Puppy not chewing dog food

[Ann Morscher]

Misty is almost 5 months old. We recently switched her dog food to Solid Gold and she seems to be doing well on it. Our problem is that she does not chew her food at all. She literally inhales it. Right now she is getting a mix of Just a Wee Bit and Wolf Cub. She will be switching over to Wolf Cub shortly. There are no problems with her poop, but she is done eating in 30 seconds. Is this something I should worry about?

She also is eating 3x a day and the dog food bag recommends only 2x a day. I cannot imagine at this point getting rid of the noon meal. She is dancing around the counter at noon on the dot waiting for her food. Is it ok to keep her on 3 meals a day for awhile longer?

Ann

[Mario Niepel]

Ann, the four dogs I really know well all eat their food differently. One deliberately chews food into small pieces, one sometimes does and sometimes doesn't, one takes a mouthfull of food and chews it once or twice and then swalloes and the last one just swallows it without chewing. Neither seems to have any problems from eating the way they do.

If you would like to slow down your dog while eating, there are mutliple ways to do so. You can put the kibble into a kong-type toy. That way only small amounts of food are available at one time to swallow. In addition, these things seem to be a lot of fun for the dogs.

You can also add items to the food bowl that make it harder to get at the kibble. You can use a few tennis or rubber balls. This way your dog will have to root around a little bit in order to grab the food.

I don't really think that there is a major disadvantage for dogs that eat fast (unless of course they gorge themselves so quickly that they throw up).

[Jill Ramsey]

Ann, At least you don't have one that grabs a big mouthful and proceeds to chew, losing most of it on the floor. Then when the bowl is empty, he proceeds to get the rest off the floor. :(

[heathea]

Dogs do not have to chew their food. Apparently they are set up to tear and swallow. I remember reading that at Doggie Door. If you want them to slow down go get a puppy bowl which is very similar to a bundt pan and makes the dog have to work harder to get the food out of the dish.
Take care.
Heather

[aussiesmum]

Ann, At least you don't have one that grabs a big mouthful and proceeds to chew, losing most of it on the floor. Then when the bowl is empty, he proceeds to get the rest off the floor. :(

:rofl:

Occassionally we "hide" aussies food in the livingroom/hallway. She has to run around and find the food. It takes about 5 min, but compared to about 15 seconds. If dogs inhale their food it can make them burp or have gas. Our vet recommended we increase the number of feeds (this was when aussie was a wee thing). She is now 7 mo and we feed 2x a day. Plus suppliment with kongs. You can simply stuff her food in a kong (or 3) and while it doesn't take much work, it does slow the process down.

[Chris Smith]

Nalu basically told me when he no longer needed lunches. There just came a time when I would put down his lunch bowl and he would only take a couple bites or would even ignore it. (and he was a very eager eater). So I stopped lunches at that point. My guess is it was around 5+ months old but it probably varies for the dog and breed.

Regarding inhaling the food, Nalu has also done that quite regularly. Sometimes he will chew it but most times he just swallows (it is dry kibble and I don't hear any crunching sounds). As Mario said, I think it's okay so long as they don't barf it back up!

I bought a kibble dispensing ball to slow down his eating and for him to have to work and think to get his food. He does great with the ball and it can make a meal last for 10-15 minutes (versus 30 seconds). If he has had a lot of exercise that day, I give him his food in a bowl. And the bigger the bowl the better since you can spread out the food (even use a plate). If he is not real tired out, I use the kibble ball and kongs so he has to work to get his food.