Dogs stare up at owner, waiting oh-so-patiently for the magic word to eat

Dog food commercials love to include images of dogs eagerly gobbling up their brand of food, but eating too quickly can actually be dangerous for dogs.
"Speed eating can cause choking, gagging [and] vomiting," writes Karen London, certified animal behaviorist and columnist for The Bark. Dogs who eat quickly are gulping a lot of air with their food; the air trapped in the stomach can lead to a painful condition called canine bloat. Even worse, notes London, the stomach can expand to the point that it twists, cutting off blood circulation to vital organs and causing an agonizing death within hours.
Advertisement
There are many tactics that will help your dog eat more slowly: spreading the food over a wide area, feeding many small meals instead of one or two large ones, and putting the food in a kibble-dispensing toy or slow-feed bowl.
Used in conjunction with the tactics above, it is also a good idea to teach your dog to wait for its food. Waiting patiently to be fed will not prevent bloat, but calm good manners can help ease the desire to protect the food by gobbling it up quickly.
To teach your dog to wait, Victoria Stilwell -- world-renowned dog trainer and longtime host of the television show "It's Me or the Dog" -- advises beginning with one treat in the dog's food bowl. Hold the bowl at chest level, then tell your dog to sit. Lower the bowl about six inches, then say, "Wait."
Continue lowering the bowl and praise your dog for waiting quietly; if the dog gets too excited, do not say anything, simply raise the bowl. Patience lowers the bowl; excitement raises the bowl. When the bowl finally reaches the ground, teach the dog to wait for a release word before diving in. Replace the treat with a higher-value food and repeat the training until the dog will wait patiently for its meals.
Patience and impulse control are not virtues that come naturally to most dogs -- especially when it comes to dinnertime! -- but they can learn it. The reward is a well-mannered canine who doesn't maul you at mealtime and hopefully eats calmly and gulps less air, with a lessened chance of developing dangerous bloat.
Advertisement
Click and watch this RM Videos clip to see how calm feeding time can be, even with SEVEN dogs!
Resources RM Videos, The Bark, Amazon, Amazon, and Dogster