Food Gobblers & Dog Food Bolting
Everyone knows dogs love food where ever they can get it. From the counter, from the kids at the table and even from the garbage cans. And dogs do follow their ancestral wolves, dingos and coyotes in that their system is designed to take one and if lucky two big meals a day. However, they are not designed to have a huge bowl of processed kibble that requires no work on their part to eat. Because of this and other factors including competition, some dogs have developed the annoying and dangerous habit of bolting their food.
These ‘gobbling goblins’ are a danger to themselves by setting them up for bloat or choke and vomiting up their food and thus losing weight and suffering from poor nutrition. If you are not home, bloat and choke can be life threatening to your dog and no one likes to come home to a pile of ABCD (already been chewed & digested) dog food in the hallway.
To help your wolfing dogs, there are many products from dishes with built in obstacles and ‘toys’ you fill and your dog has to push it around to get food to drop out. Or there are timed dishes that will let out small amounts over a period of time so your dog can’t scarf it all down. If you are at home you can also slow a dog down by scattering their food or use feeding time as training time and give them kibble for rewards. Another idea from Debbie here in the office was to put the bowl on a cookie sheet so the whole bowl slides around and your speed-eating demon dog has to chase it around for their dinner.
If you have a dog that has these issues, the worst thing you can do is do nothing. Having a dog or puppy that bolts it’s food can be a real challenge, but once you find a system that works, you and your dog can rest easy knowing they will stay healthy and well during dinner time. This really is a situation where an ounce of prevention will be worth a pound of cure.
If you have a system that works for you and your dog we would love to hear it. Please comment below so others can learn from your experience.