Can a dog eat too quickly for its own good?

C

Constance

Member
Constance wolfs her food down. I don't know whether this is due to things we don't know from her past. Or whether its breed specific (she's a Boxane = Boxer x Great Dane, but much more GD looking than Boxer). She never begs for food but once given her meal it disappears in seconds and she does hiccup afterward, and have wind! She's 100% blind and almost totally deaf - so maybe her condition provokes this behavior.

I know there are feeding bowls with "baffles" embedded (I think that's the word) which can slow down eating. I'll try one if she needs one - but I thought I'd get some advice from the forum first.
 
Do you have a regular time when you feed her? Since she has no eyesight, for her sake there has to be some kind of way for her to 'know' that yes, the food is coming, and it comes at the same time every day so don't worry. Maybe she has a "when-am-I-going-to-ever-eat-again?" type of anxiety.

If I had a blind dog, I would feed it in the morning when the house wakes up, that way the dog has some sense of when the meal is going to arrive.

When everyone is asleep in the house, no one is walking around, so there is a long period of time when are no vibrations for her to feel, plus she's asleep too. When the house wakes up in the morning and people start stirring about (and she starts stirring about after a long sleep) and she feels those vibrations after a long period of nothing, I think she will come to associate that time with her "scheduled" feeding time. If you just feed her whenever, without a schedule, she has no sense of when the food is coming and maybe that accounts for her ravenous behavior.
 
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.
 
In another post of yours, it sounded like you might have more than one dog in your home. Are you feeding Constance and your other dog near each other? If so, Constance may be afraid her food will be stolen by the other dog. Try feeding her in a separate room where's she's alone with her food.

The slow-down bowls are also a good idea. Not only does it get your dog to eat more slowly, but she has to work for her food, which is what she'd have to do in the wild.
 
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