"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.