having food and water through the night
 

was wondering how old they have to be before you dont leave food and water in crate at night ? Thanks Harley is 12 weeks old

My puppy is in the crate with the door open at night next to my bed means she has a wee pen type bit I have blocked off about the length of my bed. She has been in there all night since 8 weeks and never had food/water through the night.


She wakes me up anytime between 4am-6am for the toilet I take her down and her water is downstairs but she doesn't touch it. Then back to bed.

I never left food or water in their crates at night.

Yea 12 weeks is a good stopping point...there little bodies can't handle drinking and eating near bedtime it will cause lots of uh ohs especially if you're house training

I never did it but my pup was over 12 weeks when I got her. I always have water she can get to at night but she's 7 and 100% potty trained.

I don't crate, and I schedule feed, not free feed, but ZoE has always had access to water. I don't feel comfortable withholding water. She potty trained very easily. Has slept in my bed from 6 1/2 weeks old, and hasn't ever peed there.

I don't see any reason why puppies or dogs need water at night. Ideally, water should be put up 2 hours before bed and then they should have free access to it in the day.


With food, there is no reason that can't be given twice a day at 12 weeks. It's different when they're really tiny puppies, I think, but 12 weeks should be fine without food and water overnight.

I don't think it's right to pick water up 2 hours before bed it almost seems kinda mean. I know I drink a little before bed and many times have gotten up in the middle of the night to get a drink. Dogs can't go hey I'm really thirsty can you get me a glass of water so I just make sure it's available. I never had to ever pull up water to completly potty train my yorkie and she absolutely will not have an accident in the house.

After 12 weeks I stopped having food available all day and feed twice a day. Last meal is 2 hours before we go to bed for the night. I keep water available at all times but that's that's only because I have an indoor "fresh patch" for the yorkies and my husband's bulldog is housetrained and goes out around 11 p.m. to do her last bathroom business for the day.

Many dogs can't go that long between meals, to just have two meals per day. Minimally, ZoE needs 3 meals a day, spaced out, or she pukes bile because her stomach is empty. Judging from the bile puking threads here on YT, there seems to be lots of dogs like her that require more frequent meals. It's a bit of a pain, cos it means staying up or getting up for a late night feeding, and there's no sleeping in, even on weekends, or I wake up to bile vomit all over.

Can you tell me more about this? I woke up to gagging and then later in the morning I found a white spot (he must've ate it like first throw up I witnessed) all over his corner of the bed!

Personally, I and all my family have always allowed "free-feeding" with all the dogs we've had. We may, of course, give them more than they should (wet/canned foods and treats, etc.) ^^;; manually speaking. But otherwise they have been good about eating when they need to from the dry kibble we leave out all the time.
My Kimchi, current yorkie, might sometimes need a bit of an incentive but for the most part does well on free feed (she's just lazy and spoiled at times). Maybe my household has been different or lucky, but it didn't matter of the age of our furbabies. But I will say this, when food is being set out in a scheduled manner they'll likely to eat it even when not really hungry. My personal feeling, limiting them food encourages the feast/famine instinct and they'll react to normal food the same as treats, in some cases that's not bad but in general, it'll encourage over-eating. Of course, that's different with each canine as they have their own personality and limits.
We've always had good eating habits when it's just the basic "kibble" (even when changing to a premium quality and they eat that more, they'll have more discipline eating with the daily kibble), it's when we get into other foods/treats that it becomes an issue.

Many dogs vomit bile (yellow tinged frothy liquid) when their stomach has been empty for a while. Dogs produce bile to break down their food. When they don't eat, the bile, sitting in the stomach, irritates the stomach lining and causes them to vomit. This usually occurs when the dogs go a long period of time without eating, such as the time between an early dinner and breakfast the next morning. Most people complain of their dog vomiting bile say it happens early in the morning, before they've fed their dog breakfast.

ZoE's vet recommended solution is to feed a small late night meal. Zoe gets hers at 11-11:30pm. Then she get breakfast at 7am, and dinner at 5pm. If I stick to this schedule, she's fine. This means even on weekends, I get up and feed her (and then crawl back in bed :D). If this schedule didn't solve the issue, her vet recommends pepcid before bed. I'd rather go drug-free while it works, so I stick o the schedule as faithfully as I am able.

Yep sounds like what's wrong with him! I feed his last meal 7-8 and bed about 10! We then get up 5:30 and I feed him and get dressed...this little accident in bed happened 5 in the morning on a weekend and he stood in an uncomfortable stance till I rubbed his belly and made him lay down (I didn't notice the actual puke since I was half asleep)

I free feed, and my babies always have access to water. I can not imagine wanting a drink of water, and not being able to get any! I keep a glass of water on my night stand for during the night for myself as well!..... My dogs are pee pad trained, so while they get their dinner (RC, canned mature) around 9pm, they have kibble available at all time. Water is always available as well. They will get up from my bed during the night, go get a drink of water, go straight to the pee pad and tinkle, then get back into my bed. They seldom eat during the night at all, but I just think 10-12 hours is too long for my RHG to go without something in their tummies.....if they get hungry at 6-7am, they can grab a bite and come back to bed...... I am a night person, so I stay up until around 2am and then I get up around 9-10am....