How does your dog let you know they're hungry?

I read all these posts about normal times.  You can tell we don't have any human kids.  Normal is not a word that fits with eating in this house.  We eat when we are hungry.  Heck Madi was fed this morning and still has not eaten her food.  She will ask and generally gets fed twice a day.  She does not eat much and knows to ask if she wants more.  Shepherd are very picky when it comes to food so this does not both me.  She will eat when she is hungry.
 
Baby our cat, her food is always out.  It is on top of the kitchen table and after many years Madi now leaves it alone.  But Baby one weighs 5 lbs so I do not care how much she eats.
 
Now as for treats that is funny, Madi knows how to open the kitchen cabinets that have her treats.  We are convinced I will come home one day from work and all the treat containers will be empty and she will be laying belly up with the cabinet open.   Baby of course will be laying on the table looking at Madi as if to say,"I told you not to eat all the treats!"  Right now Madi only gets in the cabinet if we say it is okay.  But the fear is there!!!

Shepherds are picky eaters???  PLEASE don't tell my six that.

Eating is an event here. Five is the main feeding time for the dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and fish, even though the cats are free fed, the fish are fed more than once a day, and the dogs get small bits of stuff throughout the day. Anyway,  I dred 5:00 because if I'm slightly late, the dogs are tap dancing around me, the cats are running up and down the counter, and the guinea pigs are wheeking for their vegetables. One of the pigs practically climbs out of the cage in anticipation. Heck, even my gouramis are waiting at the front of the fish tank.
 
So while I'm fixing food for everyone, Grey lets out his "hungry hippo" howl and paces until his food comes. Brown just sits around atiently until I'm done, and when it's finally time for them to get their food, their butts have to hit the ground before they dig in.

I tried to post this after my post.  Madi in the treat cabinet. 
 
Glenda, I have always been told GSD are picky.  Well mind REALLY IS!
Madi's Mom

Little Maddie is always hungry and lets me know she's ready by jumping and spinning around when I sit her bowl of food down at night. Dugan on the other hand could care less unless he is really hungry. Most of the time he sniffs his food and walks away. He'll eat later sometime before bedtime.  can't see the benefit of leaving his food down for only 15-20 min. before removing it. I don't care when he eats, as long as he eats.

My dog is free fed, and doesn't show much intrest when I put the bowl down normally. But if her water bowl is empty and she wants water she will bark at me and dance around the faucet when I am getting water.

Maybe they are and no one ever told me.  Then that would go to expectations.  I expect my dogs to eat what they are given, when they are given it, and they do.  So, like I said, PLEASE don't tell my crew that they are 'posed to be PICKY!! []

Jess has always been an easy dog -- breakfast when I get up, dinner when I eat dinner, no complaints if work has me running late, or early. Not a strict schedule, though generally not totally all over the place either.

But even if I'm running very very late, Jess never complains.

There was only one incident, a few years back...I was very sick, on the couch and unable to walk, unable to sit up, even. Dinner time came and went, and I wasn't getting any better (this was before Jessie was trained to bring me my medicine). I drifted in and out of sleep several times, but never awake and well enough to actually get up.

I finally conked out and woke up some hours later...and Jessie was on the floor lying next to the couch, quietly chewing her plastic bowl to pieces!!

We no longer have plastic bowls, and Jess has never done anything like this again. Of course her learning to bring me medicine helped, since even on my sickest days, with meds, I'm able to stumble into the kitchen to feed her, and to the side door to let her in the yard.

But she's never again in any way "asked" me for dinner.

She will, however, give me the sad eyes if I'm eating a particularly tasty piece of human food. She wants to be my "food taster" like they had in the days of royalty. She assures me she'd be quite good at it, too! But I try to keep her snacks at least reasonably healthy.

Btw, does anyone skip feeding their dog one day a week? I've had several people tell me this is recommended for dogs, though I've never practiced it myself. I'm curious, though, if anyone here does it, and what the rationale behind it is.

Jan

So, like I said, PLEASE don't tell my crew that they are 'posed to be PICKY!!

    []
 
 
It will all be kept hush hush.  On a seperate note....5GSD?  Where do you sleep?
Madi generally sleeps on my legs, baby by my chest and hubby gets the rest of the bed.
 
We thought about getting more then one by our kitty is so old (15) it would not be fair.  She has a hard enough time just moving around the house. I hate to bring another kid into the mix.
 
But they are great!

I have no schedule. None, at all. My dogs are fed 2-4 times a day, whenever I feel like it. Emma does, occasionally, feel the urge to herd me towards the food bowl. I break her concentration by calling out a list of commands for her, then doing something else for a few minutes. I usually do feed her, after that, because she's hungry, and it's always been more than 8 hours since she's eaten.

My dog is remarkably relaxed and accepting about when she's fed, but sometimes I might be really slack if I'm totally involved in something like drawing way past her usual feed time, or I might have made up a new batch of food at the last minute and be waiting for it to cool enough before I can feed her. She lets me know she thinks she should be fed by watching my like a hawk and launching to her feet everytime I get up to trot eagerly to her bowl expectantly. 

Mine don't do anything, they know they get fed twice a day (morning & evening) and just wait for us to feed them.

Ben is on thyroid meds which seems to strike him with hunger pangs at odd times - nrmally he's not a chow hound, but when he gets the munchies, he'll go find his dish (he gets his own dish because of his allergies). Then he brings it and flings it on the floor. Then he picks it up and flings it closer. then he throws it in my lap. Then he'll try to get it up on my desk, or on the kids' desk. Between times he sits and burns holes in my head with his eyes.

Doug the Dog exhibits an interesting phenomenon. I call it, "Mealtime creep." He knows exactly what time dinner is, but he will start with a quiet, "Woof, woof, woof" about five minutes ahead of time. I'll often go ahead and feed because I was going to anyway. The next day he will do it five minutes earlier. Most of us are pretty absent minded so a week may go by before I realize I've been manipulated into moving dinner up half an hour. He does the same thing with wakeup time. That's "morning creep."

Actually, there are six.  There seems to be an unwritten rule in my house that only ONE dog can be on the bed at a time.  Not sure why...we never said it, but they enforce it among themselves and take turns.  And, four of the boys refuse to stay upstairs at nite...they want to go to the lower level to their crates when it's bedtime.  I've learned to be very specific tho when I get up from someplace. Before I get up, I'll say, Mom's just gonna get coffee, or water, or whatever I'm gonna get, otherwise I have six shadows following me wherever I go.......

Sunny is not usually hungry until about 9 pm, I think due to the terrible heat. She will go over to her dog food canister (it is more of a vat) and nose the top and try to knock it off. Very funny! I have noticed that when she does that she won't eat as much the next night but then the next night after she is hungry again.