LITTLE ROCK — When reading your column about the dog who inhales food, our new “green feeder” immediately came to mind. Our youngest dog, Beau, age 3, does the same thing. Our son found the Green Interactive Feeder and got it for us. We have been using it since Christmas. It’s amazing how it has slowed Beau down and forced him to chew. What did take him one minute to inhale now takes about seven.
A food puzzle such as your feeder is great to motivate a dog to slow down while eating. Dog experts often recommend these interactive combinations of toy and feeder because they also exercise mind and body.
Food puzzles make dogs work for their dinner, says veterinarian Marty Becker in his book Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual. “Think of them like canine slot machines; sometimes they pay nothing, other times a little, on occasion a lot. Dogs love having to hearken back to their ancestors and work for their food.”
Becker and others recommend tossing the dinner bowl and getting a variety of food puzzles to use. You can rotate the puzzles so that your dog doesn’t get bored with any one of them.
There are many types of puzzles from which to choose. The Canine Genius is a toy with parts that you can reconfigure so the dog has a different experience at every meal. The dog has to spin, shake and flip the toy around to remove his food. Another tried-and-true toy is the Buster Cube, a rubber cube with rounded edges that dispenses food when a dog rolls it around.
I hadn’t heard of the green feeder before, but checked itout at tinyurl.com/anujxxp. It looks like it would be great entertainment as well as a challenge for any food-gulping dog. The feeder is a green disk covered with soft “spines” that create grooves from which the dog has to retrieve his food.
The Kong toy, one of the sturdiest food puzzles, has long been a favorite of my dog. Simone doesn’t seem to consider freeing her food from a Kong to be work, but a fun game that results in treats. Even her regular kibble becomes more enticing when it comes in a Kong.
The original Kong is a hollow, hard rubber toy shaped like the Michelin tire man. Just fill the Kong with dry food and plug the end with peanut butter. I use natural peanut butter because it’s extra sticky, then put the Kong the freezer for a while so the peanut butter stiffens and becomes more of a challenge. Simone has to lick through the peanut butter to get to the food.
Dogs aren’t the only animals that like to work for their food. Cats enjoy and benefit from food puzzles for the same reasons as dogs. In fact, some dog toys (like the small Kong) can double as cat feeders. You can also make a feeder by cutting holes (bigger than a cat’s paw) in a small cardboard box. Just pop in some dry food, then tape the ends shut. You can also make feeders by cutting holes in the sides of small plastic bottles.
A tennis ball can be converted to a puzzle for cats and dogs by cutting a small hole into it with a sharp knife. Cats and dogs will figure out quickly that when the ball rolls, food comes out.
Pet owners who want to buy or make food puzzles need to match the size of the toy with the size of the pet. Dog toys come in small, medium and large. If you get a dog toy for your cat, you’ll need the small one so that it’ll move easily when your cat swats a paw at it. When it rolls away, the chase is on, thrilling your pet’s little predatory heart.
Do you have a question about
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from an authority. Send your question to Rhonda Owen,
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203 or e-mail [email protected]
Family, Pages 35 on 02/20/2013