Is Your Dog A Speed Eater?!?

We all know that dogs LOVE food, any and all sorts of food for the most part. A large percentage of pups have a normal eating behavior, meaning they eat slow enough to properly digest their food. But what happens when your dog is a speed eater?

First, eating too fast can cause them to choke or gag resulting most often in a nice puke puddle on your floor. On top of that, when a dog literally gulps down their food they are also gulping down large pockets of air and gas that can expand in their tummies. This can cause bloat - when the stomach is filled with extra air or gas and twists in on itself. This is life threatening and will cause shock!

So how can you prevent your dog from eating too fast? There are tons of articles out there that you can Google which will give you various different ways to accomplish this. I'm going to talk about only two different methods, because I use both and know they work!

The first is simple and easy - a slow feed food bowl. These types of bowls come in all different materials, colors, and designs. I always call them "maze bowls" as that's exactly what they look like. Little mazes setup inside a food bowl, with the objective of making your dog work a little harder to get to their food. Essentially slowing him down and preventing those big air gulps!   

For Dice we even put his bowl up on an elevated stand (since he's tall) and this also helps him digest his food better.

However, this method won't work for every speed eater. Some pups get super smart and will just dump their bowl over to get to their kibble - Dice has! So we have a backup plan...

The second method only works if your pup eats dry food. Take your cup of dry food (or however much you feed them) out to your backyard and simply just toss it all over the ground in different spots and let the dog go for it! This method actually has dual functionality - slows downs eating and stimulates their brains! The key is to spread out the food when you toss it, you obviously don't want it in one big pile.

For Dice we continue to go back and forth between both methods. Often times I can tell just from his energy level how eating time will go and which one to use. Use them often enough and you will be able to tell too!

How do you slow down your speed eater?