Our littlest dog eats too fast. He runs in at dinner time and scarfs down his little kibbles so fast that he sometimes chokes because he neglects to chew. My sister, a pre-vet student at Kansas State University, informed us that there are several solutions to this dilemma.
Did you know they make special bowls for dogs like Indy with eating disorders? (http://brake-fast.net/index.htm) Eating too fast causes bloating (Gastric Dilatation/Volvulus is the technical term), vomiting, and other nasty symptoms.
According to the pre-vet student it can make a poor doggie's stomach swell due to the extra air ingested (called distending) and causes irregularity. The website for the doggie bowls says that when that happens the stomach can volvulus, which means that the stomach can twist. If you saw Marley and Me you'll know that in older dogs, volvulus can be a life-threatening condition. (If you haven't seen the movie I recommend it...great performance all around).
A second solution (and less expensive than the special bowl) is to place a ball in the bowl of the aggressive eater. So Indy now has a racketball in his bowl. He seems to manage eating around it, still pretty quickly but much slower than before, and as an added bonus our other older dog Norman no longer licks the bowl after Indy is through.
Another added bonus, according to the pre-vet student, is that their puny little minds are stimulated while consuming their food. They have to scrounge around the ball to get at their kibble.
Thinking about this situation broadly I come to some interesting connections between humans and man's best friend. How many people just mindlessly scarf their food in front of the television? Whether snacking after school and watching the tube, eating a TV dinner and sipping soda, or munching popcorn at the movies, a lot of what Americans do is mindless eating. We don't even think about it. I mean, what are the movies without popcorn?
Our oral fixation is a little ridiculous. I think the reason we continue to battle obesity in this country is directly related to technology use. Technology seems to keep us in the same place all the time (or much of the time).
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