Too Fast Eating for Boris

Boris and Leon are good friends. They have their occasionally yips and yaps at each other, but they are probably the best together as far as sharing and playing. Boris has been so understanding about the sharing, that he allows Leon to go into his food bowl. I discourage this and have Leon leave it. Recently, I noticed that Boris threw up his breakfast on two days in a row.

I realized that he was eating too fast, in order to ingest all his food before brother Leon would wander over. This is no good for two reasons. The first reason is Boris as a growing puppy needs to eat his food in peace. The second is that vomiting can cause very serious issues with your dog.

So in addition to monitoring them for now during meals, I have been teaching Boris how to eat slowly. Truth to tell, I always thought Boris ate a little too fast like a little piranha. Food used to fly everywhere, so he has gotten better than he was when he fist came here.

With Boris, the best way has turned out to be lured sits in between mouthfuls. I hold the full bowl in my hand, have Boris sit, then throw one mouthful into the bowl with the release word.   That way instead of inhaling food too quickly with air and then throwing up, Boris is instead eating slower.   There are some products on the market that have a stem in the middle of the bowl which is supposed to slow down eating.   You can also put a smaller bowl upside down in the middle of the larger dog dish to slow down eating.

 

I prefer to use this time to put in a little training with Boris.   Since I have spent so much time with my clients and the competition coming up, Boris and Leon's training has slacked off.   So any small additional time, such as his feeding time, is a bonus.

 

http://www.mannerlymutts.com

http://mannerlymutts.blogspot.com