I’m toying with the idea of transitioning (at least in part) to feeding the dogs from activity feeders (what we call “food toys”) rather than from bowls. The dogs have always eaten from bowls (two meals a day), so the transition isn’t easy.
Through trial and error, I’ve found that feeding smaller meals from the bowl THEN putting the rest of the food in the activity feeders is better than doing the opposite.
Have you made this transition? What method did you use?
The more I read on the subject, the more it makes sense to make mealtime work time. The mental stimulation really matters.
I wonder if really young pups would understand the feeders. I’d like to do things better in the future, but I wouldn’t want a new dog/pup to go hungry while trying to figure it out. And, I wouldn’t want any future dogs to be toy possessive.
Thoughts?
I think that the hardest part in a multi-dog household is making sure that each dog is getting enough to eat. One dog might naturally be better at getting the food out of the toys. In our house, at times when our dogs are getting a significant fraction of their daily calories from toys, we separate the dogs to work on their toys.
If you use frozen kongs, something to be aware of is that a rare weird dog might get irritation around his/her lips from the very cold rubber and food. Only one of ours got this problem (K, of course). It looks like depigmented spots on and near her lips.
I should be doing this for Marge more than I do now. She loves her kibble and usually finishes it in under a minute. For some reason, though, some other members of my household feel as though I’m robbing Marge of a good, solid meal when I feed her out of the Waggle or Twist-N-Treat. As if there is some rule of dog ownership that states the food *must* be fed in two big gulps (breakfast and dinner)..
Yes, the Kong was the original, but Lilly and Ginko get the food out of those WAY too fast, so we use a few different ones:
Buster Food Cube
Tug-a-Jug
Busy Buddy Waggle
Canine Genius
Orca Jack
Orca Ball
We’ve always called them “food toys,” but when I interviewed a behaviorist recently for a magazine article, she called them “activity feeders.”
I think it’s a great idea to feed from food puzzle toys. And, your idea to transition from bowls to toys makes sense to me. Since Sadie doesn’t eat kibble and has little patience for stuffed kongs, I haven’t gone the puzzle toy route for regular meals. Nonetheless, I do give Sadie the food puzzle toys she enjoys to occupy her and for stimulation.And she works for her meals. Sometimes just “sit and ‘watch me'” other times I request more.
When you talk about feed toys, are you talking about a kong? My dog seems to have a lot of trouble getting the dog food out of the kong. It would be nice for her to have something to do while I’m at work though.
Haha yeah, the sure seem to know what they are supposed to get and when they don’t get it! 🙂 Sometimes it seems like they count the kibble as they eat 🙂
They might even think they are “getting over” on you – “Wow! We got our food AND can play for food!”
Oh, mine are well acquainted with the toys and love them. I’ve simply found that if I try to “feed” from them, they still look at me afterwards like, “Where’s dinner?” … since it’s been 9 years for Ginko and 5 years for Lilly eating out of a bowl.
So, if I feed part of the meal in a bowl, THEN put the rest in the toy, they seem much more content and not like they got robbed. :o)
I might would introduce the toys first to see if they do understand/enjoy them. If so, then why not – feed them their meals from it!
I do this on occasion for Wally (well, more like hiding it under towels and making him “dig” and sniff to find it) and he goes after it pretty hard and when done lays out and sleeps.
I introduced the “sniffing game” first to get him liking it and then sometimes feed him this way.
That said, I think I wear his brain out a lot during the day so just getting food, water, and a nap might be a downtime for him. 🙂
I like this idea. Not sure how well it would work for Gus. Our other three rescues would be after it fast; but, Gus eats really slowly. I’m guessing someone would ‘steal’ his toy before he got a chance to eat. Seems like a fun idea, though. Maybe I’ll try it with three and feed Gus separately. Let us know how this works for you, eh? Nice post.
I use a lot of food puzzle toys and think they’re fabulous! As far as a puppy not getting enough food, my puppies grow up following me around for food and I play with the toys with them until I know they know how to use them well enough that they won’t go hungry and the food puzzles are for when I’m not home.
If someone is looking thin to me or I know they didn’t get the chance to do enough work to really eat that day then they get a bowl of food at the end of the day. That sounds worse than it is. If I know I won’t be able to work the dogs then they get breakfast from a bowl and/or food puzzle toys to entertain themselves with while I’m away.
It does create a possessive problem sometimes but not with me, only with resource guarding from other dogs and I’m sure you could counter condition that away if it were a problem for you.