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For those of you who stop sessioning at a certain point at let custom rations do the rest of the job - at what point do you switch the custom ration back to 'pet house for show dogs' or 'top dog' etc ??

For instance:

Say I had a dog who was 20 days old as he had the following stats:

Obedience: 18
Muscle: 18
Coat: 19

I would have stopped sessioning him when his coat and/or muscle were at 18 - and would have just let the good food do the rest. But I'm never quite sure what day to switch that food over to cheaper stuff. My main concern is that I know some of the traits (particularly Obedience) will show as a '20' but they might still need to be sessioned for a few more days as that number is really only '19.2' for example - but shows as a 20.

I know for some of my dogs - I have swapped the custom ration over to pet house for show dogs too quickly - only for the coat and muscle traits to go from '20' back to '19'

Any ideas on what is a 'safe' margin?

Sorry for the confusing post.

I stop sessioning coats when they hit 16, muscle when they hit 18 and I typically go from an "Everything" ration to a "Muscle and Condition" ration and then once the last three are 20, I switch to Pet House for Adults.

I never stop sessioning until they reach 20's.

When Condition is 20, whatever the other numbers I switch to Pet ration. I think I've been doing it wrong all these months lol.

I, too session until 20 on everything. I also keep on my 1777 ration until everything is 20 - I should make a coat/muscle ration but I havent done it.

I also don't session past hitting 20 and my dogs have done well at group and BIS levels... I'm not sure I really buy into the rounding up making a difference. Not sure if it's ever been proven or not... I do believe in the decimal sets within dogs' traits though

I have soooooo many custom rations ...


Broodies 0-13 - high fat low everything else
Broodies 14+ - high fat low everything else
Coat 14+ - low meds, medium fat and protein, high vitamin e
Condition 14+ - low meds, medium protein and vitamin e, high fat
Everything 0-13 - low meds, high everything else
Everything 14+ - low meds, high everything else
Muscle & Coat 0-13 - low meds, medium fat, high protein and vitamin e
Muscle & Coat 14+ - low meds, medium fat, high protein and vitamin e
Muscle & Condition 14+ - low meds, medium vitamin e, high protein and fat
Muscle 0-13 - low meds, medium vitamin e, high protein and fat
Muscle 14+ - low meds, medium fat and vitamin e, high protein
No Condition 0-13 - low meds, medium fat, high protein and vitamin e
No Condition 14+ - low meds, medium fat, high protein and vitamin e

I think a few may repeat, but the all get used quite regularly. I don't do the 1777 because I can't ever remember the order of the ingredients.

Astoria & Mournebrake:

I too used to also session everything until it hit 20 - but it was pointed out to me by a long-term player of the game a while ago (I think it was Picardy? or someone else who has been playing for 10+ years) that you can get away with doing it a different way,

I'm currently in 10 different breeds and for each of those breeds the Muscle and Coat always raise their level to 20 faster than Obedience. So when Muscle and Coat are anywhere between 17-19 I remove those traits from my kennel assistant - because at that time their Obedience stat is usually still quite low (anywhere from 16-18 depending on the breed).

Obedience always takes longer to go up - and so quite often you will have that dog on the 'Train' button in your kennel assistants for another 5-10 days depending on how hard your breed is to train. In that time that you are waiting for obedience - the other two traits (muscle and coat) will go up on their own simply by using a good custom ration.

The biggest benefit is you save money on spending those extra session! (Or if you're like me - you have so many dogs being sessioned for the ring that those extra session just go to the next dog waiting in line, haha!)

By doing it this way it has dramatically changed the way I play the game. I have been playing for 9 years and have always done well in my breeds but have never really had 'excessive' or 'high' numbers of dogs finishing their CH title each month. By running my sessioning program differently - I am now able to session a hell of a lot more dogs at the same time - which means I am now gaining titles on more dogs than ever before

And Treestand - WOW thats a lot of Custom Rations, hahaha! You've got you're own little restaurant going on there :P

The only foods I use are:

Pups 1171 = Max fat for condition, low everything else. This is the ration that my brood pups get placed on. Once they reach 13 days of age their condition is at 20 and they get switched to Pet House for Adults to maintain.

Show Pups 1666 = low meds, High everything else.

Show Adults 1666 = same as Show Pups but just the adult version.

Pet house for Adults = is what they are placed on now once all traits are at 20 for showing.

Old Boy = all studs are placed on the cheapest food possible.

OK - what about retirees? I need to keep show obedience at 20 because I'm obedience competing with retired show dogs. Can I switch to Old Boy and if so how quickly will numbers fall?

good question Mournebrake - I'm not sure to be honest - as I don't keep many retirees.

I'm assuming the numbers would fall relatively quickly? Perhaps 0.5 per day? (But thats just a guess).

Some of the other Obedience showers might be able to answer that question better

If condition, muscle, and coat stats don't matter for obedience, you can feed Old Boy with no concerns. I cannot remember how quickly stats drop while on Old Boy.