Congratulations! You've decided to bring home a second dog. The connection between your two pets is blooming, and your family is adjusting effortlessly to having another dog in the house. Unfortunately, you're finding it difficult to keep one of your dogs from eating out of both of the bowls. Is feeding multiple dogs really this hard?

Let's take a closer look at why it's important to keep feedings separate and how to feed two dogs at the same time so that they both get a healthy meal.

Why Separate Feeding Is Important

You've had many dogs in your life, so you're familiar with how often you should be feeding your pet — and how much to give them — but you never thought you'd need to learn how to keep one dog from eating the other dog's food. Yet, here you are with two pets ready for a meal, and you're not sure how to stop your one overeater from taking all the food.

As you may imagine, there are many risks to letting one dog eat out of both bowls, such as overfeeding or potentially choking on kibble that's too large. For example, if you have both small- and large-breed dogs, your larger dog will be consuming more food each day. If your smaller dog were to eat all of the bigger dog's food, not only would they overeat, but they may have trouble chewing and swallowing the larger kibble.

Some dogs may also have specific nutritional needs or may be eating a therapeutic food, and if another animal is eating their meal, one pet may not be getting the nutrient it needs whle the other may be getting an excessive amount.

The Basics on How to Feed Two Dogs

When you first begin training your dogs to eat separately, the process will mostly be trial and error. There are many options that may work, but ultimately, it's up to your dogs which works best.

First, make some changes to your routine: if you're currently allowing your dogs to share a bowl, it's time to give each dog their own bowl with pre-portioned meals. Another thing to consider is mealtime feeding only, even if you've previously left a bowl of food out each day. These two changes may seem small, but they can make a significant difference. A couple of other changes may include:

Separating and Supervising

When it's time to eat, start off by supervising your pets. Place their bowls in different locations in the same room, and keep a physical separator between the two. If your dog is overzealous but not aggressive, you can simply guide them away from the other dog's food. Bowl training may take some extra effort, but just as with any training, it's important for learning to take place.

If separating them in the same room doesn't work, or if your overeater does display signs of food aggression, you'll want to physically separate both dogs in different spaces altogether. This may mean feeding the dogs in separate rooms behind closed doors, and if you don't have fully closed-off spaces, try feeding the overeater in a crate or invest in a "baby" gate to keep them away. The food-aggressive dog will also need independent training to address this "aggresssive" behavior.