Not at ALL Picky Eater - re Slow Feeder Bowls

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Its kind of refreshing to post a discussion about a doodle with an eating problem that ISN'T about being picky. I know I've been a part of those discussions myself, more than once, with Miss Picky Pants, Lucy. Now we have Oscar, who is the polar opposite of Lucy. He inhales his food, sometimes literally. If allowed, he'll eat so fast it immediately all comes back up. Therein lies the problem. I've tried 2 different slow eater methods, one the Brake-Fast bowl, and the other, a large ceramic ball you place in the food bowl. The first works, but only if I put a couple Tbls. of food behind the 'protrusions' at at time, which means having to stand there and wait until Oscar has finished and then put a couple more Tbls. in. This can take 4-5 'courses' with me standing watch over the bowl the entire time. The ceramic ball, the Omega Paw Portion Pacer, doesn't slow Oscar down enough. The meal still comes back up with it.

The silver lining in all of this is that Oscar is EXTREMELY food motivated. At his first puppy class last night the trainer was amazed at how Oscar sat facing me the ENTIRE class, his undivided attention on me, waiting for the next treat. He would do back flips, I think, for a treat. The other puppies were distracted, barking at one another and totally unfocused on their owners.

Back to eating fast, my question is, with those of you with 'problem' eaters like Oscar, what have you found to work the best? I saw this funny looking feeder online and I'm very tempted to get one. The price is very high and the thing would be a bear to clean (with Oscar's current 3 feedings a day I'd be hand washing it twice a day and washing it in the dishwasher every night). http://www.pamperedpawgifts.com/products-dog-bowls.html

I can't imagine feeding Oscar the way I currently am for the rest of his life. Its such a bother. Any suggestions are welcome and MUCH appreciated! Oh, BTW, we've also tried a food dispensing ball that rolls around on the floor. It didn't work well at all on our hardwood floors. I've only tried one, and maybe there are some that work better on smooth surfaces?

[F, Calla & Luca]

What does Oscar eat? If it's raw food or something like that than all this washing may be necessary. Also, some dogs are more sensitive to dust mites or things. But my two get dry kibble and I wash their bowls, by hand every few days. I haven't found it necessary to do it more often. When I chided my son once for not rinsing a water bowl he was filling for the dogs he reminded me what dogs have been known to drink: )

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

As I mentioned when responding to Adina's post, I'm currently moistening Oscar's food with water. I can stop that though any time. That would certainly make the Green 'blades of grass' feeder look more appealing.

[Julie and Charlie]

I've mentioned this before, but I like the Omega Paw Tricky Treat ball. It's somewhat soft and won't damage my hardwood floors when Charlie rolls it out of the kitchen. 

I like the Bob-A-Lot too, except that one's noisy and is more apt to do damage, especially to my refrigerator and dishwasher when he's beating it with his paw. 

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Thanks, Julie. I'll look into these dispenser toys and see if they're an option.

[Amy, Cubbie & Ollie]

What happens when you feed Oscar small amounts of kibble at once?  will he chew or just swallow it all?  We went through this with Ollie.  We used the feeder ball (ours was stainless steel) and found it worked best in a smaller bowl so there was less room for the ball to move around.  We siimply poured in the kibble and put the ball on top and that was it.  There are many different types of feeder toys that we have used too.  I'm at work now but i'll try to find links to them later.  Another method that we used to use was to put the food in small little piles in the hallway.  He would eat one pile at a time.  Sometimes it was just a piece or 2 or 3 of kibble in one pile.  It was a bit of a pain but it slowed him down.  He still eats a LOT faster than Cubbie and doesn't really chew all his food, but he doesn't throw it up anymore. 

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Oscar doesn't chew his kibble. He just takes mouthfuls and swallows. I used the slow feeder ball in a small bowl and it wasn't a challenge for Oscar at all. I had such high hopes for it :(

Small piles of food spread all over the house would definitely slow Oscar down. It doesn't address the other issue I have with it being so labor intensive on my part. The Brake-Fast bowl slows him down too. I'm trying to get away from hovering over his bowl for the entirety of his meal. Thanks, though, for your suggestions.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

LOL, Debb, that link was for the same thing I was going to recommend. That would be guaranteed to slow me down, lol! I think the dog would be exhausted by the time he'd gotten half of the food out of it.

I found this: http://www.eatslowerpetdishes.com/

Reading their info, I was struck by the part about the food being spread out in a single layer and not "stacked" up:

"Food that is not stacked up requires your dog to use his/her tongue, lips and teeth to get the food.

This increases eating time and changes eating style.  Your dog can’t just grab a mouthful of food out of the bowl and gulp it down"

This actually makes a lot of sense to me. So I started thinking, what if you fed the dog from a really wide, flat dish, like a huge pie pan or even a cookie sheet? I wonder if that would help, or if you need the divided sections.

[F, Calla & Luca]

It seems to me that would definitely do some slowing down at least.

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Thanks, Karen, I'll try the cookie sheet suggestion. I need to shop around for one, as mine don't have edges. The bowl in the link you provided looks interesting. I'm a little skeptical though, as any dish that has such open spaces will be very easy for Oscar to get mouthfuls at a time. Even with hiding the kibble behind the protrusions of the Brake-Fast feeder is little challenge for him, but it does slow him down enough to prevent regurgitation. That green feeder with it's 'blades of grass' is looking better to me all the time. The dogs in the video go through the same motions as Oscar with his Brake-Fast. Seems Oscar just needs more protrusions for a larger quantity of food.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I think with that divided dish in the link I posted, the idea is to spread out the food inb all the different sections so that it's all lying in a single layer, each piece lying on the bottom of the bowl, and then they can't get a mouthful, partly because the food isn;t "piled up" and I think partly because of the difficulty of navigating all the angles of the sections. If they had a money back offer, it might be worth trying. But a cookie sheet would be worth a try I think.

[Carolyn Shusterman]

  

[Carolyn Shusterman]

Debb, the 'Jelly Roll' pan has edges on all four sides.  It is a little smaller then the cookie sheet, but should work beautifully for Oscar.