Kimber eats way to fast! Sometimes he doesn't chew and chokes on his food. I have tried putting tennis balls in his bowl but he just takes them out LoL. What can I do to get him to SLOW DOWN? I was thinking about adding water to his food...Would that help?
Also, I used to feed Cannon in the tray of his crate to help with fast eating (we were feeding him in there anyway for the crate training), and I've read other people throwing the kibble on the floor.
The brake fast bowls do work. I have one for my Sheltie, Scotty, aka Hoover (for the vacuum cleaner!). It slows him down a bit. Otherwise he just "hoovers" it up.
you can also try breaking his meals up into more small meals...like if he gets a cup, give him a quarter cup at a time, let him eat it then a quarter cup more...
when i first got clover he was like this, i thought he was a bit of a piggy too, cuz he would eat as much food as i put out for him as fast as he could, but he was pretty thin when i adopted him...he has now more then doubled in size! and he has slowed way way down with the eating.... kimber probably will too...
the brakefast bowls are great, and you can use puzzle feeders to slow him down a bit too...
someone posted somewhere that adding water to his food can cause bloat...i don't know if it will, but you may want to look into it before you do that...
Sometimes I break her meal up into a training session, but I give her more kibble per trick. So instead of 1 kibble when she "hi fives" she gets 5 or something like that.
A kong...if it's too easy to get out of the kong maybe put the food in a tough tennis ball with a slit in it. Or stuff the kong with something that'd make it a little harder. Maybe put some kibble in an empty water bottle without a lid. That may be a little too hard though, I don't know. Or, Mikey had a good idea with the rocks. If the rocks move too easy glue them down or something.
If I feed him 2 cups a day now. Is it okay to stop feeding him regular meals if I make sure he gets 2 cups during training? I don't know if I would do that but just curious.
For sure. I feed Cannon two 1/2 cups a day and probably another cup of treats throughout the day for training/crate. If he doesn't get that extra cup, he acts like he's starving (he's not an overweight dog, just reeeaaally hyper and burns it off). Mikey's suggestion with a puzzle ball is a good idea. I've thought of doing that for Cannon just to slow his eating even more.
Ok so I am not crazy LoL. I was like How in the Heck do I cut this? I will have my husband do it when he gets home. I am home today because the Kitchen is being retiled.
If I feed him 2 cups a day now. Is it okay to stop feeding him regular meals if I make sure he gets 2 cups during training? I don't know if I would do that but just curious.
If he get 2 cups a day, and let's say you feed him twice a day. You would take 1 cup for a training sessions when you would normally feed him breakfast, and 1 cup when you would normally feed him dinner. I don't really do it because it just doesn't feel right, I mean I know it's the same ammount, but it feels like less, lol. I might take half a cup and train and put the other half cup in his dish, just to make it feel more like a meal, but still make him eat slower with at least half of it. :/
I have a tennis ball LoL I can't figure out how to cut the darn thing open
My gosh! Saws??? It's a tennis ball!:lolsign: Lol, we just ran ours over with a lawn mower! No, seriously, that's how I thought of it, we accidently ran over one with a mower(Man, don't you wish you had the life of a tennis ball?).
Did you try a knife? I just used a regular serrated kitchen knife thats probably older than me.
After 5 minues, here's the finished product:
Put the food in here:
Though, you may want to make a bigger whole, or cut it differently...
Felt kind of bad cutting it up though... I have like 8 of these though.
lol, I am now scared of knives so anything to do with cutting something I get the hubby to do. Earlier this year he hands me a roofing knife to cut a piece of leather of my sandal....turns out those things are extremely sharp and I needed to be rushed to the ER for stiches in my leg hahaha
I've heard that there's something in a tennis ball that's not good for dogs. Not sure just what it is but you might want to make sure you are using a ball for dogs that just LOOKS like a tennis ball.
What I've done with my dog Rhoda to slow down her eating is to put her food in a towel and then fold it over in a bunch of crazy ways. She loves the challenge of getting her food out and she always finds every last bit.
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