Is four meals a day too much for a 14 month Lab?

Q: Our 14 month-old Labrador is being fed (at my wife’s insistence) four times a day, and that includes a milky concoction at suppertime. I’ve told her the dog has reached an age where one meal a day is enough, or am I wrong?

A: No, your advice is right, a 14 month old Labrador does not need four meals a day and topping it off with milky food for supper is just asking for trouble in the weight stakes. Two meals daily at this age is perfect.

Tell your wife that the weight of the dog with all this food is going to balloon as it gets older and that the quality of life, as well as expectancy, is going to be badly compromised.

When you start active training and working him in the field then it’s possible to supplement his diet with a little bit extra at dinner time, but only you can gauge this by his general look and level of fitness.

If you intend to breed off the dog it will not do the dog’s joints any favours by being too heavy, and the same goes for working in the field.