another meal but she simply isnt interested. we feed her at 8 am, and shes not interested in food again until at least 3-4pm, sometimes later. i even tried leaving food down to see when she did, and see if she mooched in there to grab a snack midday time but she picked out a single biscuit and dropped it and walked off. fed her again a few hours later and she ate nearly all of it. shes growing well and very bouncy so i figure it must just be her way. i always put her food down for her between 11-12 anyway to give her the chance, i leave it for about 20 mins then it gets picked up again.

She's eating too much in one go.

Split her food into three equal portions so that she doesn't bloat herself, it's better for her in the long run. She's a little young, yet, to be having two meals a day - I'd recommend not cutting back to 2 meals till she's about 6 months or so.