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I had a labrador x beaceron who would wolf his food. We tried a bowl with baffles and it worked for him. The base of the bowl had raised shapes in an irregular pattern. Food, once placed in the bowl, arranged itself around these shapes and the dog had to sort of eat around them.

Thank you for those links @Vinny - both were very informative. I'm going to start watching out for the sequence of signals as you mention above and the orientation signals that I read about on the Doggie Residence blog with a focus on head postion and movement.

I'd love to discuss dog body language because it is such an important method of communication. However, there is so much written about it, so many dog owners put their own interpretation on what their dog is "saying" that it can get confusing. There are obvious things like the baring of teeth...

I think you have a good point there @Jade - it could depend on the individual dog and its personality. Maybe it is breed-related also. Of the 5 dogs I've had, the 2 that seemed to be "self-aware" were both terriers (a westie and a cairn), the other 3 were a gun dog (labrador x), a hound...

I've often wondered if the quality of the walk for a dog is diminished when walked in a group. But as dog walkers are a sort-of dog daycare I'd hope that the owners would walk their dogs after work. If the walk in a group with a dog walker is the only kind of walk a dog gets during the day then...

@Savile - I'm officially jealous of you and completely inspired! I always loved making my dogs comfortable and can fully understand that work as a dog groomer is a labor of love. I'm not bothered about learning the set styles for certain breeds, just in making the dogs comfortable.

I've been a language teacher in this life but have loved grooming. Three of whom didn't need much doing except claws trimming, but two of them had long, curly hair which matted easily. Are there any dog groomers here? I'm sure they have some great tales to tell. I once trimmed my poor little...

Hi @HereSadie - can you explain what the appointment is for exactly? Who with - a sitter, walker, groomer or vet tech - and why? I love that pun by the way - "pet peeves" ;)

The cost depends on where you shop @Savile. I have a butcher who saves the "odds and ends" for me and I buy vegetables at the end of the market day when they are being sold off. Another cost-saving factor is (in my experience) that dogs are satisfied with less volume of food on a raw diet.

I have a neighbor with a King Charles Spaniel who rarely barks and when it does it's not at all loud. It could be due to his nature that he barks so infrequently. Spaniels generally seem to be calmer dogs than, say, terriers.

It fascinates me - I've had five dogs and three of them didn't seem to recognize the reflections as themselves, they also didn't "watch" TV. The other two seemed to be self-aware in front of a mirror and they were both fascinated by the TV and would look behind it occasionally as though...

The standard self-awareness test is how we respond to our own reflection in a mirror. Nine-month-old babies don't recognize themselves apparently, they see another baby. They don't know that THAT baby is them. This self-awareness in front of a mirror for humans starts at about age 2 years. In...

@MeriYa I feel your passion there! What interests me is when you say "Can you imagine how we would feel in a week if we could not tell time? Society as we know it would not be able to function." - there are societies who do not use time as we in the west or the (so-called) developed world use...

What an interesting discussion. I certainly never wondered if my dogs could "tell the time" but I'm pretty certain they had a sense of routines and the rhythms of a day. They seemed to adapt to the different routines of a weekend in comparison with weekdays. One thing that does fascinate me is...

Hello @Savile - I don't find the raw diet any more expensive than the best quality processed foods I used to buy, it does take more time though (shopping and preparation). The problem is the lower quality processed foods for dogs that fill the dog up quickly but are not nutritionally sound or...

There's been a lot of discussion about processed pet foods over recent years. I've come to the conclusion that commercial dog food is "fast food" for dogs. Just as I wouldn't give myself a Big Mac with fries each and every morning and the same each night so I re-thought how I should feed my...

The whole notion of therapy dogs is brilliant. I've seen a few such visits and the way that people who are lonely, in pain, tired, withdrawn from the world for whatever reason respond to the nudging muzzle and bright eyes of a dog is a joy to watch. People who are otherwise very happy, have lots...

@Jade - thank you, I hope we gave him a good home. I think we did. We got a lot out of having him in the family. But it was a huge shock when the aggression began after we sincerely felt we'd got to know the dog before adopting him. Talking about anthropomorphism, one dog trainer I knew started...

It's true that some people use them without inconveniencing others @HereSadie but out on open trails is different to being on sidewalks. Away from other people I can see how such a lead would give the dog a bit more freedom to roam harmlessly while being controlled. But in other situations, I...

I'm not talking about training leads - but those retractable leads that come wound up in a plastic box/handle with a button to lock or re-wind or let out the lead. They are a bit of a bug-bear for me especially when walking along a pavement and somebody has a dog on such a lead and the dog is...