It first started as petting Baron when he ate so that he wouldn't be so protective of his food. Before we knew it, the whole family(whoever would put his food out) was hand feeding our 11 week old baby every meal. My husband would sometimes just leave the bowl out then take it after 20 minutes or so, and Baron would sometimes eat barely half. But when hand fed by me, the kids, or sometimes DH, he would eat almost everything. Is this a good or bad thing? Should we limit the hand fed meals?

One more thing. If hand fed all of the time, can he reject eating by himself totally? Refuse to eat unless hand fed?

If hese leving food behind is usualy a sign ov over feeding . i would not recomend hand feeding unless that he is agresive when eating his food . He may get spoiled dont worry labs are usualy pigs the realy like food. When he will be hungry he will eat it unless that hese not eating at all or verry little then in tht case i would take him to a vet probably helat issues . sory for the typos

I too have been known to hand feed Susie when she doesn't seem to want to eat anymore. Its probably bad. I would think if they get hungry enough they will eat. When it gets late in summer Sue usually eats a lot less and slims way down. Now that we are doing raw she is eating less still this time of year but she is also looking a little pudgy. I am going to cut down 1/4 lb and see if that helps.

You might want to offer the food and walk away and see what happens.

Cricket

This is a very good question! I would not hand feed your pup in an effort to get him to eat more, but I would definitely hand feed him from time to time to avoid any food aggression issues. Ideally, you should be able to hand feed him, touch him while he is eating and even put your hand in his food bowl while he is eating without him being the least bit concerned about your presence or you being close to his food.

This is not something that you need to always do, or even do very often, but it is absolutely something you should be ABLE to do without provoking any type of negative reaction in your dog.

Go to the training tips section and use the search feature. Type in words such as food aggression, hand feeding, etc, and you will see why this is such a wise practice to do with a young dog in order to avoid problems with food aggression issues later on as the dog gets older.

Instead of hand feeding, what about trying one of those treat dispensing balls. The balls are hollow with a hole for adding treats/kibble. As the dog rolls the ball around, pieces of food slowly fall out. Luca Bella loves her treat balls, the only problem is that they aren't very durable.

Here is what I'm talking about.

http://www.dogdaycafe.com/ART/trickytreat.gif