My 4.5 month old beagle loves to gulp things down as fast as possible. She gulps entire chicken necks and large pieces of wing without chewing. I have been holding onto them while feeding the last few weeks, but that got old quick.

I read that larger pieces force them to chew, so last night I gave her the wing tip and next 2 pieces completely intact. She still started to gulp it down so I tried to grab hold of it. Thinking I was stealing it she gulped all 3 pieces down intact, scared the cr** out of me. She seemed fine last night, put her crate in our room just in case.

About 5:00am woke to sounds of her gagging and she puked up about in inch long, thin sliver of bone along with some connective tissue. In her poop I also saw a sizeable piece of bone. There was no blood present in either the puke nor the poop (this is from someone who would gag cleaning up poop six months ago). She has not puked anymore since 5 am and is acting normal now. I fed her only about 1/2 her normal amount this morning to get her stomach juices working, but didn't want to fill her up and just raw meat and THK, no bones. Oh, gave her some yogurt last night and this morning also.

She hadn't had any issues up until she swallowed this piece while.

1) Should I be worried our watching out for anything, take her to the vet?
2) Besides holding onto the pieces or grinding them up in a meat grinder any other tips breaking this gulping habit?

Wow, I hope she's ok... you'd be surprised what dogs (even very young ones) can scarf down without any ill-effect, but it'd probably be best to watch her closely for a while.
Over the next few days, if her poops look good, she stops throwing up and she's not constipated or acting listless or sick, you probably don't have to worry about taking her to the vet.

Maybe continue to skip the bones for the next few meals as you're doing now; it's a good idea to keep up what you're doing, filling her stomach with meats and maybe veggies to help pass whatever bone fragments may still be hanging around.

Chicken necks and wings are not the best foods for dogs, especially not for gulpers!
I realize that BARF-style feeders are obsessive over necks and wings, but these can be quite a choking hazard for gulpers. I don't feed them to my dogs.

Try chicken backs or thighs to get her to chew. You could also try chicken or turkey breasts with the bone in. These larger pieces should teach her to chew a little better.

One of the best things would be to get something much bigger, like a pork leg. She won't be able to swallow any of it and will have no choice but to methodically rip the meat off the bone.

If you buy the whole leg it'll obviously have too much meat on it for one meal, so you can cut off the excess meat and feed those in large chunks (at separate meals) so she can't swallow them without chewing.

Hopefully if you stick to larger meaty bones she'll eventually learn to calm down and chew her food before swallowing. Some dogs learn very well, some don't

Keep in mind that you don't need to provide her with any more edible bones than 10% of her total diet.
The safest thing to do would be to feed her (1) very large meaty bones (like whole pork legs) where she gets the meat but can't actually eat the bones, or (2) large chunks of meats and organs without small potentially gulpable bones.

If you do that, just toss in some chicken backs/ribs (very soft and easy to chew) so she can get her bones without the danger of choking on something too big.

Best of luck!

Great advise Yuko, I couldn't have said it better

Thank you Angelique, you're sweet!

Thanks Yuko, sounds like excellent advice. I went bigger but I need to go MUCH bigger.

She seems fine now, glad I was working from home today though to keep an eye on here, would have been very nervous leaving her alone.

Keith,
Does she gulp because she is food protective? Is there another dog you are feeding within site of her?

I only ask this because my Lab would gulp due to the other dogs in the other kennels or if I was close too him and his dish.

What I ended up doing, thanks to researching this board, was actually hand feeding him, out of sight of the others for a couple of weeks. He has now learned that I do not want his raw food and as long as he is out of sight of the other dogs, he eats slowly.

I do agree with Yuko's post too. This is just another thing you could try......or not.

 Quote: yuko blum

....I realize that BARF-style feeders are obsessive over necks and wings

They are?

I thought it was necks and backs..... if BARF-style feeders were obsessive. The soft cartilage-y bones in necks and backs make them the two parts I recommend most often to beginning raw feeders who are worried about feeding bones.

Excellent advice about going bigger for gulpers......

If you find that the dog swallows weight-bearing bones (thighs) whole, too, then I'd work up to them and not introduce them until the digestive system is geared up to digesting bones efficiently. (Bones are "dissolved," more or less, with enzyme activity, and a dog whose system is used to kibble is often not producing the enzymes that a raw-fed dog does, or not in the same quantities and with the same regularity.)

Although some raw sites don't explain it in full, that's the rationale behind the probiotics some suggest for the first couple of weeks.

The enzymes that work on bones can vary in production levels by over 50% (in one research project I read last year) between dogs in their first day of raw and other dogs who had been on raw for at least three months.

The study didn't say this, but I did conclude from this that some problems with bones might indeed be specific to dogs just starting raw diets. Of course, we all knew this intuitively, but seeing it in black and white was a good backup.


Good suggestion about backs. They are (IMO) a great beginner RMB.

 Quote: Carol Boche

Keith,
Does she gulp because she is food protective? Is there another dog you are feeding within site of her?

I only ask this because my Lab would gulp due to the other dogs in the other kennels or if I was close too him and his dish.

What I ended up doing, thanks to researching this board, was actually hand feeding him, out of sight of the others for a couple of weeks. He has now learned that I do not want his raw food and as long as he is out of sight of the other dogs, he eats slowly.

I do agree with Yuko's post too. This is just another thing you could try......or not.

I've seen several dogs slow down their eating when they were allowed to eat alone and with no perceived threat to their food. This is a good reminder!

 Quote: Carol Boche

Keith,
Does she gulp because she is food protective? Is there another dog you are feeding within site of her?

Carol, no she does not seem food protective at all. No other dogs, I am the only one even near when she eats. I can put the bowl down and leave the room for 1 min and she's done, same as if I stand there and watch. I don't mess with her food often but if I do there is no reaction at all, not even speeding up her pace.
I do hand feed her the wings usually and she is gentle as can be, that get's old after a few weeks though. I wil try the back and larger bones as a few have recommended.

Excellent advice from everyone, thank you!

Sometimes a dog just cannot seem to slow down so going bigger is probably the best choice in this case.
Let us know how it goes.