I bought a treat ball for Thistle on Saturday-you know one of those that you can put treats in and they roll it round trying to get it out. I put all her lunch in it (she's on dry puppy food) and she spent 15 mins eating her lunch instead of the usual 15 seconds. My Mum says I'm cruel and she shouldn;t have to work for her meals. What do you think?

I think your Mums right how would you like to eat your meal like that ? these toys are designed to keep dog occupied whilst alone or at playtime you obvously havent dealt with a food aggressive dog,making food an issue is dangerous thing,theres main pleasures in a dogs life and one is food and treats are treats and meals are meals and should not be confused!! some people think it fun to balance a treat on a dogs nose and also think its funny to see the dog slavering and waiting to be told he can have it !! mind boggling

Mattie
Thank you for your advice. I don't know if I'm being over sensitive but I found your tone a bit unfriendly. I'm a new dog owner and that's why I'm asking for help, so I find things like 'how would you like...' and 'you've obviously never had to deal with...' a bit hurtful.
I'm trying to do the best for my puppy and not to be cruel to her. People are always saying that Labs get bored easily and I thought maybe it was a way of giving her some stimulation, but I wasn't sure so I asked for help.
Jane

Sorry didnt mean to come over brusque forgive me I had to have a Rescue dog put down recently with food aggression the breeder had advised the owner to keep taking food away from him to teach him what i dont know ,anyway always let them have the treats and the treat balls are good but meals should actually be eaten fairly quickly ( i believe) I saw it somewhere that what they dont eat in so many seconds they dont need not sure if its true or not. Good Luck anyway

Dear Mattie
Apology accepted. It's just that I'm a bit sensitive about doing the best for my puppy. I've read quite a few of your other messages and now I can see you're actually not a miserable old git, so friends again now hey?
Jane

hey less of the Old LOL

alright young git then?

I don't think people who teach their dogs tricks are as awful as you make them sound. I know LOTS of dogs who LOVE to perform. For example when I was teaching Chelsea to catch she (by her OWN choice) wouldn't eat the treat if she missed. Or she would pick it up and try to toss it to herself. She LOVED to catch! I never once witheld a treat from her for not catching. She did it herself. She wanted me to throw it till she got it.

Same with some dogs when they catch on to the idea of the treat on the nose.

As for the treat ball, in some cases it IS advised to put the dogs meal in it if you are concerned with a dog eating too fast.

Wendy

Yes I think ideas vary - for example, we forget often that dogs are usually bred to do a task or a job, and probably the majority of pet dogs are very, very understimulated, which one could argue is cruel.

My BAnya adores her Buster Cube, she gets some of her food put in there, but I would say about a quarter of her food allowance. She really loves it and needs the stimulation. IN the wild a dog does have to work very hard for food.

She also loves her Kong and one of her highlights is when we stuff it and she has to get her treats out.

If she was bored out of her brain, (and sadly some dogs do get like this because of varius reasons - maybe left home alone or whatever :( ) then i have to say I feel it is kinder to give them a "puzzle " to work out. Dogs are supposed ot use their brains but few get the chance.

Perhaps if you feel uncomfortable about it, consider feeding your dog twice a day, and give her one meal in the Ball, and one in her bowl!!! HOwzzat for compromise?! <g>

Lindsay your advice sounds good to me. Let's face it in the wild they would have to search for their food, this is just a more fun way. My dog adores getting her food from her toy, although I must admit I only use it as a treat.

Hi Wendy I am not against dogs learning tricks if thats what people want to do with their dogs thats fine I teach my dogs to stand for showing with a reward,but dogs want their dinner and its not a treat a meal is one thing they shouldnt have to perform for maybe im alone in this I dont know,but the rescued Lab I mentioned above was only two but such an issue had been made of food,taking it away half eaten and if he growled not giving him the rest etc.. that a beautiful dog was ruined he was so bad that we couldnt rehome him we tried but nothing worked he was so obsessed by food and the thought of it being taken away he would have killed for it ,I had to sit and talk gently to him whilst he went to sleep for the last time and it broke my heart and Ill never forget it,anyway thats why Im against the meal being worked for, hope that explains it.

Thanks, I do understand your view better now. That must have been an awful thing to do. I believe the point the behaviourist was trying to make is to show the dog that you are in control of the food and not him (alpha dog thing) however, it obviously didn't work in your guy's case due to whatever background he had come from. I am so sorry:(
Thanks for sharing why you feel the way you do.
Wendy

So sad what we do to dogs, many are misguided as people worry about the food guarding thing, but don't really understnad what they are doing, and also that dogs do think differentnly!

The poor Lab you had in Rescue was a victim of what i call "Idiotic Owner Abuse". i am sure you know Mattie, that the best way to teach a dog to accept people round its food bowl and not to guard is to put really extra nice treats in the bowl as the dog eats, that way it looks forward to people near its bowl. More difficult with a poor lad who has been disturbed to start with, and as you say some never get over it :(

I do admire you for the work you do, right in the thick of it and coping with and beingupset by the difficult and sad cases.

Firstly I agree with Mattie a dog's meal is his meal, don't mess about with it. As the other poster said, if using a treat ball or cube make sure what you put in it is part of his or her daily allowance or the dog will get fat..... especially if it is like my Rosebud. Rosebud taught herself how to use a ball or a cube very quickly, but sadly not the way it was intended! She would push it up against something then lay with a paw on the top and push it over so the hole was downwards. Next she roll it back up and surprise there was a treat! She could empty one of them so quickly it had to be seen to be believed.
I always reccommend to puppy owners, that if they have a clever gundog puppy, they should be prepared to train it so it is obedient and also teach it to do other things as well. Gundogs and collies in my experience need that extra stimulation mentally.
Good luck with your puppy and I am glad you have asked us, if more people did there might be less in rescue!

I see that in Zoos they try and make the animals work at getting their food, its called enrichment. I jnow our dogs have a bit more interest in their lives, but some not much. What is wrong in having to work at getting the food a little. I know some kennelled sporting dogs that are gready get their food scattered in their grass runs so that they have to find it.

If the dog is greedy then I see no harm in making them slow down, as their food is concentrated, and 15 seconds of wolfing does not sound like pleasure to me. My dogs don't eat that fast, and two have/are quite picky, if they had to work at getting theirs they wouldn't bother!
The other two could probably do with something like this, but I don't as I would not know who ate what! If I had an only greedy dog I would use one.

Try asking Wqolves and wild carnivores how easy they come by their meals?

I read your post a few times to get the gist of it,are you saying that an animal is greedy if it eats fast? I know lots of poaple who eat fast,also mostly adult dogs get one meal a day and bearing in mind if they share a house with you seeing you eat breakfast,lunch,dinner and even supper they get one or maybe two meals so how can we blame them for bolting it down,then if they are a kennel dog the main pleasures are excercise and thier food so there again excitement and gulp!! yes wolves have to fight for food but dogs are so domesticated now how would they know that,we have them in our homes,riding in our cars,treat them as our best friends how could they forage for food unless they were starving,its alright us saying in the wild this and in the wild that but they are not in the wild are they?

It's an interesting question about this stimulation thing. The puppy I've got is a really bright little gundog strain (lab retriever), so what can I do to keep her mind active?
I've been told to restrict exercise because of hip displasia, and there's only so much training you can do with a puppy. There are 6 of us in the family and we all give her loads of attention, but I can see she's still a bit bored. I take her to puppy classes and she loves it. Is there a book with puppy games in it?
Jane

how old is your puppy Jane?

Dear Mattie
She was born on27/06/01
Jane

Jane

I taught my gundog (weim) loads of tricks using a clicker to keep her brain busy. Now she know's so many tricks that when she's trying to learn a new one she runs through all the ones she already knows hoping that will get her the treat :rolleyes: She's 3 years old now and I'm still thinking of new tricks as well as training my 9mth pup.

Once I had established the sit, down, roll over, stay, wait, recall I then moved on to once she was in the down position I would teach her to cross her front paws I say "cross your paws", put her chin to the ground when I say "chin", then in the sit position I taught her to wave by saying "wave" and using my right hand to wave if I want her to use her right paw and vice versa, "gimme five" and put my hand up so she can slap it with her paw, I've taught her to speak, I say "speak" and she barks - still working on the quiet though :rolleyes: The list is endless and it's kind of hard to explain it on a message board but hopefully this will give you a few ideas on tricks. My next one is to teach her to put her toys away in her bucket.

With regards to her meals she and my other male weim get 2 meals a day, I put their food down and do make them sit and wait for 5 or 6 seconds then they scoff the lot and lick each other's bowls just incase a teeny bit has been left ;-) I don't think they should necessarily have to chase a ball to get their dinner but I do think it is a good idea that they wait to be told when they can eat, after all I'm their pack leader and I find this helps establish that.

Lots of luck with your tricks and enjoy it. I always say to my two come on then lets do some trick and treating and their faces light up :D

Dear Claire
It all sounds like great fun and I'm going to try some of your suggestions with Thistle. I think I can work out how to do them except the 'speak' one . How did you teach your dog to bark to order?
Jane

:rolleyes: Ignore me ...just having brain failure

Hi

They can be used to slow down a dog eating too fast as well as keeping them occupied

I wouldn't feed every meal this way but if you puppy does eat very quickly the ball can be used to make her take more time

Tried one with one of my dogs & he managed to pick it up & shake the food out & the others ate it :)

Labs are on the list of dogs prone to bloat or gastric dilatation-torsion (GDV). One of the suspected causes of bloat, though numerous studies have failed to come up with any direct correlation to any specific causes, is gulping food and thus swallowing large amounts of air along with the food, especially in large dogs.

I do know that many large dog owners take specific care in ensuring that their dogs eat several small meals throughout the day and that the food is made less capable of being gulped, in some cases putting a large smooth rock or upturned bowl in the middle of the food so that the dog must eat slower as it eats around the object. Further, since there appears to be a suspected connection between the angle of the stomach and the backbone, some owners feed their dog on elevated stands, bringing the food up from the floor to a level closer to the dog's chest.

In any event, I would probably do as suggested and feed the puppy/dog several small meals and put one of them in the ball so that the puppy/dog receives both mental stimulation and slows down.

Just as an aside, I do know that doctors recommend that people prone to gastric upsets slow down when eating instead of 'eating in a hurry and running' off to the next item on their agenda.

You might find these links to be informative: What Is Canine Bloat?, Canine Bloat - St. Bernards and Canine Bloat, as well as Doberman Health Bloat Information and Links for various publications.