# Where do you feed?



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

I am planning on heading out to pick up a few things for Huginn soon. He won't be here for another month, but I work at PetsMart and this weekend we get our employee appreciation 30% off! Yay! So I was wondering, should I get him a good size stainless steel bowl to eat out of? Or I have noticed that some people have pictures of their dogs eating off of towels? Which would you recommend and why? I live in an apartment so I don't really have a yard I can feed him in, I wish I did though.


----------



## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

My dogs have ceramic bowls. I'd like metal but haven't broken these yet :tongue:.

They eat out on the lawn too, or in the garage if it's raining. They all tend to drag it about.


----------



## Scarlett_O' (May 19, 2011)

Like I said on fbook....I dont bother with anything, other then with Leo, he has a mat, and the 2 dogs that meow:laugh:...Rhett, Brody and Dixi(and Keeva) eat in their crates, or if its nice out I tether them out and let them eat outside.

Maybe a shallow, larger bowl(like pie pan type) for organs and such....but I wouldnt bother with an actual dish!:wink:


----------



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

LOL, I figured there would be a lot of dragging going on, which is why I wasn't sure if I should bother with a bowl. I chatted with Abi about it and am now thinking just a rubber mat, I may get a bowl for when he eventually get's into organs (suggested by Abi). But that won't be for a while.


----------



## Hillswei (Dec 5, 2011)

Have bought stainless steel- easy to clean,hygienic and wont break if the kids drop them.I got a nice big deep one for water and a big ,flat one for the meat. Also plan on getting some thick plastic sheeting from the hardware store for the floor as I know that my cats who are fed raw take their food out of there dishes and eat it on the floor.


----------



## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

I find the bowls handy when dishing out the meals.


----------



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

Abi, I was thinking with my discount a dish would be cheaper than a pie pan type bowl, unless I get the thin aluminum type pan (which I loathe cleaning those). Glass pie pans are ridiculously over priced, I also have a coupon for Reber Ranch and I know their "pie pan shaped" bowls are decently priced. 

Hillswei, I was thinking of that plastic sheeting after I said rubber mat. That's a good idea. 

Sprocket, I think if I had more than one dog dishing out would require a bowl. But it will just be little Huginn (until I succumb to temptation again), so I think setting it onto a "mat" would be fine for now, maybe.


----------



## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

I could never do mats. Meat is juicy.


----------



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

Hahaha such a good point. . .


----------



## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

I feed outside 99% of the time. Unless its raining or a blizzard they eat outside. Zero clean up that way :wink:


----------



## Scarlett_O' (May 19, 2011)

Sprocket said:


> I could never do mats. Meat is juicy.


Leo has a bath mat(without that nasty no-skid stuff) hat we lay down on the floor, he hasnt ever let anything sit on it long enough to get thru it!LOL :tongue:


And then the "dogs who meow"(TEHEHE:laugh eat off of a platter



But Tif, Im thinking it might be a good idea to see what they have....and might as well get one!:thumb:


----------



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

I wish I had a yard I could feed him in. Not really an area in my complex where I could do that. It would be my first choice if I could though.


----------



## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

Huginn said:


> I wish I had a yard I could feed him in. Not really an area in my complex where I could do that. It would be my first choice if I could though.


You don't have a small back yard/balconey that most apartments do?

I really love having the lawn to just set the bowls out on, make them sit, stay and wait and call them one by one


----------



## tem_sat (Jun 20, 2010)

Granted my Doxie is considerably smaller than your Border Collie, he has been trained to eat on a hand towel. I would say 99% of the time he never allows his meals to leave the towel. On the rare occasion that an RMB may hit the tile floor, he will drag it back on to the towel. I serve his RMB when we wake up. He then goes out to do his thing and when we come back, I pick up the towel and give him his bowl as a "treat". His bowl is for his daily liver / kidney meals, supplement pill, coconut oil, seed mix, and any boneless meat with juices. The only clean up I do is wash the bowl daily. The towel is folded up and placed in a bucket in my pantry. I wash the towel about once a week as long as it doesn't smell like fish. :tongue:


----------



## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

When we feed indoors I feed mostly in crates alothough one or two end up just eating in the kitchen. We do have stainless steel bowls for feeding organ and the few times we do have ground meat. I also don't like egg so I will put that in the bowl also. I only use stainless steel because I have had dogs I petsit have issues (allergy) with porcelain, platic, etc.


----------



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

Sprocket said:


> You don't have a small back yard/balconey that most apartments do?
> 
> I really love having the lawn to just set the bowls out on, make them sit, stay and wait and call them one by one


Nope, I'm on the third floor of a balcony-less apartment  but it is the only one that I could find in my area that allowed dogs over 20lbs. There is one teeny tiny strip of grass, but it is always covered in other people's dog's poo. My boss says I live "in the ghetto, down by the train tracks." I'm hoping to find a roomie and rent a little house when my lease is up.


----------



## CavePaws (Jan 25, 2011)

I would just get a decent sized crate with a plastic or stainless steel bottom. I think that is by far the easiest way to contain a small area to clean while giving your dog some access to move around/drag its food.


----------



## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

I love stainless steel bowls because I can just chunk them in the dishwasher once in awhile. My guys eat out of their stainless steel bowls, or if it's nice out they will eat on the lawn. If it's not nice and it's a boney thing then they sometimes take it out of their bowls and just eat on the kitchen floor and I wipe up the floor after they are done. I have stainless steel dog bowls that are 30 years old and still going strong after many many many dogs have used them. 

I have used baby gates to keep them in the kitchen so they don't drag their meat anywhere else. I have a really small kitchen so it's almost like they are in a crate when I baby gate them in there.


----------



## NewYorkDogue (Sep 27, 2011)

I feed my dog in a stainless steel bowl, on a raised feeding platform. He doesn't drag anything around (I think he did at first, but I re-directed him back to the bowl, and it just stuck with him.) Chicken backs, organs, heart, ground goat, rabbit, beef, eggs, tripe...
whatever, is just chucked into the bowl and he crunches through everything standing over it.

On a rainy day, if I feed him a recreational bone to keep him busy, I will put down a towel in his crate and he works the bone in there. Occasionally he will drag it out on the floor, but it's slides around more, so he usually brings it back to the towel- easier.

This works for me, which is a good thing since I also live in an apt. with no balcony or yard. But it also means that I won't be able to really supply Mateo with a huge side of meat (i.e. carcass of a deer or whatever) to go to town on. At least not at this point in time...


----------



## Dude and Bucks Mamma (May 14, 2011)

I am the same as Natalie (DaneMama) except that they eat outside 100% of the time. We live in a bottom apartment so the little "balcony" for the apartment above us gives us a leak free patio cover. We have a nice concrete area for them to eat on that we hose down no less than once a week. The only times I have ever fed them indoors was when we fed boneless meals that consist of steaks that I cut into little cubes to easily hand feed them.

Had we gotten Buck in the winter I would have fed him inside if it was snowing out but now, since we have the concrete and the patio cover and he is almost 9 months, snow will not prevent me from feeding them outside. We got him in the end of May or beginning of June so it was warming up already. We fed him outside from day one.


----------



## eternalstudent (Jul 22, 2010)

Most of the time I just chuck the food on the floor in my kitchen, the floor is normally far cleaner after eating that it was before ,

I feed fish outside as I don't like the smell in the kitchen.

through the summer I feed outside, but since I took my garden wall down my pup can escape on to the main road so I don't allow her out on her own, and at the moment its to cold to stand and watch her eat.

The last time I used a bowl was wen I was introducing new foods, anything that was in a bowl she new was food and would investigate, now all the food bowls I used to use for kibble have become extra water bowls.


----------



## frogdog (Aug 10, 2011)

Yogi is fed out of a stainless steel bowl in the kitchen no matter if it's rain, sleet, snow, sun or whatever. Talk about easy cleanup. When we first started raw he was fed on a towel probably the first month or so. He gets his RMB'S on his doggie bed.


----------



## kady05 (Jul 29, 2011)

Mine eat outside on the deck out of ceramic bowls. I use bowls because it's easier to transport everything, and they're great about eating over them. Ceramic because they're heavier and don't get pushed around as easily as stainless would. No clean up at all, easy!


----------



## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

Aussie and Copper eat outside on our coverd back deck, and if its something like chicken Lucky will just eat on the floor in the den. Its tile so real easy to clean. But when we feed boneless scrap meat we use stainless steel bowls. I don't think ours would keep their food on a towel only. They like to drag it around too much.


----------



## barneysmom2510 (Oct 12, 2011)

My little dogs eat out of bowls they don't drag their food around it is also gone so fast it is amazing. I feed barney in the kitchen he will drag some of the stuff around it starts in a bowl but ends up in several places so he can pick and choose which to eat first.


----------



## Dude and Bucks Mamma (May 14, 2011)

frogdog said:


> Yogi is fed out of a stainless steel bowl in the kitchen no matter if it's rain, sleet, snow, sun or whatever. Talk about easy cleanup. When we first started raw he was fed on a towel probably the first month or so. He gets his RMB'S on his doggie bed.


We have the same Christmas collars for Dude and Buck 


We have taken to tying Buck to one of the pillars so that he can't drag his food out into the mud. He, for some reason, feels the need to eat, laying down, in the muddiest spot he can find. Dude eats wherever we drop his food. Once Dude is done we take him inside so Buck doesn't feel threatened by him since Buck is tied up. We don't want to create any resource guarding. 

All of our kibble bowls have become water bowls as well. We use those flimsy tupperware containers to transport stuff outside because we have them leftover from when we first started raw to use until we could find some durable, good tupperware containers.


----------



## frogdog (Aug 10, 2011)

Dude and Bucks Mamma said:


> We have the same Christmas collars for Dude and Buck
> 
> 
> We have taken to tying Buck to one of the pillars so that he can't drag his food out into the mud. He, for some reason, feels the need to eat, laying down, in the muddiest spot he can find. Dude eats wherever we drop his food. Once Dude is done we take him inside so Buck doesn't feel threatened by him since Buck is tied up. We don't want to create any resource guarding.
> ...


Christmas collar was all his dad's doing along with an elf hat which Yogi hated. I bought reindeer antlers...believe it or not...from Dollar General for a whole $1. How good is that especially at the pet stores Charlie said they were $10.

I have to say or add...Yogi does not drag his food around and wherever he eats is always clean. The dog will not take his food out of the bowl or off a towel and if food falls out or off he picks it up and puts it back. My little neat freak, lol.


----------



## catahoulamom (Sep 23, 2010)

I also feed out of stainless steel bowls. I like them because they're easy to sanitize - throw them in the dish washer with hot water or spray them with white vinegar and wipe them clean. I know, I know... most people here aren't worried about germs from the raw meat - but after feeding raw for 3yrs I'm still a cross-contamination freak. LOL I think it has to do with me not eating meat, maybe.

If they are eating chicken quarters or turkey necks or something else that is just one big boney chunk, I just throw them out in the yard with it. But they get one boneless meal a day so their bowls come in handy when I'm serving meat chunks/ground meat/organs/eggs/supplements.


----------



## JoeynZoey (Apr 25, 2011)

I use to always divide the meal into two separate places for Zoey, one was out of her bowl (stainless steel) which places on her food stand that I purchased for her since she was tall enough to reach over. Inside the bowl would be the organs and chucked up boneless meat and ACV. Than I would bring her outside on the backyard patio to have her meat with bone pieces. Now, I prefer to feed her everything that fits right from her bowl in the food stand. She seems to understand that I prefer for her to not drag out those small portions onto the floor and consumes it right over her bowl. When she has pieces that are far to large for it to fit inside her bowl, than I will still allow her to enjoy it on the patio. I tend to feed at night now, which it's bloody freezing, but when the weather permits in better conditions I will probably set her bowl outside much more often still.


----------



## Huginn (Nov 21, 2011)

Lol, from reading this I am getting the hint that I need a yard. 

We ended up going with some good size bowls. I figure I will start with that and see how he does. I have toyed with the idea of getting a baby gate for my kitchen since it is fairly small, it would be like a large crate. I'm going to get some plastic to sit under it and see how that goes.


----------



## monkeys23 (Dec 8, 2010)

In their crates or outside. I have stainless steel bowls, but rarely use them. Have been using them to feed tripe since I have it packaged for the two of them and have to divide it for feeding time.

Lily will keep whatever I hand her on the kitchen floor, but Scout would drag it off to a corner given the chance. And Lily isn't very nice to other animals when food is in the equasion.


----------



## Unosmom (May 3, 2009)

Depends on what I'm feeding, if its something I can cut up in chunks, he eats it out of his SS bowl, but anything larger like a bone, I place towels on the floor or he eats it outside in the yard.


----------



## luvMyBRT (Mar 8, 2010)

Duncan always eats out of his bowl because I add warm water to every meal.

Lucky eats out of her bowl when she gets a boneless meal. I always add warm water to her boneless meals (she has a boneless meal as breakfast). When its her dinner, which is bone in, she just takes it from me in the kitchen and then takes it where ever. Usually she takes it to her bed to eat. Between her and Duncan there is never any mess...

When the weather is nice she will eat her bone in meals outside.


----------



## lauren43 (Feb 6, 2011)

Avery eats outside no matter what. I know I'm mean.

Ok if it's real gross out he eats in his cage.

I never bought a bowl other than for water and for me I found the stainless steel to cause chin pimples, switched to ceramic and we've been golden!


----------



## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

My dogs are sooo clean....They eat out of stainless bowls, Cayenne eats in the kitchen on the ceramic tile floor, she rarely takes things out of her bowl and Leo who waits patiently on his rug until I bring his bowl to him stays on his rugs and rarely makes a mess if he pulls anything out of his bowl.

I have such good children!


----------

