My female GSD just turned 1, and her behavior is changing. A few minor questions

[lee25]

As the nice folks over at /r/dogtraining are aware, I've had problems before with my under-stimulated female GSD, and I believe I've worked those out.

There's a few new things she does that I think are a little weird, though.

What she's started doing is tipping her food bowl. She tips it just enough to knock some of the food onto the floor, then eats it off the floor. Or she noses it around up onto the shelf that I put her bowl next to, so it's tilted, and she eats out of it that way.

I've seen a few things in other places. She's not flipping it over ONTO the food, so resource guarding is out the window. I think my main concern is over-feeding, which was another suggestion.

I've put her on a feeding routine, thanks to previous suggestions. She gets 1.5 cups of food for breakfast (my morning routine gives her about forty minutes to eat that), and she gets 3 cups of food for dinner. Sometimes she doesn't eat breakfast, so I just put another 1.5 cups of food on top of her breakfast. Now, she only ever eats as much as she wants, so sometimes she does leave some behind which is why I didn't really consider it before this morning.

I feed her 4 Health Chicken and Rice, adult formula, and she's been on that food for about two months now. She was having major problems on her previous feed, with periodic diarrhea. Do you think I'm overfeeding? She's not really gaining weight, but the past week or so, she's just been irregular about eating, and this food bowl thing has been going on about that long.

TL;DR - Dog is tipping her food bowl over to knock food onto the floor, then eats it off the floor. 4.5 cups of food per day on adult formula, is that too much?

 

[jewelpet]

@lee25 Change to feeding from a Kong or puzzle toys, it will give her something to do and also make her work for the food more.

I would talk to your vet about the amount you feed, they will be able to recommend how much she needs relative to the amount of exercise she gets

 

[aleeta49]

@lee25 As to whether or not you're overfeeding her, how much does she weigh?

Any quality food will have feeding instructions on the side of the bag, for both sole dry food, and a mix of dry and canned. These guides are by weight, and a good place to start adjusting her diet.

For example, on the side of my dog's food bag, it tells me that for a 100+ lb dog, he's to get 4½ cups of dry food a day, or 1½ cups of dry food, and 2 cans (13 oz) canned food. What we've done for him is stuck him on a dry food diet (which he enjoys, and finishes every day), and saving the canned food as a treat. This way, if we decide he's looking underweight (which he ain't, believe me) he'll be ready for the extra can of food.

For the record, I have an American Akita, and he weighs (at last weigh in) 107.5 lbs. He's almost 2 years old.

 

[lee25]

@aleeta49 She's only about sixty pounds at last weigh-in. She's not looking overweight, but she's already as tall as she'll get, and GSDs aren't full grown until they're about 1.5 to 2 years old.

I really just follow her eating patterns. She's never eaten more than she can handle, and she usually does leave food behind. She might come back in half an hour, maybe an hour, and finish the bowl after some playtime/digestion.

It's hard to tell if she's overweight or not, because she's always been super-thin, and with her reaching her full height, now's the time she starts filling out to the side.

 

[picadvic]

@lee25 The one thing you've got to be careful about is the fact that your dog is maturing during this time period between 1 and 3 years. Technically, at 2 she should be done growing, but just like humans, it doesn't mean she's done maturing. I have an (almost!) 3 year old female GSD and she's just starting to calm down. When she turned one, she started doing the weirdest things! She would steal blankets and socks for the heck of it, refused to drink water out of the dog bowl (she preferred the sink...and learned to turn it on, but not off, herself), and decided that this one toy we had must be her baby...fortunately, she's grown out of most of this (though we still find the sink randomly on sometimes). I wouldn't worry about overfeeding unless she's starting to get overweight.

Talk to your vet about what weight range would be considered healthy. I don't know your dog, but I know standard GSD females range between 70-85 lbs.

TL;DR: Some dogs are just cooky/still maturing. Talk to your vet about feeding concerns.