Am I starving him?

 I have a 8 month old Chihuahua and she has free feed from 10 am till 6 pm.

Do you only feed him once a day? If you are I would feed him more meals but smaller throughout the day.  

I just can't free feed because if I did, TJ and Pedro would get no food. Chico is a hog, lol.

I do only feed once a day. Maybe you're right.. just split up the food so they eat two or three times daily?

I personally prefer to feed both of my dogs 3 small meals daily.  Especially the little one, just to be safe.  

Regarding the amount to feed Chico..is this a new food you are feeding him?  Have you compared the kcals with the old food?  That ought to give you an idea of whether you need to increase or decrease the amount he received on the old food, if you haven't already checked.  It might also be possible that he just likes this new food a lot, and that could be why he is acting hungrier than usual. 

I have 3 little dogs, 2 Pom's and a chihuahua, they have always eaten minimum 2 times per day, most of the time they even get 3 tiny meals.

I could never do only once a day, 2 of them get low blood sugar pretty rapidly if we do.

I also have Pomeranian and I feed her 1/4 cup of food twice a day (AM & PM)

If I left food out all day she'd eat untill she'd explode. She always acts hungry or starving but I know she isn't, she's just a greedy lil piggy :o)

Eventually Chico's tummy will learn to adapt to his new diet (just like us humans)

Okay,

so I should feed the amount that they're getting now.. twice? and not break up the 1/3 cup in half for two daily meals?

How big are they? My Pom is 8-9lbs and she gets 1/2 cup a food per day; I break this up into 1/4 cup two times per day.

redlegos

so I should feed the amount that they're getting now.. twice? and not break up the 1/3 cup in half for two daily meals?

No, you split the daily amount. Feed half in the morning, and half at night. So if you feed 1/3 cup a day..feed 1/6th at each feeding (wow, that's a tiny amount of food.. LOL! that'd be one bite for Cherokee).

The amount you feed depends on the food you feed and the number of kcals in that food.  You're going to need to compare kcals of the old food and the new food.  You want to keep the kcals pretty close.

I agree with 2-3 meals per day with the tiny dogs.

Split the daily amount into 2 meals, definitely. That's what Rascal gets - he would not do well at all with only one feeding. (He's 8 pounds.) Heck, I'm a smallish person and if I don't eat about every 3-4 hours I get seriously weak and crabby.

If the dogs are at a good weight, I wouldn't change the amount they're getting at all, just break it up into more servings :) 

redlegos

The other day I was in Petco ready to pick up another bag of NB, and I saw they had some of the NB Small Bites in. I got the Duck & Potato in a small bag to try it out.

I've got the D&P Small Bites too ... and have been wondering what the calorie content is. I cannot find any information on the bag about  Metabolizable Energy - i.e. how many kcal/kg or kcal/cup.

I tried to contact Natural Balance Inc. several times, via their website contact form, but never heard a peep from them.

Anyone happen to have the ME calorie information?