Shamus The Fast Eater

After having four dogs, its probably no secret that we have researched and tested nearly every dog food on the market. Most of that testing was done during the Josie years, due to her propensity for hot sopts and what appeared to be human like allergies. By the time Shamus came along, we had settled on Wysong (http://www.wysong.net/) as our food of choice. While Wysong can be expensive when you buy it at a natural food store with a 3' pet aisle, we found the best prices at Pet Club (http://www.petclubstores.com/) a pet food chain in Northern California.


At around age 4, we noticed Shamus, now fully grown at about 90lbs and tall enough to stand with his paws on my shoulders and look me in the eye, was having a love affair with Wysong. we also noticed he had been struck consistently with diarrhea. We also noticed he was finished with his food minutes before the other dogs. Shamus was eating too fast to chew, and unfortunately the size of the Wysong pellets were small enough to be eaten without swallowing.

With no change in behavior, no weight loss, no sign of discomfort, we began reading up on possible causes. This was in fact a sign of dogs eating too fast - an issue that could lead to Bloat, or Torsion, a horrible gastric affliction where the dogs stomach twists, and is often fatal - best case is that its treated by surgery.

We had this same "fast eating" issue with our cat Buster years ago, and couldnt feed him the nugget shaped Wysong cat food, and instead had to stick only to clover shapes that forced him to chew. So we immediately changed Shamus' diet to the Eukanuba large breed adult food (http://www.eukanuba.com/EukGlobal/US/en/jsp/product/productDetail/Large%20Breed%20Adult.jsp?id=1013). These pellets are significantly larger and helped slightly with the chewing, but Shamus was still eating too fast.

As we read more, there were a number of way people had to deal with this.... Feed your dog with his/her food distributed across a cupcake pan, a bunt pan, or buy a special bow to help slow dogs down. (http://www.gizmag.com/go/5717/)

I was not a fan of feeding my dog in a teflon coated pan, and the special bowls were not only expensive, but they were plastic - the cause of our cat Busters months long bout of cat acne.


Shamus' normal feeding bowl looked like this. So we decided to just turn it upside down and feed him in the "moat" that formed on the bottom. Problem solved, no extra expense. It slowed him down enough to finish his dinner in line with the other dogs, and he has had no more gastric problems since!

Shamus the Power Chewer

Shamus is the most aggressive chewer we have ever known. He is not agressive to people or other pets - but his jaw is likely made of titanium. This is no "get the squeeky out of the toy chewing." This is the "I can crack a tennis ball in half within 2 seconds of having it in his mouth" chewing... "i ate 2 couches" chewing... "i stumped my trainer with my agressive chewing" chewing.

Before Shamus, we were completely spoiled by our previous two dogs who required very little training. They came into our lives close to perfectly trained and nearly full grown. Shamus on the other hand came to us at about 35 lbs and the size of a beagle.

Once we adopted Shamus we bought a ton of plushy toys for him to enjoy. He destroyed them all in one night. We moved to kongs, which he peeled apart like an orange. Booda bones were gone as soon as they came out of the packaging. Nylabones posed a little bit of a challenge - it took him about an hour to get them chewed to a sharp point, much like a child does with a candy cane.

Our trainer suggested toys for aggressive chewers, and told me about a pet store that sold an indestructable tire that appeased one of her boxer clients. It was $30 and lasted 5 minutes - $6 a minute. Shamus ate the all of the Beagles' toys, and her puff bed. He ate 2 couches (clearly a result of his taste for "plush". He ate the carpet. We tried to get him to enjoy chewing water bottles, but he quickly learned to not just destroy them, but to jump up, grab them from your hands, and chew them while still full.

He was a complete monster who was not only growing about a foot a week but seemed to never listen, care, or learn; however, he was not at fault. As I stated earlier, we were equally untrained, and the only people in the world dumb enough to not immediately put him in a crate.

We learned finally and put him in the plastic airplane crate that Josie travelled across country in. He ate it and the towels we put in there to comfort him.

Then we got a black coated metal crate built for a Great Dane. He was not pleased, but he adjusted. After much experimentation with peanut butter, yougurt, treats, and that gross Kong paste, we created a culinary delight for Shamus.

We stuffed bananas in one of those really hard hollow 10" beef bones you can get at the pet store, and froze them overnight. before we left in the morning, Shamus was in his crate waiting for his banana bone. Trying to get all of the banana out of the 10" bone wore him out and he would sleep until Cindylou, our loving friend and dogwalker arrived. Cindylou would supply him with the 2nd bone of the day.

We also found one toy that could stand the test of Shamus - the Planet Dog ball. http://www.planetdog.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=10740000
We chose not to try the kind with the raised design for fear of temptation to destroy it presented, but the smooth surface balls worked quite well.

We also found a giant knotted rope toy. Not the kind with the toys and bones on it. Its the kind that is larger than Shamus' head. The knot is about 12" diameter. This is a supervised toy so he doesnt eat it, and eventually there is some destruction, but it takes a while.

We also discovered that the Nylabone Double Action Chew
http://www.nylabone.com/products/non-edible/double-action/
and the white dinosaur toys
http://www.nylabone.com/products/non-edible/durable-chews/durable-dental-dinosaur.htm
were much less easy to destroy, yet again, these were supervised toys.


If you have an really aggressive chewer I would not recommend - especially unsupervised:

Any Kong - even the strong chewer version
Any Booda Bone
Nylabone Galileo, Ring, Wishbone or flavored bone
Tirebiter
Any rope bone with toys or bones on it
Pig Hooves
Any plush toy (remember, they were the same as pillows and couches to Shamus)
Rhino Bone
Frisbees
Tennis balls
Rolled Rawhide bones (plus no rawhide unsupervised)

Welcome to our blog

Over the past eleven years, we have enjoyed the companionship and love from four dogs and three cats. We currently now have two dogs and one cat; and like most pet guardians, we have experienced a plethora of canine and feline ailments, behavioral, health, and personality issues.

In addition to the wonderful advice and care of a number of animal heath specialists, in order to make informed and educated decisions about our pets' health, we have conducted massive internet research over the years. We created this blog to share our expereince with others, in the hope that we may help others in the way that toher bloggers and internet posters have helped us over the years.

To provide an overview of our pets and the challenges they have each faced, the following list provides an overview of what we hope to log over the coming months.

Josie
Canine, female - austrailian shepherd, golden retriever airedale mix
Birth - spring 1994 (estimate)
Death - August 2007
Weight - 80lbs
Description - Josie was the dog that could walk around San Francisco without a leash. She was a certified pet therapy dog who everyone fell in love with.
Issues -Light separation anxiety, eating feminine products and cat litter, allergies/hotspots, slab fractured molar, age-onset dental disease, cyst removal; Surgery to reattach torn anterior cruciate ligament (wire, elected not to do TIBEAL PLATEAU LEVELING OSTEOTOMY); hermangio sarcoma (terminal)


Buster
Feline, male - black and white short hair
Birth - 1990
Death - May 2003
Weight - approx 25lbs
Description - Highly social Alpha male, extremely large, relatively agressive with food.
Issues - Ate tinsel and flowers, diagnosed with either fatty liver disease or pancreatitis; tapeworm; blood clot in back (terminal)


Boo
Feline, female - gray long hair
Birth - 1990
Death - September 2004
Weight - approx 14lbs
Description - Somewhat aggressive
Issues -Soft tissue mass affecting larynx and eye (terminal)


Maya (AKA Captain Grumbles)
Canine, female - Beagle
Birth - Spring 2000
Death - April 2009
Weight - 35lbs
Description - highly social, lovable beagle.
Issues -Fear of nail trims, allergy to predisone, sensitive stomach, major dental disease, Meningioma brain tumor that led to grand mal seizures, focal seizures, petite mal seziures (terminal)


Shamus
Canine, male - chocolate lab, beagle
Birth - March 2004
Weight - 90lbs
Description - alpha male, loves playing ball, very social
Issues - As a puppy - ate 3 couches, housebreaking issues; As adult - Fear of nail trims, eats poop, hunter (2 birds and a squirrel), obsessive / fast eater, highly aggresive chewer


Chiquita
Canine, female - Shepherd, SharPei, possible Great Dane or other giant breed
Birth - August 2007
Weight - 70lbs
Description - extremely large, very lovable with immediate family
Issues - Kennel Cough, Excessive Fear





Kat
Feline, female - Long haired calico
Birth - 1996
Weight - ??lbs
Description / Issues - anti social with women