food aggression??

BIGINNER · Post by **BIGINNER** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:10 am

recently i got two weims, a pup and its mom, mom is a great hunter, and i've been working on obediance with her, she is an amazingly quick learner. one problem i have with her is her food aggression.

she does not snap at you or at other dogs when she eats, i can ceep my hand inside her food bowl while she wats and she doesn't snap. the thing is she really isn't "aggressive", she just eats like its the last meal in her life and she has to inhale everything at once.

usually she starts to gag and throw up when she eats too fast,

what i've been doing for the past week is: i bring her her food, make her sit and wait, once she's calm i put down her food, i'll have her stay and wait a little and wait till she is relaxed, then i'll let her eat, but she still eats like a maniac, so i take her food away after a couple seconds to let the food she inhaled go down, then i'll go through the whole process again several times till her bowl is empty.

the thing thats got me worried is i think my techneque makes her want the food more and makes her even crazier, did anyoone els have experience with this? what did you do to solve it? did you solve it?

thanks for any help

pudeltopointer · Post by **pudeltopointer** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:20 am

Try putting a big ball in food bowl she will have to eat around it.or get one of those cake pan with the ring in center just some ideas that worked for me

4dabirds · Post by **4dabirds** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:12 am

pudeltopointer wrote:Try putting a big ball in food bowl she will have to eat around it.or get one of those cake pan with the ring in center just some ideas that worked for me

I have seen this idea in a commercially available dog dish too bad you got beat to the idea. I have one dog that eats very fast then tries to eat the other dogs food when he is done. I add a lot of water to his food so he has to bob for it and drink the water . It slows him down a lot.

MikeB · Post by **MikeB** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:19 am

I would stop doing what your doing, it isn't working. Your dog is NOT food aggressive, it just eats fast. It could be from something in her early life that may have taught her to eat fast. You would have to talk to the original breeder to see what they know. Most Labs do the same thing. If she is not throwing up her food I wouldn't worry. You could put some water in the bowl, that may slow her down.

Here is also a Brake-fast food bowl you can use too. pretty affective. http://www.brake-fast.net/

BIGINNER · Post by **BIGINNER** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:37 am

MikeB wrote:I would stop doing what your doing, it isn't working. Your dog is NOT food aggressive, it just eats fast. It could be from something in her early life that may have taught her to eat fast. You would have to talk to the original breeder to see what they know. Most Labs do the same thing. If she is not throwing up her food I wouldn't worry. You could put some water in the bowl, that may slow her down.

Here is also a Brake-fast food bowl you can use too. pretty affective. http://www.brake-fast.net/

yeah, i think i'll get something like that, the only thing that bothers me about how she eats is if she eats too fast she starts to gag and throw up,..

DogNewbie · Post by **DogNewbie** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:46 am

In my experience interrupting the meal only makes the dog want to scarf the food faster. I've been dealing with this with my pup as well and after watering down his food for a couple months I finally started giving him dry food again. He was doing great until I stopped him mid meal because I wanted to pick up some kibbles he couldn't reach that had spilled from the bowl and in an instant he was back to scarfing so fast he chokes

Dumb move on my part.

dakotashooter2 · Post by **dakotashooter2** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:03 am

How about putting the food in a large bowl or pan so that it is just a thin layer on the bottom. This wouldn't allow the dog to get big mouthfulls and while it might still eat fast it would be swallowing smaller portions.

I suspect it was competetive conditioning it learned around other dogs. My current pup does a grab and run. It will grab a mouthfull then run off to chew and swallow. He is starting to spend more time at the bowl but I suspect it will still be a little while before that behavior stops.

RoostersMom · Post by **RoostersMom** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:07 am

You can always hand feed her for a while to see if that helps. That does help with food aggression issues - which it does not sound like you have. You have a dog that eats fast. I use a brake-fast bowl for my beagle that eats too fast and if I feed him in the kennel, I just pour his food out on the concrete and spread it out good. That slows him down.

Unsolicited advice: get that pup away from momma and start separate training and crating regimes if you're not already doing that. Limit their interaction or you'll end up with an overly dependent pup - or one that is bonded too much to the other dog and not enough to people. Both dogs will benefit from separate training times and separate play times.

Post by **Sharon** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:29 am

BIGINNER wrote:
MikeB wrote:I would stop doing what your doing, it isn't working. Your dog is NOT food aggressive, it just eats fast. It could be from something in her early life that may have taught her to eat fast. You would have to talk to the original breeder to see what they know. Most Labs do the same thing. If she is not throwing up her food I wouldn't worry. You could put some water in the bowl, that may slow her down.

Here is also a Brake-fast food bowl you can use too. pretty affective. http://www.brake-fast.net/
yeah, i think i'll get something like that, the only thing that bothers me about how she eats is if she eats too fast she starts to gag and throw up,..

Did she inhale her food before the pup came along or did this start after the pup came? Most dogs will eat fast if another dog is around. I would feed them in seperate rooms if this is the ptoblem.

BIGINNER · Post by **BIGINNER** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:46 am

the previouse owners said that she always had this problem,... and i feed all the dogs seperately, she did lose alot of weight after birth though.. but i think thats normal, she is back to her usual healthy weight though

Post by **ezzy333** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 12:06 pm

What you are doing is exactly what I do if a dog doesn't want to eat. When you keep taking it away from here she is thinking I have to eat faster to keep you fromtaking it away. It works for speeding them up but I think you are just enforcing her need to eat fast. Eating fast is something I have not paid a lot of attention to but if you need to slow her down you have some good ways to do it. Anytime I needed to I used a good sized rock in the feed dish. Just a cheap way of doing it compared to buying something.

Ezzy

DonF · Post by **DonF** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 2:13 pm

When I was trialing, I trained my dog's to eat when it was put down. We'd go out and feed them all and ten minutes later we picked up the bowl's, finished or not. Lefty took it personnel. Put his bowl down and he sucked it dry, right now! Then he'd vomit it and eat it slower. It was disgusting but I'msure it was my fault. He's the only one that ever did that.

Ralph Ford · Post by **Ralph Ford** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 6:56 pm

Add warm water to keep them from gagging.

ACooper · Post by **ACooper** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 8:01 pm

Do you have a place you can feed her that is on flat clean concrete? If so just spread her food out flat on the cement that will slow her down some what also.

Stop taking it from her, like was said above you are making it worse.

wems2371 · Post by **wems2371** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:18 pm

My vet suggested feeding one of mine in a muffin pan, so that's what I've been doing, and it works pretty good to slow her he down.

Ralph Ford · Post by **Ralph Ford** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 6:57 am

I don't consider 'monster' eating a problem at all. Way better than a finicky eater.

cjhills · Post by **cjhills** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:42 am

I have a GSP bitch that does the same thing. a few medium sized rocks in her dish and ignoring her solves the problem.
Used to do the same thing with horses.

Munster · Post by **Munster** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:41 pm

Im going through the same issue right now with a 10 week old pup. I am sure it is because she was in a litter of 11.
Problem is I have a phobia now as I lost an 8 week old pup a couple of years ago after it choked on a piece of kibble.

This pup I have here isnt mine(holding it for a friend) so I have been making her food extra soggy. That whole experience was very tramatic for me. Not trying to sound like a sissy, but having one die in your arms leaves a scar.

Anyway, this has been a good thread as now i will put a rock or something in her bowl. I am hoping she just grows out of it.

I think there is a big danger of Torsion/bloat if a dog is a monster eater, am I wrong?

tnbndr · Post by **tnbndr** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:07 am

When I got one of my GSP's at 4 years old, I could not believe how fast she ate. Food flew everywhere, I thought she had been starved but she was in good shape. Found out she had only been fed once a day with other dogs so she was going to be sure she got her food. I switched her to twice a day and put water in her food. Over a year now she has slowed down quite a bit.
Someone had suggested to me to put a coiled up chain in the food bowl so the dog has to eat around it, slows them down.
As the poster above stated, I have heard and read that fast eating can lead to bloat which usually is not a good situation.

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