Shila (the dog) has always been a fast eater and I never thought much of it until one of my friends' dogs passed away from bloat. After reading about it I became concerned about Shila's ability to inhale food. She is a food crazed dog...I mean literally, she lives and breathes food. Which I guess is most dogs but I swear she is the most insane about food. When she knows that either one is getting up to get her breakfast or dinner, she will do the happy dance which is to jump up and down and run in circles repeatedly. Funnily enough she never gets dizzy! She is now programmed to go in to a down stay but still has her days when her restless legs win her over and she's doing the irish jig until her food gets in front of her face.
It was about 6 months ago I had heard about a food bowl that forces dogs like Shila to eat slower. I did some research but was wary of whether it worked or not. These bowls have prongs sticking up from the base forcing dogs to work for their food. As Shila approaches her yearly vet visit where the vet will inevitably move her in to the "Senior" category (gulp) I decided that I really should try to delay her mortality (sorry to be so direct) by trying this bowl out.
I looked online and found brake-fast which makes said bowls. Within about a week, I got the it in the mail.
And the verdict? On a regular bowl, she finishes her heaping scoop within 1 minute and 20 seconds. Brake fast bowl? 2 minutes and 40 seconds. I'll take it!! Of course I'm worried that she's going to get better and better at figuring out how to eat out of the bowl and may inevitably increase her 'inhaling' time but I'm hoping the bowl will naturally not increase her speed by that much.
If you have a fast dog eater on your hands, you may want to try this bowl out. I got the medium size and it only costs about $15.
~k
4 comments:
Thanks for the tip, we may need it down the road. Good luck with Shila!
My girlfriend's dog woofed her food down (pun intended) and they got her the same thing. Luckily both our dogs are grazers. The vet told us grazing is bad for them, but I beg to differ. When we gave them their food twice a day they (who are already skinny dogs) lost a whole lot of weight! Dogs, I tell you...
That's a great bowl! We used to have a dog that ate like that, but our current dog is a SLOW eater. Totally crazy. Some mornings she'll just walk away from it.
Ally
Thanks Lori ann! Hopefully Owen won't need it.
It's so funny Lauren...I heard the exact opposite. I heard that grazing is actually better for dogs. I tried that with Shila but she eats the whole thing in one gulp. Oops. :)
Ally, Taz is kind of like that too. He's also a crazy picky eater!
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