Does your dog try to inhale his food too?

[Source: Orvis.com]

I'd be willing to bet that Brady could win a pie-eating contest...or a contest eating anything, for that matter. Brady is not what you would call a picky eater. In fact, I haven't found anything yet that he won't eat. I think that this is partially a result of the fact that he doesn't give himself the opportunity to taste what he puts in his mouth. A bite of anything you give him is gone in 0.5 seconds. A bowl full of food - maybe 2 minutes. Cooper, on the other hand, likes to inspect and then enjoy his food. When you give Cooper something new to try, he puts the food down, sniffs it, does a little dance around it and occasionally throws the piece of food up in the air a few times and then proceeds to eat it slowly. Brady thinks this is a huge waste of time.

Fortunately, Brady has slowed down a bit with age, although he's still finished with his meals a few minutes before Cooper. When Brady was younger, however, we had to find a way to combat his fast eating. Eating too fast can make dogs sick or worse, can put them at risk for a potentially fatal condition known as gastric bloat. Several companies have come up with a great dog bowl design that helps to slow dogs down while eating (just Google "dog bowl for fast eaters" and you'll find several listings) - the most common design features a set of 3 plastic cones that stick up in the middle of the bowl. The cones force dogs to maneuver around the cones in order to get to their food - slowing down the eating process. While using his special bowl, Brady was still able to eat faster than Cooper, but at least it prevented him from inhaling his entire meal in two bites. We ordered our special bowl in a size Medium from Orvis, and it stood up pretty well to the test of a large Labrador. I do have to throw up one caution - the bowl is made from plastic and will show teeth marks - if you have a chewer in your household, I'd be sure to put the bowls up after mealtime.