Taking All Precautions – Introducing a Puzzle Bowl!

We’re trying to head off any unforeseen setbacks before they can rear their ugly heads, and one thing we decided to do was switch from a regular bowl to a puzzle bowl (aka “go-slow or slow feed bowl”). We read about them on some of our blog buddies’ sites, who also introduced us to “bloat”, a horrible condition we’d never heard of before.

Daisy doesn’t actually scarf her food, but she does cough sometimes while she’s eating. We didn’t want her doing anything that could jar her little body and maybe cause pain during her recovery, and I’d been considering getting her a puzzle bowl for a while now, so we decided to stop considering it and just get the darned thing.

Kong came through with a BPA-free winner that we found at our local PetSmart.

And they had it in pink for our little girl!! 😀

Deep enough, but not too deep.

Even with all those nooks and narrow passageways, we’ve found it extremely easy to clean because of its polished surface. But the real test was with our little fussbudget, who is quite particular about the vehicle that carries her food.

First, the sniff test – underside.

Sniff testing it right side up.

The flip – just to make sure everything is still okay. Can’t be too careful with the thing that carries your food!

And now for the BIG test – actually putting food in.

Is that my food in the new bowl?? BRING IT!!

After some tentative sniffs…we have lickoff!

Hey, this is fun!

I found more food back here! Wow!

And the thing that thrilled us most – she was voluntarily standing in the crate to eat! Her recovery is going much better than any of us anticipated.

You can see her left leg right there – it’s almost back to normal!

It did take our little adventurer some time to realize there were pieces of kibble in narrow areas and it took even longer for her to figure out how to get them, but that’s partially the point of the thing. Besides the pieces being so spread out, the juices are also spread out, so she can’t lap them up so fast that she gags (which she used to do). Since she’s been using this bowl, we haven’t heard a cough or gag once, and it takes her about three times as long to eat her food. What a brilliant little invention!

We’re part of the Thursday Barks and Bytes blog hop!