Chow Hound

Ruby has always been a food gobbler. She consumes every meal like a Minute To Win It contestant. I don't know if it comes from the days of getting muscled out of the chow line by 7 other puppies, or if it is just a bad habit. It isn't the most charming of habits, that's for sure. Shortly after eating last weekend, she was having issues keeping her food down. This happened with two meals in a row, food so unchewed that with a quick rinse, it could pass for fresh but instead was cleaned up off the floor and thrown away.

Now I'm no pet expert, but the first thing I thought of was that she needs to eat slower. My first attempt at slowing her down came with her early morning meal Monday. I went simple and dropped a tennis ball into her food bowl. When I gave her the OK to eat she was confused, but managed to work around it. Still inhaling instead of chewing, I made her stop several times. She knocked the tennis ball out and I put it back in until the last bit of food was gone. I did some Internet searching that morning for ways to slow her down and found that they make some nifty bowls that have domes or dividers in them. But none of them will fit into her food holder so she can eat at a decent level. And a big dog eating off the floor will also make them puke. So I came up with my own brilliant solution.

It's a small bowl turned upside down inside her big bowl. I wish I could have captured her on video the first time I presented it to her full of food. I gave her the OK and she just stared at it. So I gave her another OK and she looked from me to the bowl in puppy confusion. She finally started to dive in, but was forced to take her time. I think that first day, each meal took her close to 10 minutes to fish every last morsel out of the bowl.

Five days later, I'm still using it and she has adapted well. I actually heard her chewing yesterday for the first time. Hoping it will be just a training tool and she can go back to a regular bowl someday. But for now, this is working nicely.

I recalculated how much she was eating and it turns out it wasn't enough. So part of the reason for the gobbling may have been true hunger. Dr Burk gave me a formula to use as she grows, but I didn't write down a critical component of that, so I've just been guessing. But I found a sweet calculator online that did the trick just fine. I was feeding Ruby about 3 3/4 cups a day and she needed about 5 1/2. She now seems satisfied after a meal so I think all is well.

In other news, Ruby got to run errands with me one night, running kids back and forth to events. She was being very sweet, so I let her ride shotgun. Since she didn't try to climb in my lap, I think she'll be a good co-pilot. As long as there's room for her and we're just scooting around town. Long trips will still have her safely in the way back.



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