Looking for volunteers for a feeding study.

[stormi]

Mods I do hope that it is OK for me to post this here? If not I apologise

I need to do a project for college and I have chosen to look at ways to try and slow down fast eating dogs.

I have pasted my 'advert' below. If anyone would like to volunteer please pm me with your e-mail address and I will e-mail you some further details.


I am looking for participants for a dog “feeding bowl” project. My study will look at whether alterations to a dog’s feeding receptacle are effective at slowing their speed of eating.

Suitable participants:

Healthy adult dogs over 30cm in height
Small or moderate muzzle size.
Fed dry kibble/biscuits
Eager and/or fast eaters.
Dog given meals twice daily


What the dog needs to do:

Eat their normal kibble from three intervention feeding receptacles and a control bowl. Feeding receptacle interventions include a flat tray, sectioned tray (bun tray) and an object (tin can) in their feed bowl.


What the owner/agent needs to do:

Accurately measure out their dog’s portions, follow a timetable for interventions and feed their dog at the same times on every day for the length of the study. Video or time how long it takes for the dog to finish his/her meal.


The study will last four weeks. Test days will be on the same four days of the week; in total sixteen meals will need to be timed.

[Jean]

The study is fine with me. So basically you are looking to get a chart of how long it takes on average for dogs to eat their food? My dogs lick their bowl for a minute or two afterwards tho...

[stormi]

Thanks Jean Glad it is OK to post.

Well...the dogs will need to eat from each of the four 'feeding receptacles' and be timed on how long it takes to finish their meal (from taking the first kibble, to taking the last kibble). Repeat for each 'feeding receptacle' four times (so I can get an average). I will compare the average time taken to eat from the 'intervention receptales' (tin can, bun tray, roasting tin) to the 'control' (bowl). Weeks 1 and 2 are for the dogs to get used to the 'feeding receptacles' and Weeks 3 and 4 the test weeks.

[fickla]

aw i would love to help but my super fast eater Lance is not over 30in. It takes him less then 10seconds to eat though. And Vito actually chews his food so I"m not sure that he's what you're looking for

[stormi]

Thank you for the reply fickla . 30cm is just under 12 inches tall. Wow! Less than 10sec...that is really fast!

[tigerlily46514]

Yeah, my dog eats pretty quickly, too, but i've never timed it. About a minute is my guess, two tops.

Geez, i thought about signing up, but i only feed Buddy in the evening, not in the morning, Craig does the breakfast meal, and he'd never remember to go along with the measuring and timing...

And Buddy's meals do change slightly in size from day to day, depending on how active he is or is gonna be the next day, or how he looks, a lil thin, or lil pudgy, whatever.
And he gets meat on top of his kibble, which we don't really measure. Scraps of meat, even in a measuring cup, would be hard to acurately measure...

so, sorry, guess Buddy is not good candidate either. And Buddy usually gets a dab of cannola oil on his evening meal, and he sometimes spends some time just licking all that off the bowl.....but, i'd help if i could.

Oh, sometimes i put some warm water over his food, if it seems he isn't drinking much water, or just to jazz it up/variety...THAT'D really blow the test, cuz it takes him longer to eat the meal with the liquid in it..too bad, i woulda liked to help you.

If you get really hard up for volunteers, and if the unmeasured or vaguely measured meat scraps aren't a problem, (i just wouldn't time the meals that have water in them i guess) lemme know, i'd could time the evening meals, anyway.

[fickla]

sorry, yes i meant Lance is under 30cm, he's only 10.5in tall. and yes he inhales his food, doesn't chew at all and it does take him about 10seconds to eat. of course Lance only gets 1/3cup in the morning and 1/2cup at night so it's not as fast as if he got more food, which he wishes!

[tx_cowgirl]

Just a sidenote and a tip for owners of fast eaters...

I bought one of the "SLOW DOWN!" bowls for Dakota, my bro's GSP/Weim. He inhales his food. He would eat sooo fast he would actually start heaving, coughing, acting like he was going to throw up... I was seriously concerned with him bloating, because he is a very deep chested dog. Now, he still eats quickly, but not so quickly that I worry. He has to take his time to get his big snoz in the bowl, lol! I also made something for it to sit in so that it is elevated, as he's also very tall. I've found that sitting things in the bowl does very little, as they can easily move the object around or get it out. BUT, with any bowl, some dogs will just dump it and inhale it off the ground...so you may need to build something for it to sit down in to.

Mine is similar to this one:








But there are many out there. Nice idea, Stormi.

[stormi]

Thank you all for your replies.

Fickla I can e-mail you the things if you like, so you could try Lance with them? I think he might be a bit too tiny to reach across the tray type receptacles though? I do have one CKCS in the study who is small; she manages OK but does walk across the roasting dish sometimes

Thanks tx_cowgirl I found the patent for that bowl somewhere...it looks good

I just have one dog in the study who has removed the tin can from the bowl so far...most it does seem to slow down, but for some dogs it isn't effective. It all gives me more to write about in my 'discussion section' .

[fickla]

oh i don't think size would prevent lance from trying to inhale as much kibble as fast as possible! although he might learn to whack it with his foot so kibble flys everywhere!

[stormi]

whacking with his paw He's a clever pup...though it might slow him down even more as there would be kibbles everywhere for him to hunt out

Have e-mailed you the info

[k_oller]

I would be happy to participate with Dakota