Suellen Tomkins 00:05
Hello, and welcome to The DogPod.where we're sharing amazing ways that dogs enrich our everyday lives, and how we can enrich their lives in return. I'm Suellen, the host of The DogPod. At each fortnight we'll have guests and discussions about why dogs are actually man's best friend. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And we'll see you in The DogPod..
Suellen Tomkins 00:35
Hello, hello. And in today's mini episode, we're going to be talking about ways to make mealtime as much more fun and interesting for your dog. So we have become very used to feeding dogs out of a bowl. And I think that's derived from convenience, it's obviously easy for us, the dog knows when they're gonna get their food, and how they're gonna get their food. But I think these days, there's a greater awareness of just making things more fun and enriching the lives of your dog, which is what this podcast is all about. So one of the ways you can do that, and probably one of the easiest and fun ways is actually to make feeding a lot more fun for your dog. So really, why would you bother we all live busy lives, we've got loads of things to do. feeding the dog is just another chore in your day, probably once or twice a day. So why would we want to take the extra time?
Suellen Tomkins 01:31
Well, as I mentioned, it actually makes it a lot more fun for your dog. That's one reason. The other reason is it can slow down their meal times, if you've got a dog like mine, my dog, Ben here will inhale his meals in two seconds flat. And if you use an alternate feeding method, which I'll describe to you soon, it actually slows down his meal times to about 20 minutes, depending on what method I'm using. The benefits of that is that while obviously there's some mental stimulation for them, because they have to think about how they're gonna get their food the other way, the other reason is that it's actually better for them from a gastrointestinal perspective, and also, it minimises any risk of choking as well. All of those are probably a little bit rare. But still, if you can avoid it, it's probably good practice to try and do that.
Suellen Tomkins 02:26
So let's talk about different options for this enrichment, feeding or making mealtimes more fun. Let's start with my favourite one. This is using a lick mat. For those of you that aren't familiar with a lick mat, it's literally an inexpensive piece of rubber. That's usually a square. Sometimes it comes in different shapes, but it's also got a textured surface on the top. So the idea is that you can put wet food or dried food on top of this mat, and your dog has to lick the food off it. Now the benefits of a lick mat is licking is supposed to be a relaxing behaviour for the dog. So it can actually calm some dogs down that may be a little bit hyperactive or very excited during mealtimes.
Suellen Tomkins 03:17
Now one of the best ways to use a lick mat is actually to get some wet food and just get a spatula or a knife and smear the wet food so it actually goes into the recesses a little bit, which means that your dog has to work a little bit harder to get that food out of the mat. But you can actually scatter dried food on top of it if you want to in conjunction with the wet food. And you can choose to put any kind of food you want there, the dog just has to take it off the mat. I personally found it really beneficial because as I mentioned earlier, Ben can have his meal inhaled in two or three seconds, literally. And if I give him a lick mat, it he can take 20 minutes to get all the food off the lick mat. So it actually extends his meal time and gives him something to do for a lot longer periods.
Suellen Tomkins 04:10
So lick mats are really easy to come by, you can get them in any store, you can get them in our store, you can pretty much get them anywhere, and they're pretty inexpensive. You can also use the lick mat to distract them when you're doing things that they're not super happy about like birthing them. You can stick the lick mat onto a wall and get them to lick some food off that so it has loads of other benefits as well. That's probably my number one favourite way of making mealtime more interesting because it has the other added benefit of being very quick to prepare really doesn't take that much longer to smear some wet food on the lick mat than it does to put it in bowl.
Suellen Tomkins 04:51
The other option you can use is you can try scatter feeding, and scatter feeding is great if you're feeding your dog mostly kibble. So you can do scatter feeding two ways one doesn't cost you anything. And one, you can actually buy a toy that helps you with the scatter feeding. But basically, if we look at then low cost or no cost option, it's literally scattering the kibble in an area, like your lawn or your garden and allowing your dog to go searching for the food. So the best way to do this is probably to do it in a small defined area first until they get the idea and then broaden the size of the area out. So it means they actually have to go looking for this food and hunting for this food. So it's a good activity to do for them.
Suellen Tomkins 05:45
If you don't have a yard, or you like to feed your dog inside, then you can do this in different ways inside as well. You can hide small bowls of food or treat in the house and they have to go looking for the food, you can actually buy a toy, which looks like blades of grass, and you can put your drive food in that small toy. And they have to work a little bit harder to get that food because the blades are high. So they have to kind of get their nose into the little crevices to get that food. But scatter feeding is a great thing to try. And with any of these suggestions I'm going to give you you don't have to do them every day. But if you can incorporate it into your routine, when you have time, it's great for your dog.
Suellen Tomkins 06:31
A third option I'd like to talk to you about today is actually puzzle feeding. So I'm not sure whether any of you have seen the various puzzles that are available on the market. But they're their little toys that have different caps or flips. By flips, I mean little lids that flip up, you also can get ones that spin around, so that and that has different levels in it. So the dog has to spin each level to get the food. And so there's lots of different places that you can hide the food and your pup has to work out how to get the food. Now, if your pup hasn't done a puzzle before, you have to be a little bit patient when you give them to them for the first time because they can get a bit confused about what it is they're supposed to do, particularly if they've been fed in a bowl for a while. So you just give them some encouragement, you show them where to find the food and eventually, they'll work it out. There's lots of different types of these puzzles. And there's lots of different levels of difficulty.
Suellen Tomkins 07:38
One of my favourites because it's a brand that's been a while for a long time. It's called Nina Ottoson. And she's developed quite complex puzzles, which have different levels. And it's quite clear what levels are for your dog. So I would normally start my dog on a beginner to intermediate because a lot of them they're food motivated, they work them out quite quickly, so you don't want them to get too bored. I started Ben with a Nina Ottoson Brick, and that's still my go to. It's very easy to clean up, put it in the dishwasher, the bits come apart. So again, it's pretty easy way to distribute the food into all these little containers. And for them to work it out. And I found the Brick as I said very easy and dishwasher safe.
Suellen Tomkins 08:28
You can also get toys that sort of halfway between scatter feeding and puzzle feeding. These are usually these are snuffle mats of some kind. So you can get a variety of different snuffle mats, some literally look like a tufted bathmat, and you can scatter the food in there. And your dog has to snuffle through all the long bits of fabric to find where the food is, obviously, best for dried food. There are others that look a bit more like a child's play mat that has different pockets and different sort of toys and things that have to be pulled apart to get the food, again dry food.
Suellen Tomkins 09:08
You can also get snuffle balls, which are balls that have like folded fabric inside them. So again, you put all your dried food into these little snuffle balls, and the dog has to snuffle in and find it and the added difficulty obviously, with a ball is it's not going to stay still in flat, it'll move around. So that adds to the stimulation of the feeding.
Suellen Tomkins 09:33
There's loads of different options around. There are toys that can come apart with Velcro that you have to pull apart and find find the food. With the snuffle mats, obviously, there's the added difficulty of laundering them. And with some of the toys obviously it's going to take you a bit of time to insert the kibble or whatever food you're using into those little folds and burrows. So you just have to decide how much time you have to spend doing that. But again, another great option to add to all the choices that you do have to feed your dog.
Suellen Tomkins 10:15
So that's a snapshot of some options that you can use to make mealtimes more interesting, that won't take too much time, or break the bank as well. In the next upcoming episodes, I might touch on some really low costs just to again, treat your dog or reward them or again, different ways of feeding. There's lots and lots of different ways that you can do that without spending a fortune. So we'll cover off some more of those in the future. I hope you found this helpful. And until the next episode, we'll see you then. Thanks a lot. Bye bye. And don't forget to join us again in two weeks time. Until then, have a great week. We'll see you then. Bye bye.