[Eric09]

About my dogs. i have a 3 year old beagle named jasmine (Female) whom is very loving and pretty mellow, But not lazy or in anyway over weight. And Just a few weeks ago i got my girlfriend a seven month old Boxer mix Bella (Female) through an adoption from an owner that could not care for her "She really like's that sort of breed of dog" that is very friendly but at times way to hyper active for my beagle.

About how i feed my dogs. When we got our boxer we picked up some more of the food we where feeding our Beagle. and set up another bowl for the new boxer so they could eat away from one another. fighting over food was a little issue at first but seems to have been reduced. i gave food to my beagle by free choice letting her eat when she wanted witch was no issue she normal would only eat small amounts at a time. so i started feeding our new dog the same way. and she seems to be okay but our dog food last a lot less then it use to!

Now you know some about my dogs here is where i need advice

Is free choice okay for a larger dog like my boxer mix? Should i try to change how i feed my dogs?

I feed my dogs beneful, but after some looking on the web i found that it is not a very good dog food. Is this true? Should i change my dog food? what brand should I go to?

Dog food is getting to be a hassle. Buying it that is. Is there a place online that i could buy my dogs food so i do not have to spend as much "I still want quality, and willing to pay" and so i could get my dog food in larger amounts so that i do not have to run and get more all the time.

Or even should i be feeding my dogs the same food?

Please any tips or advice you could share on anything about my situation would be nice. I want to revise how i feed them i just dont know how i should go about it. any info is welcome

[cigwyllt]

I have three dogs - one large mongrel and two small terriers. They have always been fed together in their own bowls and there has been no crossing between bowls unless one has had a smaller appetite on the odd occasion when one of the others would finish it off. Then in the summer there was a lot of disruption in our household (family bereavement, people going away etc) and I realise now that my Patterdale took advantage of my emotional distance to take over the role of resource manager! The three dogs stopped eating - I thought it was because they didn't like the dog food. Although they were used to having fresh food in the morning (which they still ate) none of them would eat in the evenings. I started to measure out the dry food and leave it down for them to feed themselves and for days they didn't eat at all. Then I realised why - Ojo was not letting them eat and she was so stressed at the task she had taken on she wouldn't eat either.

So I started to separate her from the other two and fed them set meals at set times and they all began to eat again.

I know that hasn't happened with your two yet but I would try and get them to eat separate meals. As your dog is used to free feeding I would maybe even give them three meals a day then move to two meals. That way you can monitor what they eat and prevent any guarding the way my girl did.

As for food - I am in the UK so have not heard of the food you use. Sorry!

[CorkyMax]

What cigwyllt above has posted sounds good to me. Feeding twice a day is the best way to go. If I free-fed, my 2 dogs would be fat as pigs, but even that said, I couldn't do it anyway as I feed mostly a raw diet with some home-cooking thrown in and the food would spoil if it sat out all day! And being as I don't like commercial dog food at all--all junk to me---I can't suggest a 'good one' for you but there is a lot of info in here on what is the best dog foods (and what isn't!) Just search the Dog Health and Nutrition section/forum in here or/and go to top of page(s) in here and find the blue strip across the page--Find the word Search--click it and put words like dog feeding or dog foods or What to feed (whatever works) Keep the selection on threads and not posts.