Hi Gillian. Yes, I do agree in adult dogs (and cats!) that free feeding is harmful. My only ‘tweak’ on this is that I am quite happy to start a puppy on free feeding as long as the aim is to establish meals once they are eating well.
As for fussy cats, I’ve definitely seen healthy cats starve when presented with very novel food textures so while Kim is probably right most of the time, I can’t agree always.

So many times I tell people their pet is not fussy but they have trained their owners well – the look on their faces is that I obviously do not understand their pet at all.
When mine do it , I just assume they are not particularly hungry at that time (obviously I watch to see there are no health issues and they eat normally the next time)
Dr Spanner do you find the complaint of fussy pets more with a history of Free Feeding – when the pet has access to dry food freely as well as having set meals?

It’s the first question I ask – “does you pet have free access to dry food all day” I find most people say yes – once we get rid of free feeding, the “fussiness” subsides