Accidentally Fed Your Dog Twice? When to Call the Vet, and How Families Keep Track

It's 6pm, and whoever gets home first feeds the dog. At 8, the second person walks in, and the dog trots from the front door straight to her bowl and sits. The food bag comes out. The "fed her already!" text gets read after the second bowl is down.

Nobody did anything wrong. Each of them did the usual thing for the dog, and in any home where feeding is shared, it's an easy evening to end up in.

If your dog was accidentally fed twice, first check whether anything calls for a vet right now: a swelling belly, retching that brings nothing up, restlessness, drooling or anything else unusual, or a dog that got into the food bag. If your pet is on insulin, a prescription diet or medication taken with food, call your clinic before the next meal. Otherwise, write down what was eaten and when, call your vet right away if anything seems off, and call anyway if you're unsure. Then deal with the cause. When two people share the feeding, the cause may not be memory at all: the only person who knows the dog has eaten is the one who fed her.

Most of what you'll find about feeding dogs is about how often and how much. This post is about what happens when more than one person feeds the same pet. In a home like that, the extra meal needs as much planning as the forgotten one.

We're the team building Memofu's care log, so this is a guide to keeping records. It is not veterinary advice: how much to feed, and what to do after a mistake, are questions for your vet.

What should you do if you accidentally fed your dog twice?

First, check for anything that means calling a vet right now. If there's nothing, a pet on insulin, a prescription diet or medication with food needs a call to your clinic before the next meal. For every pet, write it down, and call if anything seems off.

The question you most want answered is probably "will she be OK?" Only the vet who knows your pet can answer that. What this post can do is help you decide when to call and what to tell them.

When to call now. Gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV), often called bloat, is when the stomach swells and can twist on itself. The American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) describes it as a rapidly progressive, life-threatening condition that requires immediate medical attention. It is commonly associated with eating large meals quickly. The early signs ACVS lists include an anxious look or looking at the belly, standing and stretching, drooling, a swelling belly and retching without producing anything, and it says a pet showing any of them should be seen by a vet immediately. VCA Animal Hospitals notes that it is most common in large, deep-chested dogs, although any dog may be affected, and that immediate veterinary attention, within minutes to a few hours, is needed.

If you see signs like these, don't wait until morning. Call your vet, or an emergency vet if they're closed. The same goes for a dog who got into the food bag and ate a large amount at once. An emergency hospital in Minnesota, the Animal Emergency & Referral Center, puts it simply: if you catch your pet overindulging on food, or notice a large, distended stomach, contact your family veterinarian or local animal emergency hospital.

If medicine is mixed into your pet's food and it may have gone in twice, treat it as a medication problem, not a food one. As in our guide to preventing double doses, call your vet right away. The same applies if an insulin injection may have been given twice.

When to call before the next meal. For pets on insulin, meals and injections are tied together. The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) diabetes guidelines say dogs with diabetes can do well on a diet that is fed at consistent times in consistent amounts, and they ask vets to discuss with owners what to do if a pet doesn't eat a full meal. VCA's guide to treating diabetic dogs says meals should be given at the same time as insulin injections. For prescription diets, the Japan Veterinary Medical Association says a vet's examination and guidance are needed for the diet to work as intended. For these pets, and for any pet whose medication is timed with meals, call your clinic and ask what to do before the next meal.

Otherwise. Write down what was eaten, how much, when and who fed it. If anything seems off afterwards, such as restlessness, drooling or looking back at their belly, call rather than waiting for morning. Being unsure is reason enough to call, too. When you call or visit, read from the record: what, how much and when.

If you're unsure whether to change the next meal, ask your vet rather than deciding on your own. That call belongs to someone who knows your pet and what they eat.

How can you tell if someone already fed the dog?

Check the record, then ask a specific question. If you still can't tell, don't guess.

Start with whatever your household uses: a whiteboard on the fridge, a notebook, an app. If nothing's written down, ask the people who might have fed the dog. "What time did you feed her dinner?" gets a more reliable answer than "did you feed the dog?". A plain "yep" could mean breakfast, or could mean they were about to.

A dog sitting by the bowl makes it tempting to assume she hasn't eaten. But that alone doesn't tell you whether she has.

If you still don't know, it depends on the pet. If they're on insulin, a prescription diet or medication taken with food, call your clinic and ask what to do about the next meal. For any other pet, a call is fine too if you're unsure. A bowl added "just in case" can turn out to be the second dinner.

Whatever you decide, write it down with the time. A line like "8pm, dinner. Not sure if already fed" saves the next person, and the vet, from getting stuck in the same place.

Why do families end up feeding the dog twice?

Because more than one person feeds the dog, and the fact that she's been fed lives only in the head of whoever fed her.

A person on their own can lose track of whether they fed the dog dinner. A family adds handoffs. Every time the care passes from one person to another, "already fed" has to be passed along too, or the next person will do the usual thing. It tends to happen in moments like these:

The staggered evening. As in the opening scene, whoever gets home first and whoever gets home later both think dinner is their job.

The dog by the bowl. To the second person, that's reason enough to feed her.

The weekend helper. A grandparent staying over, or a teenager, feeds the dog as asked and forgets to tell anyone.

The second bowl. In a home with more than one pet, "which pet did I feed?" gets mixed up too. The AAHA nutrition and weight management guidelines point out that pets may also overeat if they can get to another pet's bowl.

Vets care who does the feeding, too. The WSAVA nutritional assessment guidelines list the "primary feeder of pet" and "other food providers and sources" among the things to check. The Japan Veterinary Medical Association's guidance on prescription diets likewise has vets confirm who lives in the home and who mainly feeds the pet.

So who fed the dog is a household logistics question, and it's also part of your pet's health record. For what else is worth keeping, see why pet health records matter.

Why don't feeding charts work?

Because ticking the box is a separate job from feeding, and separate jobs get done later.

On Yahoo! Chiebukuro, a Japanese Q&A site, a dog owner asked in 2010 how to stop losing track of whether they had fed their dog dinner. They added, in a follow-up note, that they might feed the dog and still forget to put on the sticker or tick the box. They'd kept a checklist for something else before, they said, and had ended up unsure anyway because they forgot to mark it.

In a family, that weakness gets worse. If whoever fed the dog forgets to tick, the chart keeps saying "not yet". The next person trusts it and, quite reasonably, feeds her again. The chart is what makes the second meal happen.

The best answer in the same thread suggested bagging each day's dinner in advance and labelling the bags by weekday or date. If a bag is gone, the dog was fed. There's no box to tick, so there's nothing to forget. But it only works while everyone is in the same house, using the same bags.

The fix is to make recording part of feeding. The bowl goes down, the record goes in, right there. On paper, keep it next to the food bag. On a phone, do it before the food goes back in the cupboard. There is no "I'll write it down later".

What about cats, and do treats count?

Yes to both. Cat meals overlap in a shared household in the same way, and treats count as food that needs recording.

With cats, too, a cat waiting at someone's feet or crying by the bowl can look like reason enough for a second person to feed her. Cornell's Feline Health Center suggests finding a feeding schedule that works for you and your cat, and then keeping it consistent. When the family agrees on the times, it's easier to check the record for whether this meal has been given yet.

In a home with several pets, bowls can get mixed up too. Japan's Ministry of the Environment suggests, for households with pets at different life stages eating different food, feeding them in different places or at different times.

Treats are easy to leave out of the record, but vets ask about them. The Japan Veterinary Medical Association's guidance has vets check any food given besides the main diet, such as treats, snacks and supplements. The WSAVA short diet history form asks for all foods, treats and snacks a pet eats, including foods used to give medication. So the treat a pill is hidden in counts.

That matters even more for a pet on a prescription diet. The Japan Veterinary Medical Association says not to give ordinary treats, because food other than the prescription diet can keep the diet from working as intended. A relative who doesn't know may give one anyway, meaning well. If it's in the record, you can answer when the vet asks.

As for how many treats are fine, ask your vet. They know your pet's body and diet.

A household feeding routine

This is a routine we'd suggest to any home with a dog or cat. It's worth going through it out loud once, with everyone who might feed them.

1. Record it the moment the bowl goes down. Not after the washing up, not on the way out. The gap between feeding and recording is exactly where the second meal happens.
2. Keep one record, not several. Not a whiteboard plus a group chat plus a notebook. Everyone who might feed the pet, grandparents and sitters included, should be able to see that one record.
3. Check the record before asking anyone. Coming home, waking up, arriving to pet-sit: look at the record before you open the food bag.
4. Measure before you pour. Japan's Ministry of the Environment recommends weighing food with a scale, or a measuring cup if you don't have one, and the WSAVA guidelines likewise recommend an appropriate measuring device and measured amounts. If every meal is measured, you can say how much went in when a meal gets doubled.
5. Log treats, and the food you hide pills in. If only meals are recorded, nobody sees the treats.
6. When in doubt, check before adding. Look at the record, ask the family, and if you're still unsure, ask your vet. Write down what you did and when.
7. For a pet with a condition, ask ahead about too much and too little. VCA advises owners of diabetic cats to ask their vet what to do if the cat doesn't eat a meal. Ask about an extra meal at the same time, and write the answer next to the record.

Paper is fine. A notepad and pen next to the food bag works, as long as everyone writes on it every time. Where paper can't reach is outside the house: the weekend the dog stays with your parents, or the train home when you want to check whether she's had dinner. Then the record has to go wherever the people are.

What to do tonight

None of this needs much preparation. Four things you can start with tonight's dinner:

• Pick one place for the record. Tell everyone "meals get written here", and start with tonight's.
• Put the phone numbers next to it. Your vet's number and the nearest emergency vet's, next to the record or on the fridge.
• If your pet has a condition, ask two questions at the next visit: what to do after a double meal, and what to do after a missed one. Write the answers next to the record.
• If you live with a large dog, read up on the early signs of bloat together once. The pages from veterinary organizations and hospitals in the sources below are a good place to start, so nobody has to look them up at night.

Where Memofu fits

Memofu has a care log for meals, potty breaks and more, so here is exactly what it does. We've kept to what the app actually does today.

• Meals are one tap. Dogs have Fed, Walk and Potty buttons; cats have Fed and Potty. Anything else can be logged under Other, in your own words. If the meal went down a little earlier, you can pick an earlier time.
• Everyone in the circle sees who logged it and when. Each button shows who last logged it today, and when, and the history lists every entry with its time and who logged it.
• If someone has just logged the same thing, it asks before saving. If someone logged Fed a little earlier, you'll see "Already logged: Fed", with who logged it and when, and you choose "Don't log" or "Log again". If you log it again, both entries are kept, so a second meal is on the record too, with who and when.
• The check only works if the first person logged it. A meal nobody recorded is invisible to the app as well. That's why the first rule above is to record it the moment the bowl goes down.
• Only owners and co-owners can log. Viewers, like a grandparent who mainly wants the photos, can see the care log but can't add to it. Anyone who actually feeds the pet should be a co-owner.
• The care log doesn't send notifications. There are no meal reminders either. It's a record you open and check when you get home or wake up.

The care log and every health record, including the full history, are free on every plan. A full export is free on every plan too, for good. There are no ads, no data sales and no public feed. You can see the care log on our features page and what is and isn't paid on our pricing page.

One last reminder: this is a guide to keeping records, not veterinary advice. A swelling belly, retching with nothing coming up: that's when to reach for your vet's phone number, not the record.

Sources

• Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus, American College of Veterinary Surgeons
• Bloat: Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus in Dogs, VCA Animal Hospitals
• Food Bloat in Pets: What Pet Owners Need to Know, Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota
• 2018 AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats, American Animal Hospital Association
• Diabetes Mellitus - Principles of Treatment in Dogs, VCA Animal Hospitals
• Nutrition for Cats with Diabetes Mellitus, VCA Animal Hospitals
• 2021 AAHA Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats, American Animal Hospital Association
• WSAVA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines, World Small Animal Veterinary Association
• Short Diet History Form, World Small Animal Veterinary Association
• How often should you feed your cat?, Cornell Feline Health Center
• Pet food guideline for owners (飼い主のためのペットフード・ガイドライン), Ministry of the Environment, Japan (in Japanese)
• Issues and responses for the proper use of therapeutic diets (療法食の適正使用に向けた課題と対応), Japan Veterinary Medical Association, June 2013 (in Japanese)
• 犬にご飯をあげたかどうか、わからなくなります。, Yahoo! Chiebukuro, 2010 (in Japanese)