It's been awhile since I've made a post on here about my puppy, Royce. All of the advice that is given to me is helping me understand his wants and needs, so I figured I would ask for a helping hand again in this situation that seems to come up every day for the past 2 months.
Royce is at 4 months old now and he's definitely growing, both physically and mentally almost everyday. He is on his 4 day in a row without any accidents inside the house, which feels like the biggest blessing, since we thought that it was taking an extremely long time for him to be potty trained.
Anyways, since we've been crate training him, we usually wake up around 6-6:30ish, usually to his cries or on good days, our alarms. Before I let him out of his kennel, I wait for him to quiet down, but when he get's out, he bursts out, like I've been holding him captive days and he wants the sweet taste of freedom. He'll dart back and forth, until I let him outside, where he'll pee and come running back in. He waits by his food and water bowl and I always start with his water bowl, to which he howls and barks with joy and jumps up and down until I set it to his level. Once he starts drinking his water, I head to the back room to get his food. The second he hears his food bag open, he goes absolutely berserk. The highest pitched barks and yelps you will ever hear, until I set it down in front of him, to which he will inhale the food. If I walk by him while he's eating, he digs his face even deeper into the bowl, which usually sends a good chunk of his food flying to the floor. The past two days, he's started choking, since he takes huge wallops of food, to which he makes a gagging, "short of breath" noise, but it doesn't seem to slow him down, as he'll keep eating like nothing is going on. From what I understand, it is bad food aggression and it seems as though every trick we try to do to change his habits, goes right out the door. My wife has stuck her hand in the bowl, so he would stop eating every so often, but the last two times she did that, he chomped down on her hand. We also tried a food separator, where he would have to move this contraption around his food bowl, in order to get the small portions of food. He caught onto it in a matter of minutes and took the separator out with his mouth and threw it to the ground, causing all of the food to scatter across the floor. It's like he doesn't understand the tricks we pulled when it came to potty and kennel training, but he knows everything we're going to do, when it comes to food. We feed him twice a day, once when we wake up (6-6:30) and another time around dinner (6:30-7ish) and we also give him a full bowl of water both times as well. Has anyone else had this problem and/or is there a better solution of taking care of this?

I don't think my situation was as intense but I did have a guarder/gulper. Fed him his kibble one piece at a time by hand for a few meals and it was over. Also, when the dogs were younger it was almost mandatory to run them before eating. Just HAD to kill that energy burst before portioning out four bowls of food.

Sounds almost exactly like Yukon. When I feed him, he will jump around and whine while I get his food. I will put it down and try to hold him back and he will go crazy! When he goes for his food he also gulps it down in a matter of seconds. Sometimes he will start crying because he is eating too fast and kind of choking, but that won’t stop him. If you try to pull him away he will bury his head deeper in the bowl. Then when he is done he will go to Nikko’s bowl and try to steal his food too.

I’m not sure how to deal with it either, as Nikko was never like this. Some suggestions that I have been given is to get a bowl that is made to slow them down, or to put their kibble in a treat dispenser so they cannot get to it all at once.

If he is 4 months old I would probably feed him smaller amounts more often. I feed Yukon 3 times a day (6am, 12pm. 6pm), and each feeding he gets ½ cup of food.

When I first got Onyx at 8 weeks, I would put his food bowl down, if he moved before I told him to I would pick it back up. This took about 3 -4 days before he stopped trying to get to the bowl before I could set it down on the first try. This I believed help him understand that I distribute the food and that I can give and take away when I please. I don't know if this will help but it could be something you could try.

I would be careful when exercising before feeding kibble.. studies have shown that it increases the risk for bloat.

But otherwise, hand feeding is a fantastic tool ans should help your problem

Sounds like a very hungry puppy! At 4 months old I would still be separating meals into 3x daily. It doesn't sound like aggression, it sounds like a hungry dog who has no food manners! Lol

Since he's taking things out of the bowl like that I would either eliminate the bowl (feeding straight on the floor or a mat or even the crate liner...Or by tossing the food small handful by small handful into his bowl if he gives you eye contact. Preferably sitting too. He has to understand that he needs to be calm and not psyched out othe food in order to eat. It also helps by establishing (without force) that you provide the food and he has to work for it. In this exercise I wait until my dogs offer the behavior. I don't ask for anything. I just sit and wait until they offer me a look, and once they get that I also wait for a sit.

When my girls were younger (and sometimes now still) I would always make them sit and wait while I put their food bowls down. If they got up at all, I would snatch up the food and wouldn't lower it until they were sitting again.

As for the gulping, I have one who does that too, they make a bowl where the part that holds the food is X shaped and it slows down the dog. You can also do like Kristina said and just spread his food on the ground. You can also try dehydrated food like The Honest Kitchen. That's pretty much impossible for them to gulp down. You can also get one of those balls that holds food in it and some falls out as it rolls, though food will fly everywhere it goes! Can you tell I've delt with this problem. lol. My Elara is such a food gulper, she swallowed a big piece of raw meat without chewing it and choked on it. Thankfully some fast actions from my bf saved her. But just shows that there are food crazy dogs.

I would also recommend feeding 3 times a day for a 4 month old puppy.

mheath0429 wrote:

I would be careful when exercising before feeding kibble.. studies have shown that it increases the risk for bloat.

I thought it was exercise AFTER eating that caused an increased risk of bloat.

If I remember right, it's both. One of those things they've never been able to study to any sort of conclusion.

not to hijack the thread, but what about aggression with the other dogs in the house but not people? And it seems to only be like bones and things like that, they don't care who steals who's food. It'd be like a game of keep away if it wasn't so serious. One of them will have the bone then someone else comes over to investigate and hell breaks loose. It doesn't matter who's bone it is or who has it. I can take it away or hold it with no reaction. It's generally there's one or two bones laying around because they pick and choose when they're interested in them and it's not worth something til someone else has it.

If this should go in a new thread, I can do that too.

You may want to put it in a new thread so it gets more exposure but in short... Since I have 5+ dogs at any given time... Teaching them to respect each others things and space is really important. I'll warn them once with a "No, leave it" if they approach another dog with a bone or a toy if they're funny with toys. If they don't listen I let nature take course. My dogs are very good about reading each other and taking cues when given so I feel comfortable doing things this way. Of course there are always some who DON'T get it (Rodeo) and when he would ignore me, and then ignore the dog giving him a warning, he was taken away and put in timeout (bathroom.) Then after a few minutes i'd let him out, have him do something for me and give him his own toy to play with. It's cute for dogs to share bones- but it's not natural. Expecting them to be so accepting to those sorts of things is really pushing them. Going for another dog just for walking by does get the item removed and them placed in timeout.

I hadn't thought about that. I'll definitely try something along those lines and if I'm still having problems, I'll be sure to ask. Thanks Kristina!

Huskyluv wrote:

mheath0429 wrote:

I would be careful when exercising before feeding kibble.. studies have shown that it increases the risk for bloat.

I thought it was exercise AFTER eating that caused an increased risk of bloat.

Nope its both. When I get a second, I will provide a few links

SaraB wrote:

When my girls were younger (and sometimes now still) I would always make them sit and wait while I put their food bowls down. If they got up at all, I would snatch up the food and wouldn't lower it until they were sitting again.

+1 for truly good advice.

I have always, and will always make Keeonah sit and wait for every single meal. Part of that NILIF training that is truly remarkable for food manners. She doesn't get to chow down until i give the release word for her ("OK"). If she is too close, i make her "back up" first. Very helpful. With a lot of consistency and practice, Keeonah doesn't even look at the food anymore. Her eyes are on me, waiting for the release. I challenge her now. I make her sit and wait until i'm all the way done putting the food away before I release her. There is no aggression whatsoever. She is extremely food motivated, so she does get excited, but she knows to wait. I let her eat at her own pace. Sometimes she eats it all in one sitting, and sometimes she free feeds on it. I figure she knows her own body better than I do. It's all fair game once I let her know it's hers.

MyKeeonah wrote:

SaraB wrote:

When my girls were younger (and sometimes now still) I would always make them sit and wait while I put their food bowls down. If they got up at all, I would snatch up the food and wouldn't lower it until they were sitting again.

+1 for truly good advice.

I have always, and will always make Keeonah sit and wait for every single meal. Part of that NILIF training that is truly remarkable for food manners. She doesn't get to chow down until i give the release word for her ("OK"). If she is too close, i make her "back up" first. Very helpful. With a lot of consistency and practice, Keeonah doesn't even look at the food anymore. Her eyes are on me, waiting for the release. I challenge her now. I make her sit and wait until i'm all the way done putting the food away before I release her. There is no aggression whatsoever. She is extremely food motivated, so she does get excited, but she knows to wait. I let her eat at her own pace. Sometimes she eats it all in one sitting, and sometimes she free feeds on it. I figure she knows her own body better than I do. It's all fair game once I let her know it's hers.

Totally agree, unless you are going to show your dogs. I got scolded big time by my teacher at handling class and my mentor. If you want to show them - do not teach them sit. Teach a stand stay.

Both of our pups used to be food aggressive. Hand feeding them worked really well for us. My dad would have them eat little bits of kibble out of his hand slowly and wait a bit before giving them the next handful. It slowed down Kota's eating and also taught him not to resource guard.

Now we make them wait before eating. Sarabi is food driven so it took longer for her, but I made her sit before I lowered the bowl and if she moved, I'd hold the bowl up again. It was only when she was sitting that I'd lower it and if she edged, the bowl went back up. It can take time for the food driven, but it's worth it. Now I can feed both dogs at once and they "stay" until I get them both their bowls and waters and say "ok."

If you try hand feeding, good luck & let us know how it goes