Quote Originally Posted by voodoolamb View Post
Meh. I feed raw and home cooked food for my dogs for over 20 years. I believe variety in food is the most important aspect of feeding. My current vet recommends against feeding kibble. But anywho...

Regardless of personal feeding philosophies, you need to keep in mind you are an atypical dog owner. Your dogs get appropriate amounts of exercise and do legitimate work. They can handle an extra 200 - 300 calories a day. Probably even need it. Most American pets cannot. It's the equivalent of giving them an extra scoop of food. The dog the OP is talking about is a extremely under exercised young dog that already looks like he has some meat on his bones and is a breed prone to weight gain.

Peanut butter kongs just don't sound like a good fit in this situation. A cheap can of wet dog food can be used to stuff the kong, it will be lower calorie and have the proper balance of macro and micro nutrients so it would be more suitable for daily feeding of this dog.
that is probably true of my dogs and the dogs I train. I train them to hunt first then worry about household behaviors. My dogs are probably a little atypical of most working dogs also because they are family pets also, most working dogs are not and spend a great deal of time alone. My opinion is based on the fact that the dogs need exercise first. It's much easier to train any dog that is not working on a full tank. When I train dogs to work or "behave" in the house, they are always exercised first. A well exercised dog will train much easier after a run than before. I wouldn't reccomend it to anyone who has no clue what they are doing, but the first thing a dog needs to learn is the come cammand. Once the dog listens to that 100% of the time the dog can then be exercised appropriately. A walk on a leash, or even going running with your dog doesn't cut it. I jog with my dogs, and any I am training, every morning. That is not exercise for them. They don't even pant or want water after 2-3 mile jog. Dogs need to run at their own pace to get their energy out.

My my opinion of the dog who is in question. One or two things will happen. One it will chew and swallow something it shouldn't and probably die, or the persons roommate will eventually move and not be able to take the dog, at which point it will be dumped on someone else. Those are the dogs that can be great rescues if someone knowledgable can put some time into them.