We give our 11 week old lab Nellie a dry puppy kibble food but find the food is so small she just scoffs it whole, even with one of those bowls which is supposed to help slow her down she just picks up now so they fall out, can anyone give a better suggestion?
Yes! Train with your puppy's meals!! This will automatically slow down eating, and you will get a chance to be working on the overwhelming amount of stuff there is to be training any new puppy. If you haven't yet, do enrol in a reputable force-free puppy training class near you and then practise the material every day, with every meal.
Agree 100% with Jo. Our pup gets none of his food from a bowl. He gets a lot of it in training/on walks (walks are always an opportunity for training!) and the remainder is in food dispensing toys so he is still working for it. There's no downside. We are training him, slowing him down and providing enrichment for him.
Yes, training and play is a great way to get your puppy to eat slower. I use it on walks, simple tricks he already masters, like sit, down, paw, other paw. When he was 8-13 weeks I used it in a Kong, and for teaching almost everything, when they are babies they don't care as much for the taste, you introduce high value treats later. You can also put some kibble in toys or just hide kibble in cardboard boxes, in house corners.....or just scater some kibble in the floor, it will slow the feeding and swollowing a bit.
Those are all great ideas! Wish I'd had them raising Angus - we used to joke that his registered name should have been "It's All About The Belly"....he wolfed his food down. In the five years since we raised him, I've begun to give much of the days ration in Kongs throughout the day to our puppies and to stick exclusively to kibble treats while training until they no longer work in that manner. This happens with each puppy at different stages and/or with different things being trained.
