I don't soak kibble (when I have to feed the yucky stuff), but I do mix water in with ground organ meat and veggies to slow Auster down. Otherwise she'll polish off the bowlful before I can put the bag back in the fridge, and she'll beg for more.

For those who wish to slow their dog(s) down when eating, place a length of fairly heavy chain...depending on the size of the dog and the type of food, this could be anything from a med/lg link choke chain to a small log chain...in the food bowl with the food. Dog will have to slow down to eat "around" the chain. Works with horses, too.

Obviously, make certain the chain is large and long enough that the animal won't swallow it!

Large rocks work too. My schnauzer figured out she could pick up the chain.... clink clink, and down she gobbles..

Feeding on a plate rather than out of a bowl will slow them down, as well as reduce the amount of air swallowed.
You can also reduce the risk of bloat by not exercising your dog within 2 hours of every meal. I feed Solid Gold dry kibble, and while I'm not so great at the 2-hour window thing, I *always* avoid exercising my dogs within ONE hour of meals.

Is that 2 hours before or after feeding?

Both.

L Swanston:
How can this be? If you have 2 hours before and two hours after, and you feed your dog twice a day... Is this applicable on the raw meat feedings too. We feed raw meat w/veggie stuff or tripe for breakfast/ Millenium solid gold for dinner. Should I consider switching it to raw meat at night since most training is at night and the dry food for breakfast??

I think there are a lot of people who feed their dogs once a day. I'm not one of them. VVG, I feed in a similar manner to you at times, except if I'm going to feed Solid Gold, I do it in the morning and then feed raw for dinner. I only do it that way because I don't always have time to mess with raw stuff before I leave for work. If I'm in a hurry in the morning, I just throw down some kibble then and feed em the good stuff for dinner <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> 2 hours before & 2 hours after feeding does make it difficult to find time to exercise them. Is this accurate or have any of you heard anything different?

This thread puzzles me.... why would you mix feed your dogs kibble and raw food, isn't that like throwing the long bomb to your wide reciever, he catches it at the 2 yard line then hands off to the opposing running back who in turn makes a 98 yard dash ending in a touch down.

I think the term is Half Assed, might as well just feed all kibble... cuz half way ain't doing your dog much good, the dog will never clean his system of toxins if you keep feeding kibble half the time, kinda like using the patch to quit smoking <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I'm not bashing anyone here in piticular just makes me crazy reading this stuff.

Lonny,

Unfortunately, meat is very expensive in my neck of the woods. I'm barely scraping by as it is, and am doing the best that I can at feeding my dogs. I can tell you that my dogs eat better than I do. I SOMETIMES feed mine kibble, if I don't have time to fix anything else or if I can't afford to run to the market and buy a bunch of meat. They eat nothing but super premium, all natural kibble with human grade ingredients. And don't tell me about how you can get chicken really cheap sometimes...my dogs HATE chicken and will not eat it.

As far as the toxin comment, both of my dogs have beautiful healthy coats, clean teeth & are in wonderful overall health, so obviously my feeding them the way I am isn't causing a problem. The skin problems of the older dog are gone, which is a miracle in and of itself. I used to feed all raw when I was able to do it, and I haven't noticed any difference in their health since I started feeding some kibble along with the raw.

Don't knock those who don't feed all raw. There are various reasons some people don't or can't do it. I'm sure everyone here is doing the best that they can.