"cshenk" wrote in message
...
"Bill Graham" wrote

What I fail to understand is how the hell you (or anyone but a zoo
keeper) can keep a dog from eating the cat food. I had a beagle, and
there was no way I could keep him from eating any damn thing he pleased.
If it was there, he would eat it. Of course, if you don't have to work
for a living, and have nothing better to do but police what your animals
eat, then you could do it, but then, you would effectively be a zoo
keeper. Us adults have to work for a living, and we leave our animals
food while we are at work, and they will eat what they want to eat, and
take it from me.....The beagles will eat the cat food, nitwit.....

LOL, true. You *can't* really control most beagles around food left out.
Oh, I know it isnt true of all of them (individual personality will come
to play) but generally beagles will eat anything they can get at until
they hurl. At least mine does and almost all other beagle owners I know
say the same thing.

I have a friend at work with an exception. She's got 4 beagles and one of
them controls himself. He could be free-fed if it were not for the
others.

Grin, I work it this way. Cat eats at 0615 (same as Dog) but up on a
bookshelf that she can reach and he can't. She's fed no more than we know
she will eat for 'breakfast' (He's on a diet and would happily eat more).
She sometimes drifts down to steal a dry kibble (oddly, he allows this
with her but no one else. She can actually push his head over and grab
one and she lets him). Daisy was totally kibble fed when we got her so we
slowly converted her to wet. Took about 2 months as we wanted no rapid
shifts while also taming down a semi-feral into a true house cat.

About noon, then get a small broth with added fat (for their coats)
'noshe' delivered same way and come evening, 6pm they get fed again like
for morning. This time Daisy may get a *small* sprinkle of the higher
quality dry kibble (4-5 kibbles) and Cash-beagle gets wet added to his
higher quality dry.

The noon noshe is where the main interaction takes place. Daisy-cat may
lap up all of hers and leave the meat scraps (leftover small bits of fish
or chicken etc added, just a teaspoon or so for her in 3 TB broth). Cash
however will fish out the meats (1 TB for him of minced meats and he
happens to really like a green bean or so in there), lap up most of the
broth (he gets about 1/2 cup) then eat his 'treat' green bean or 2 and
wander off. Daisy comes down and laps up a bit more of his broth while he
gets any meat bits left in her bowl delivered down where he can reach it.

Works for us. I of course only get to to see the noon noshe only on
weekends. (Don is retired but I'm still a youngun and working).

Even with standard pet foods, the dog won't keel over if they get a little
cat food sometimes, and the cat won't if thery get a little dog food
sometimes. It's just not optimal long term.

Dogs do not need added Taurine so it isnt add to commercial dog foods.
Cats need it so it is added to theirs.


Well, with 5 outside cats, I really can't ration what they eat....I leave
them an effectively infinite amount of dry food all the time, and just put
down a can or so of wet food every day for each one of then who wants it. I
don't keep dogs, but the neighbors' dogs come by from time to time to eat
whatever's available for them.....Since my wife and I feed raccoons, there
is usually some cheap dog food available that they can eat.....We also find
an occasional possum eating the raccoon food.....We both love animals and
will feed pretty near anything we think is hungry whether it's wild or not.
That's how we acquired a couple of our cats....They just turned up at the
doorstep one day because they liked the taste/availability of our food......

Somebody sent me a u-tube clip of a couple who feeds wild deer every day at
lunchtime.....It's a real kick....They have this huge pot of vegetable
soup/stew, and they eat outside on their patio. 'they set out a dozen or so
bowls on their table, and around lunchtime, the deer start showing up on
their lawn.....Then they spoon out a portion of stew for each one and two
for themselves, and the deer come right up to the table and eat their stew
right out of their own bowls while the couple eats without paying any
attention to them at all!