Reducing meals

[danabanana]

When we first brought our pup home and took her for a vet check I remember him saying she should start to lose interest in her lunchtime meal at around 14-16 weeks and so should start to offer her less at this time and reduce to 2 meals a day.

I'm feeding her raw at the moment and she loves her mealtimes (and she's a beagle!) so I really can't see her ever losing interest in food - she's almost 14 weeks old now.

Should I start to just reduce midday meal in a couple of weeks or let her have it until she's a bit older (thinking 5 maybe 6 months?)

And an almost related question: tripe - is it an offal or a meat? Not entirely sure so don't want to give it to her too often

Thanks guys!

[Owdb1tch]

Tripe is okay as often as you can stand the smell

14 weeks is rather early IMO to cut down meals. How about reducing the size of the lunchtime meal instead? Little tummies are better off not packed full each time.

[emmabeth]

Ditto, 14 weeks is a tad young - my deerhound (who admittedly does have more growing to do yet htan a beagle does) is 6 months and is on 3 meals a day... 2 big proper meals and one smaller 'supper' and we are only just considering dropping that meal (but combining the food from that with the other two meals).

Tripe is good stuff - smells like cow poo really (though never cook it... my grandmother used to cook it for her bassets and the smell..... ugggggggh eye wateringly stomach churningly bad...)

[danabanana]

ah have discovered the joyous smell of tripe! I didn't get the chunks, gave her some of a tripe prizechoice meal today. It's vile!

Bless she still hasn't quite grown into those ears of hers yet either (think I need a spaniel bowl or something instead) - so the ends of her ears were dipped in tripe and she has stunk of rotten eggs all day.

[Ocelot0411]

Yep tripe is minging. I mean I know this is doggie quality stuff (prizechoice) but my god, have people really eaten this stuff, on purpose?

Oh yes just to add, I think Ellie ws on three meals a day until she was about 7 - 8 months old.

[Owdb1tch]

My Dad used to love tripe - boiled in milk - the smell was unbelievable yuk.

I've eaten it in Portugal, cooked in a chicken casserole and it was really delicious, but I wouldn't go looking for it to cook for me. Dogs do so well on raw tripe, though.

[thistledown]

I think it smells gorgeous. Every time I feed it to the dog I dare myself to try it but never have ....yet