Help my puppy is a chow hound!!!!

I am getting conflicting advice about my 13 week old shepard mix... He is a chow and a water hound!!! I feed him 3x a day and he inhales it so quickly. He does the same for his water. I am wondering how to break him from this if I even should. I give him his water with each of his meals, after he wakes from his naps in the mid morning and mid afternoon and whenever he has had a good romp. I am afraid if I give him too much he will constantly be having accidents. He is doing so well with housebreaking. Some people have adviced me to free feed him. In other words just keep giving him as much food as he will eat and eventually he will realize there will always be food there and won't inhale it. That scares me because I can just imagine feeding him cups and cups of food and he will eat until he pukes.
So how much water should I be giving him and should I just keep a huge tub of water down as well as a bowl food?

ok i had the EXACT same problem as you with yoshi. for food find out how much you should feed and give it to your dog slowly through the day. for water just leave it out at all times. with yoshi she would keep eating until she threw up then she'd eat more. but with water after she drank her fill and realized after a day or so that it was there all the time she only drank when she was thirsty

Don't ever free-feed a puppy. You can't monitor how much he's getting, or predict his poopies for housebreaking. For that matter, don't free-feed any dog that doesn't have self-control. Your dog will eat himself sick. I think you're doing everything right so far. I did the exact same with my last puppy, and he did fine. He had the same problem with inhaling his water, but got better once he was allowed to have his water 24/7.

you know if you are feeding it to him and he is gulping it down without thinking you should probably hand feed him until he learns to eat slowly... because prince did that and since i fed him by hand he doesnt do that anymore... but drinking hmmm different thing mine do it too but the only thing they get is the hiccups or burps lol

I agree with Gempress, keeping puppies on a feeding schedule helps with housebreaking. I also believe in leaving water down at all times. Mine are fed three times per day. They have water available 24/7.

I think Wendy came pre-trained, because we just put food out, and watched her.She went right for it, ate a little bit, and walked away.She still odes that today, and only eats when she is hungry.And drinks when she is thirsty...what a good dog... But I've never heard of a Water Hound!Maybe that breed really likes eating?

Water hound is a figure of speech, Sheba. Like Chow hound means the dog eats fast and a lot....same with drinking the water!

Jessie

An update: I grabbed one of my larger bowls I had lying around and filled it up with water. At first he gulped it like it was going to disappear at any moment. I then took him outside and was out there for quite some time so we didn't have any accidents later on. He came in, noticed the water and ran over to it. had a couple of laps and walked away. so problem solved about the water. As far as the food goes. I don't think free feeding is a good option. I want to monitor his intake and as a consequence his outake . As far as the amount he gets, I also give him beef marrow bones that have been cleaned out and fill them with about 3 tbs of his dry/canned mix and freeze them. This is his "snack" in the late morning and early afternoon. (It also keeps him quite busy for a while so I can get things done and also so he doesn't miss me so much when I am pet sitting. I think he will be ok. I just have to accept that he will be a chow hound. I guess that should be the least of my worries. He IS approaching his impish "toddler" stage
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