Do you feed your dog before or after yourself?

I think it's ridiculous (to think a dog is automatically dominating you b/c it is fed first).  My dogs eat first because I don't sit down to eat an relax until ALL of my housework and chores are done.  I like food so I like to relax and enjoy my meal, even if I have to wait a little longer to take care of the dogs first and straighten up the house.  Also, I get to eat a meal and snacks while I'm at work, the dogs don't eat anything during the day and eat a very small breakfast so they are not uncomfortable having to poop while I'm at work.  So why should they have to wait?  I often feed my dogs by scattering their meal in the backyard so they track for it while I'm getting chores done.  Good mental stimulation and keeps them from scarfing it all at once.  Then when my chores are done, the dogs are tired and full so they nap while I relax and eat.

That's an old myth and it's a bunch of hooey, IMO.  I feed my dogs first because it's convenient for me.  If I chose to eat first, it would be because I wanted to eat first.  My dogs know I control the food regardless of whether they eat before me or not. 

 I don't follow any set feeding rule for myself or my dogs. I don't think that my dogs make any connection between when they eat and when I do

WTH? If I always had to eat first, the poor dog would eat at some bizarre times. I get up in the morning at around 6:45, take Luke out, feed him in his crate, and I leave. I work from about 7:30-8:30, and I get back around 8:50. Sometimes I eat on my way home, or when I get home, and other days it's not until closer to lunch that I actually eat anything. I can't eat that soon after I get up or I start to gag. On the weekends, I don't work until 9:30, and come back around 12:45. Now, these days, I usually leave myself little time to get ready, and if I do eat, I often pick something up on the way, or grab something and go out the door. So, if there is going to be any consistency in his breakfast, he has to eat before me. For dinner, it's usually after me, again because of my work schedule and the inconsistency anything else would cause. I do most of my work before and after kids are in school, and on weekends. It interferes with everything except lunch, not that the dog cares about lunch all that much since he doesn't get it.

Bogus.  It's absolutely bogus.  You're so right on that.  We either feed Dahlia before we eat (it's easier that way) or if things are put together quickly (or Mommy forgets!), we put her food down at the same time we sit down to dinner.

We also put her food bowl down on ground in between us.  She likes to eat with us, rather than in the kitchen and has, in the past, picked up her food bowl and brought out to where we are.

Two of our guys eat dinner before we do.  The other five eat after we do.  It has nothing to do with dominance.  It solely based on keeping poo schedules normal.  (I have no desire to get up to take someone out during the middle of the night.)

Oh, but what a big ol' ugly can of worms this could turn into!

In my opinion?  What a crock.  My dogs sometimes eat before we do, sometimes not until after.  Depends on when OUR dinner is ready since their dinner time is a bit more reliable than ours is.

But, then, I've been accused of being a treat dispensing butler so what do I know?

Before in the morning and after in the evening, but only because I eat at weird times (8 or 9am, noon or 4pm, 7 or 9pm depending on my work schedule) and it's easier to feed them more regularly than that (generally 8:30am and between 8:30 and 10:30pm).

Jewlieee

I don't think that my dogs make any connection between when they eat and when I do

Only when we go out the door and they look at me like "errrr Mom ...?? Is there a white box in our future??? Greek??  Italian?? Huh??"

Seriously -- this is simply one of those unfortunate cases where someone thinks they can sprinkle a little information into a conversation to try to make YOU think they know more than you do.

I think most of us will agree this is hooey -- but what really makes the difference is that the human is CONSISTENT and kind.  Dogs are far more creatures of habit -- so if my dogs had to wait until midnight JUST so they could eat "after" me then I gotta stay up later, they have to go to bed with indigestion, often they may get sore stomachs from having to wait TOO LONG to eat.  So it seems pretty silly, on an obscure point of dominance to make the dogs suffer on several points in order to prove my control over them?

Once upon a time in a land and time long long ago, my Dad (the former farmer's son) ALWAYS had dinner at 5:00 p.m. - my Dad's world came unglued if he didn't eat BY 5:00 p.m.. (with breakfast at 7:30, and lunch at noon sharp)

I don't think most of us live in that land anymore.  (but even on the farm, the chores were all done BEFORE dinner -- meaning the cows were milked and barn put up for the night, and the dogs were likely snug in the barn ... so *grin* probably THEY even ate before Pa did LOL).

Next time ask your friend if she's ever ripped that tag off a mattress that says "Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law"???? ... even 10 years after the mattress got tossed in the back of the garage because it wasn't used any more!!   But SOMEBUDDY surely would know if you did it wrong!!!  The 'tag' police are out there ... and I think they report directly to the "did your dog eat first?" police!!!!!

 

Liesje

My dogs eat first because I don't sit down to eat an relax until ALL of my housework and chores are done. 

This is me too, now on occasion hubby will have dinner fixed before I get my chores done but in that case I will feed them right after we eat.  Hubby is a softy and usually shares something from his plate even if it is a cracker, lol!  They  lay in their spots not begging but watching him like a hawk.  When he pushes his plate away they move on to the kitchen and wait for me cause they know I am not feeding them from my plate :) but I am the one that gets their dinner for them.   Hot has to go outside immediately after eating no matter what time it is....Rocky I think can hold it forever!

Breakfast mine eat after me only because they're usually still sleeping (see my "Late Sleeper" thread). Dinner they eat before me.

 Rascal's feeding time is not in any way related to the human eating times.

The only time I could see the "dog eating first = dominance" connection is if you and the dog were eating the same food, out of the same bowl. If that were the case, then I would say yes, you ought to eat first. Otherwise, totally irrelevant.

 I'm glad you all agree with me! I can't stand it when people come into my house and tell me i'm raising my dog wrong---especially since the person who made this comment has a very aggressive, tempermental doberman who they have to keep a muzzle on permenantly b/c she is so ill-behaved. They act very dominantly towards the poor dobe , and I don't like it at all...

 

 Pfffft. If my dogs got their food after I ate they would go hungry in the mornings. I dont eat breakfast so the first time I eat is around 11-12. Also I eat out alot. 

Plus having a set mealtime for the dogs means they also have a set poop schedule.