Food Crazy

[JR9]

Hi Everyone,

My soon-to-be 6 month old Male Cavalier has, to put it mildly, is extremely food driven. We feed him (purina pro plan) 1/3-1/2 a cup 3x per day. He's in great shape, healthy weight, and we supplement with treats/carrots. He is definitely in the top percentile of Cav's for size (~25in body length, ~20 in standing height, ~17lbs)

Every time we feed him, you would think he hasn't eaten in weeks. He goes absolutely nuts, beyond what I have ever experienced before with any other dog. We have a slow feeding mat that slows him down to an extent - it takes about 25 seconds to eat instead of 10 - and he doesn't have any digestive issues, despite little to no chewing going on. I had always assumed that he was like this because he was fed in tandem with his siblings at the breeder for the first 2 months of his life, and developed a mindset of eating quickly and competitively or else they would take it from him. have had him for 4 months now and nothing has changed besides being able to listen to us (for a few seconds) when we tell him to sit down when getting his food together.

My concern isnt really that we aren't feeding him enough, or that he isnt digesting, my vet assured me he is doing well with the quantity at least for now. What I'm having trouble with is that the food driven habits have extended beyond his meals. He tries to eat everything in sight. From the rabbit droppings, bark mulch, and even small rock pebbles outside- to socks, remotes, tissues etc inside, it goes beyond the normal teething chewing. We obviously don't allow him to do this, and encourage / redirect him to his toys, aside from one sock incident we missed that came up days later. He has lost most of his puppy teeth but still has a few to go. This morning, we gave him a Dental chew as the daily brushing hasn't curbed his terrible teething breath, and figured this could be a good activity for him. After about 30 seconds of chewing, he gulped it right down. Mind you this chew is about 2 in long and 1/2 in thick. He seems fine right now, but we are monitoring him closely even though it seems to be highly digestible.

Does anyone else have experience with this? I am worried that even though we are extremely diligent in keeping anything edible out of his reach, that this behavior has us one cleaning mistake away from a major surgery!

 

[Karlin]

Hi and welcome! Your post made me both laugh and sigh as I know exactly how frustrating these issues can be. Cavaliers are generally a food-mad breed -- it seems to be a genetic issue as with labradors... breeds that always feel hungry and thus are often overweight. Everything sounds good -- using the slow mat, and having your vet aware of what's happening and the vet's confidence that he's fine is an excellent reassurance for you. The amounts sound just right for him, as is the frequency at this age though you are close to moving towards two meals if you wanted. One alternative would be to feed him from a tube toy like a kong -- you can use a bit of meat paste to help hold dry food inside or even some low-fat yogurt and then freeze it to make eating even slower. This can offer some extra challenges beyond what a slow mat does. You could also use a Kong Wobbler as you can load in the meal portion and it only ejects a few kibbles at a time. They get a lot of mental exercise with them too. In short: most cavaliers always act as if they are starving when they definitely are not. A good eater is a lot easier than a fussy one, so there is that!

A gulper presents additional challenges too as you have found with the dental chew. You might ask your vet for suggestions. Bad breath could also be the food -- you could try gradually switching out to a different dry food and see if you see an improvement. My dogs get very farty and burp-y on Purina foods but all dogs vary. Your pup is exactly the age at which they want to mouth and chew everything, sticks, pebbles etc. We've just gone through this with a Pyrenean Mountain Dog / Great Pyrenees who was a nightmare but once teething was past, at around 12-14 months, the urges slowly disappeared. Socks as I'm sure your vet noted can be really dangerous -- a blockage can be lethal. It is really exasperating to deal with all of this. My general rule is always, do not leave anything at all in reach of a puppy, limit where they can go in the house, use a puppy xpen for management or baby gates as needed, keep on a short lead on walks and watch like a hawk. Some determined dogs may need to be trained to a muzzle. Often on dental chews they suggest waiting til dogs are young adults and are through the crazy chewing and gulping stage so maybe try using some of the many types of dental chew bones like nylabones etc? There are hard ones, semi-hard ones and so one. I don't like rope toys as strings often come off and they too can be dangerous if eaten but one might work, closely supervised.