Extremely fast feeding

[elmwood]

My question pertains to our puppies eating their allotted food amount quickly. Being 13 and 9 wks old, we feed them about 1 cup and.5 cup, respectively. I am not sure how long this should usually take but they scarf it down in about 1-2min, if I am lucky. We try to slow them down because we are unsure if there are consequences from this behavior. I understand they might choke, or possibly upset their stomach, but are their any consequences from eating fast?

 

[gmacleod]

There can be. Extremely fast eating is a factor that increases the risk of bloat (gastric dilutation-volvulous) which can be fatal.

If you want to slow them down, two ways of doing it are either to put a couple of large rocks in their food bowls (too large to be swallowed!) that they will have to eat around; or to dispense with food bowls altogether and give them their kibble spread out on a towel. LOL - you can't gulp it if you have to pick up each piece individually

 

[Jill's boxer]

Great suggestions Gmac! I have heard of the rock idea but not the towel!

**Another thought--I would separate them when they are fed, it might slow them down if they are not worrying that the other will "steal" their food. Place them at opposite ends of the room or something...

 

[Mollie_T]

I have a friend that would put a tennis ball into her dog's bowl to slow him down, they'd work the same as the rocks that were mentioned. He eventually caught on & would throw the ball out of the bowl though

 

[hodessj1981]

Stella is 3 mo. and does the same thing...inhales everything that is placed into her food bowl. She figured out how to pick up the rocks from the bowl, put them on the kitchen floor and then go back to eating a quickly as ever. We will have to try the towel idea; it will hopefully slow her down a bit. My question is how long do we use the towel before we can go back to the normal bowl for feeding
Thanks

 

[gmacleod]

Possibly never. It's not actually a training technique - it's a preventative measure. A way of forcing the dog to eat slower, since she has to pick up each kibble individually. It would depend entirely on whether or not your dog ever learned to slow down voluntarily, or whether she was eating slower solely because she had no choice.

 

[boxerali]

I have also put the food in the individual cups of a muffin tin and it has helped to slow down the dogs.