Canine question for the braintrust...

Jon Yenulonis

Jon Yenulonis

Well-known member
I've been around dogs my whole life. many of them in all shapes and sizes. For the last thirty some years, we've had Labrador Retrievers. A couple of these dogs were ferocious eaters. Nothing however, like my daughter's 5 month old Chocolate female. I can't imagine a young dog eating, or I should say-try to eat as fast as she does.
At first we tried putting a nice big stone in the dish. Then she got ahold of one of those fancy special dishes with big mound-like rises in the bottom of the dish. As of late she's been using a suction cup thingy for the bottom of the bowl. These helped a bit. However, she still gobbles so incredibly fast that she often vomits soon after eating. Lastly, she's just been putting down a little bit at a time, but that only seems to make it worse.
I'm afraid she's going to do some real damage to her digestive system soon.
Anybody have any other ideas?
Thanks,
Jon
 
The bowl I use has 4 partitions which helps slow my girl down a lot. She's 7 yrs old and this is what I have to do to slow her down. If I find the brand I'll post it up. Good luck.
 
I have seen dishes that have a maze like pattern that is supposed to help. My friend had a Brittany that like that for his entire 14 years with no ill effects. MY current lab ate like that for a while and then got himself a three day belly ache and now eats nice and slow.
 
Our 3 year old lab eats like its going to be his last meal, every meal. He always has. We've resorted to placing a smaller bowl into his feeding bowl and filling that up with the overflow sprinkled around. That slowed him down quite a bit, but every once and a while he still tries to eat like a ravenous slob. When he starts getting crazy, we water down his food a bit as well. This seems to get him back to a reasonable speed. Unfortunately, if you keep that up for too long it also results in a "softer" stool. The boy is just a hog when it comes to his vittles. If you find something else that seems to work for ya I'd love to hear about it too.
Steve
 
Nearly thirteen years ago, when we were picking-up Dugan, Mike Stewart said something at Wildrose's Kennels puppy orientation that caught my attention, " Don't condition a behavior in that you will have to train out later in an English labrador!" At the time I mentally dismissed the notion that English labs were more biddable than our labs. Time has conditioned me to rethink that conclusion. In keeping with the British perspective that all behaviors are a function of heritability, the four English labs we have owned have had amazing "behavioral memories", when compared to the previous five labs that have shared our home with us. Our current youngest dog, Kane, is a gobbler. It took five weeks to retrain him. That said, after asking my wife, the three top responses she hears from clients with dogs that gobble their food are the consequence of:1.) Litter size-big litters usually have more "gobblers", likely as a consequence of too many bodies fighting for food. 2.)How the breeder fed the pups. Did they seperate the puppies out into feeding groups, or just let everyone have a go at a central food dish. 3.) How long the pups were together, prior selling them out to clients. She firmly believes that most behavioral traits related to "who am I" are acquired in the first seven weeks of a puppy's life, particularly for labrador retrievers. She is not a fan of using the physical barrier approach to achieve a longterm change in feeding rate, since she thinks these dogs are already conditioned to gobble food due to competition and quantity of total food per cycle restrictions with their litter mates, increasing anxiety in the dog. All you achieve is slowing their rate of ingestion, not ammending their negative behavior. If her "read" on the client is that they have no patience or resolve to put the time in to recondition the dog; recommend a physical barrier type food dish or adding physical restriction/impediment "stuff" to their food bowl-usually a Kong toy or two. If the client is committed to altering their dog's behavior long-term when eating, she recommends dividing their total daily ration into several smaller meals and hand feeding these to the dog over a series of weeks, essentially attempting to condition the dog to accept that food is not limited in frequency or quantity when it is available. If you go this route, do it the same way every day. Hand feeding a couple pieces of kibble to a dog like this as a behavioral reward also really reinforces a habit or command, since they are already conditioned to focus on food and its availability as a major daily event and reward. One thing to keep in mind with a new puppy that eats this way...it likely took several weeks to condition the negative feeding behavior in, so altering it will take at least as long an interval. For an animal that is going to give you at least a decade of enjoyment and service, isn't it worth the effort?
 
Jon,

Another option is a large bowl so the kibble is spread out in a single layer, the pup cannot get as big of mouth full.

I second the comment about not creating habits you will have to untrain later. I always told clients the easiest problem to fix is the one YOU never create.

I hope your daughter has fun with her pup!

Tom
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top