My girl has always been free fed since she was 4.5 months old. Prior to that, her breeder left out Eukanuba kibbles for them to graze on while she fed her dogs a diet of ground raw chicken and bones at specific feeding times. She came pretty much paper trained with accidents in very specific spots. Once that problem was solved, she soon had zero accidents except when she pees a little off center. She would also go outside on her walks when she finally got to touch the ground after her puppy shots. Of course, I've never crate trained, so that would work differently. I'm always home with her.
Although I leave food out, she rarely eats it on her own unless she finds some stray kibble on the ground or under furniture. I make sure she gets food before bed and when she wakes up. She became a non-morning eater but generally, after a good morning chase with the cat and/or a walk, she'd eat at least a little bit before she goes back to nap with me. Then later in the afternoon, I just make sure to "treat" her with another brand of kibbles for various tricks, grooming session, and during later walks. She's more than ready to eat it if it doesn't seem like it's her regular food. Then when her Daddy comes home, she'd paw at her other food dish Daddy feeds her out of that's left on the coffee table sealed. That's when she's hungry and she wants to be fed by Daddy. She wouldn't take it from me unless she's REALLY starved. For the most part, she's an evening eater and she really stocks up and stores it in her belly right before bedtime. Her stools are produced generally first thing in the morning and sometime in the afternoon. It used to be more regular and predictable when she was on certain brands of food. Now she does 2-3 runs of stools a day while with the past brands of food, she'd only go twice and they were smaller.
That link you posted, it seems to pretty much match my girl to the "T". Especially the part about the interaction with children. She reacts better to my toddler nephew who hardly takes interest in her, so when he does, it's okay and he had never chased her down before. While with my older nephews, 12 and 9 years, she trembles in fear on the spot and she even becomes too afraid or lost to run and hide somewhere. They are loud, even if not towards her, they are bouncy and loud on their own. And it did NOT help that they've run right up to her once before when they arrived at the house and in her eyes, they had cornered her just to say "hi" and pet her. I'm sure if we had tried some calm treating and such by the hands of the children, it will turn out alright, however, they don't visit enough for it to matter. I had tried to hold her while a nephew pet her gently, but all of that time, she's shaking with fear. She's okay with kids who want to pet her when we're out. When she spots the little children from a distance, she gets excited, pulling on her leash because she thinks they are potentially dogs. By the time we walk within a foot from them, she relaxes and moves on to her next target as she notes fairly quickly that they are only human. |