Another food thread

I have an almost 2 year old female lab, and she is completely food-centric. The only thing that matters in her world is food, or anything that might pass for food. I've been reading some of the other food threads, and have some questions of my own.

Kaiyo gets fed twice a day, and she eats it so fast, that she literally swallows it whole. She puked a little of it up the other day, right after she ate it and it was whole. Is this ok? Is there any way to teach her that she should chew her food?

Also, we usually use treats or pieces of food as rewards when we train her. However, lately, she gets so focused on the food, that it's almost like she doesn't or can't listen to what we tell her to do. She'll sit or shake or lay down....trying to find the "magic" action that will get her the treat rather then listening to what I tell her to do and then doing it. I suppose this is really a training issue, but do you have any suggestions for this?

TIA

If you don't want to switch her to raw, which would make her chew and slow down, put large rocks or similar big inedible things in her food bowl so she has to chase the kibbles around and only eat a few at a time. You can also use her entire ration as training treats throughout the day (leave her bowl on the counter and grab a couple of kibbles each time) so she doesn't inhale a huge amount at once.

I love that she's offering behaviors. Have you thought about clicker training her? That's a methodology that actually relies on offering to shape the desired behavior, so it would fit right in with what she wants to do anyway. Otherwise, try a good long exercise session before training, and teach a watch-me. But I really think this dog is probably begging for clicker.

You can also make her eat out of a Kong or Buster Cube, that will slow her down quite a bit. She's also getting so excited that she's not listening to you, as you've seen. Ignore the behaviors she offers and wait until she settles down enough to listen to what you're saying. Pupcake's suggestion of a clicker is great as well....my Lab loves to pre-offer behaviors when we start a session, but if I wait until she calms down, give her a command then when she hears the clicker, she realizes that I'll tell her what's going on and she just needs to listen.

My cat Willie did this, he would choke every meal so I feed him on a plate now, he can't get big gulps. You can also do what was suggested and put a large object in the bowl (make sure there is NO chance he'll swallow it). You could ALSO feed him from a feeder ball or similar food dispensing toy from now on, it will stimulate his brain and slow him down

I also think he'd be a great Clicker dog, when phoebe throws these fits of behaviors (she's confused with what i want her to do) I simply wait and ignore her, she'll stop, sometimes I even walk away for a little bit and she'll follow and stare at me and once she does that long enough and seems calmer we start again. If I told her a command I thought she knew I'll try once more once she's calm and seems focused again and if that does not work I have to go back and reteach it a little because she clearly did not understand what I wanted and therefore did not know the command. if it's something new I take a new approach at getting her to offer what I wanted from her. Sometimes she'll do it because I'm making her do something too quickly, like trying to get her to roll a ball with her nose, If i try and make her actually push the ball before a reward she will get frustrated, if I start by just asking her to touch it with her nose for a reward and build on that slowly she'll be fine.
She may also understand a hand gesture you use and not the voice command yet, if she's been doing great but when you don't use your hands she gets confused you have to take a good amount of time to transfer her over to voice and phase out the hands for a while so you know she's understanding the vocal. i find that is a big problem with Phoebe (well me actually) I keep using my hands instead of making her learn the vocal command and she becomes dependent on hand signals, or better yet I use random hand movements when saying a command and I had used that for a hand signal for another command a long time ago (a command that is now totally voice cued), I forgot I used it for something, but she did not.

I would definitely clicker train if you don't already, she seems like a good candidate.

As for eating, the others all gave great advice, I just want to add that instead of (or in addition to) buying the expensive buster cubes or other food dispensers, you can just use empty plastic bottles. The big juice bottles or gatorade bottles work best because they're harder plastic, but water and soda bottles also work fine. If you change out the shape of the bottles frequently, that also helps with mental stimulation.

As for training, of course I'd also suggest clicker training. Another thing I'd suggest is to make sure that all treats are out of your dog's sight when you start your session - I use a treat bag and put it on the back of my waist, but you can also just put a pile of treats up on a table or counter that you're working next to. When your dog does the behavior you want, you can click or say a verbal marker (like "yes") to let her know that that was the behavior you are looking for, and then after the click or yes, then give the treat. Make sure she doesn't see the treat until the behavior is completed.

http://www.smartpakcanine.com/productclass.aspx?productClassid=4655&cmPreserveSource=true&cmPreserveCategory=true

Never used one, but this was the first thing that came to mind for the eating issue.

Thanks for the suggestions. I started putting half of her food in a puzzle treat, so it takes her a long time to get it all out and she chews each piece that falls out. that's a big improvement

I don't know much about clicker training. You don't think it's too late to start using that with her? and do you think it will be enough motivation for her? She doesn't seem to care so much about praise from us, only if we have a treat for her. Do you have any suggestions of good books or links to read up on clicker training?

Thanks!

NOT with a dog that large, lol. I love the juice bottles - round V8 ones, Welches, etc. Good, strong plastic. They usually last a week before thelid is so disfgured it has to be tossed.

Butter - it is NEVER too late to start clicked training. Never ever. Trust me!

Is there anyway that she's not getting enough food or that she might have worms?

I would feed her smaller meals more frequently and add water to the kibble.

Check this out

http://www.clickerlessons.com/

It's never too late to start clicker training! Clicker training works good for any dog motivated by anything, food, toys, praise, whatever. BUT you don't have to force the dog to do anything, you wait for him to do it or teach commands that help get you there (touching things with nose and paw are very helpful for this). The reason you don't show the treat is because dogs notice everything. You may think your cue for "sit" is the word sit the dog may think she must sit when you say sit, while looking at his face, standing in front of him and hold a treat. If you change one of those things he won't know you want him to sit. BUT of course you want him to sit in many situations so you have to semi-reteach things each time you change one of those things. So if you start without holding the treat that's one less situation you have to re-teach the command in (if that makes any sense). You still reward with the treat, she just does not see them so that she will never have to see them to listen in the future. The great thing about the clicker is that is allows you to tell the dog "yes that was right!, you just earned a treat" without having to quickly give the dog the treat, you could now walk over to the table, pick up the treat and bring it back to the dog, but because you told him when he earned his treat he still knows what he was rewarded for even if he is not still doing it when the treat meets his mouth. One good book about teaching commands with the clicker is "The Power of Positive Dog Training" which gives step by step instructions on training basic commands with the clicker, Karen Pryor also has a few clicker training books.

Would you like me to PM you some more information on how clicker training works? I can also give some suggestions of commands to teach as an intro to the clicker if you'd like.

I've used them with large dogs, up to about 90 pounds, and I stand by what I said, for most dogs they work fine. I used it with a dog last week, about 60 pound lab, who crushed the bottle and then proceeded to shred the bottle to get all the food out. I say that's great, it just takes that much more time and energy to get the food out!

I disagree about raw slowing dogs down... Buddy is a champ and can chew and swallow those RMB's in NO TIME, lol.

I didn't read past the first couple posts, so this may have been suggested already, but
what about hand feeding her? Making her work for it and then slowly letting her eat it on her own? Just a thought.

ETA: Ok, I read more. I disagree with using any plastic with any dogs, especially a chow hound that doesn't give a hoot what may or may not be in her way.

What about putting her meal in a kong? Making her work really hard at it? I do this for my guys sometimes.

Uh.. you let him shred a plastic bottle? I don't think that's exactly wise. ESPECIALLY if the dog's a gulper like the OP's, and inhales food.