Why does my puppy eat his kibble so fast that he does not chew it all up?

Dogs, unlike people, are not designed to chew. Their teeth are designed for tearing and ripping food into easy-to-swallow pieces. Hence why your dog does not chew his kibble. It's already in easy-to-swallow pieces.

If it bothers you that much that he's inhaling his food and you think he might end up choking on it, there are things you can do. You can place a ball in his food dish so that it takes longer for him to eat the food (since the ball's in the way). Or you can put his kibble in an angel food cake tin. This will also slow him down.

Risa, CGC answered on 11/12/07. Helpful? / 0

This is very common for most dogs, both adult and puppies. It's also made very easy for them to just gobble the kibble up because it's usually in pretty small bites, so it's easy to grab and swallow whole.

There are a couple of concerns with fast eaters like this. Choking, obviously, is one of them. The other is how the kibble reacts with water. Soak some kibble in water at home to see how much it "swells". The same will happen in your puppy's stomach if he eats a lot and drinks water with it. So that's something to be careful with.

The best way to slow your puppy down is to make it more difficult for him to grab a whole mouthful of kibble pieces. Spreading them out on a flat cookie sheet instead of putting them into a bowl works really well.

There is also a product called the Brake-Fast bowl, which is a bowl that has three pillars in the center that your dog has to eat around, thus slowing him down. You can get it at several pet retailers online and it's not expensive.

Abby K-9 answered on 11/12/07. Helpful? / 0