Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 4:58 pm Post subject: Eating too quickly!!
Some advice please
Amber (the naughty one ) has always been a foody, not uncommon for a lab, I know. Dexter used to go mad and 'snort' his food to begin with, but when he realised there were no other puppies around to compete with him (around 6 months), he started talking it slowly, chewing and enjoying his meals.
Amber finishes her meal in 10 seconds Yesterday she choaked, and I had to whack her on the side several times before a piece of food shot across the room (covered in blood, from all the wreching i presume) - this has happened before, but never for so long. You may think I'm not feeding her enough, but she'd just eat and eat with no limits, so I think I've got the amount just right as she's a nice size, and growing slowly but steadily. She was quite poorly when she was tiny, she had a very persistant Giardia (parasite) infection, and so was very skinny - I'm wondering if this crazy apetite stems back to this?? I feed her in her crate, so that she can't eat Dexter's meal as well, and she doesn't feel like there's any competion.
I'd really like to slow her down a bit, I'm worried about her choaking again - what if I hadn't been able to get it out by thumping her??? And I'd rather not thump her again if possible, not something I enjoyed doing I'm also worried about bloat, assuming that eating that quickly will increase the risk? I've given her wet food before, but she eats that even quicker, she just swallows it all at once - she even eats her sardines whole!!!!! If I take her food away for a 'breather', she just eats even quicker the next time. Surely there must be something I can do to get her to pace herself!!???
I have heard of people putting a tennis ball in the bowl with the food or putting the food in a tray, so they can't wolf it down. Not sure if this would help or not, but might be worth a try.
Becs and the Gang
I don't know how you get them to slow down. Both my girls hoover up their food at the speed of light and always have done.
I was going to say , how about feeding her her dinner in a buster cube type thingy, then it would take her longer to eat it all. But she would probably still gulp the kibble down without crunching, just like mine do .
I think some dogs are just downright greedy and there not much we can do to change it.
Hi Clare,
Leo does exactly the same!
Few days ago he ate his food so fast that he actually choked too.
Recently i purchased some tins to go with his food, and will mix it in with the dry to see if this helps a little.
What i do sometimes is take half the food out of the bowl and stuff it in his kong. I pack it in really tightly so he has to work to get it out.
Also one thing i found which really helped me, was a larger bowl.
I bought a huge bowl. It's absolutely enormous! This way his food is really spread out in the bowl. It takes him a little longer to get it all, and i actually found it helped slow him down, so maybe worth a try for you also?
I sympathise with this - Milo eats like a vacuum cleaner and I can't see this changing, no matter how old he gets (I still say we should have called him Dyson).
One tip I can say works. Both our dogs like vegetables included in their main meal & until recently, I used to chop these up into small bits to include as a mixer. However, to get him to slow down I now keep the bits much larger than normal. For example, I chop a carrot in half rather than into slices & so he has to chew this to swallow it. This doesn't get round the issue of him gulping the other stuff though.
He has regurgitated his food on several occasions but has then eaten it again very quickly, so he's obviously not making himself ill by eating too quickly. I personally think this is just a trait of his which we have to live with so I'm not too worried about the speedy eating overall.
As an aside, his personal record is 8.4 seconds for his main meal - can anyone beat that???
____________ Life is like a box of Labradors - you never know what you´re going to get (or how big it is, or how wet it will be, or how much it will eat, or how loud it will snore.........!!)
Willow did this when she was young- As she was on dry food I just trickled food into the bowl so she couldnt get too much at a time, not that she got much in one go anyway beacause I used to get her to 'work' for most of it.
Rooney was gulping his Omega puppy food down then burping ,Since he was poorly I have since 2 days ago changed his food to jwbeloved and he is actually crunching it and taking his time whilst eating it, I presume he enjoys it better
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) has always been a foody, not uncommon for a lab, I know. Dexter used to go mad and 'snort' his food to begin with, but when he realised there were no other puppies around to compete with him (around 6 months), he started talking it slowly, chewing and enjoying his meals.
Yesterday she choaked, and I had to whack her on the side several times before a piece of food shot across the room (covered in blood, from all the wreching i presume) - this has happened before, but never for so long. You may think I'm not feeding her enough, but she'd just eat and eat with no limits, so I think I've got the amount just right as she's a nice size, and growing slowly but steadily. She was quite poorly when she was tiny, she had a very persistant Giardia (parasite) infection, and so was very skinny - I'm wondering if this crazy apetite stems back to this?? I feed her in her crate, so that she can't eat Dexter's meal as well, and she doesn't feel like there's any competion.
I'm also worried about bloat, assuming that eating that quickly will increase the risk? I've given her wet food before, but she eats that even quicker, she just swallows it all at once - she even eats her sardines whole!!!!! If I take her food away for a 'breather', she just eats even quicker the next time. Surely there must be something I can do to get her to pace herself!!???
.
