Does anyone feed their dog's meals in a kong?

I'm in the process of changing foods now & she's still not overly bothered in eating - and yet if I stuff her meal in her kong, she takes it away & demolishes the lot which made me think she doesn't like her bowl. I guess it's not a problem giving her food in the kong. I added a bit of natural yoghurt today & she liked

I do if I am going out early as they are both occupied when I leave and by the time they have finished and had a nap I am back

I add a bit of cream cheese!

Etta has all her meals in kongs or a bottle with a rope in the top. She doesn't ave a bowl at all.

I started it so that she got some stimulation from meal times and they took her a long time.

I also hand fed Celt for months as he was so difficult.

rune

I used to put her evening kibble in the big bone puzzle thing I've got and she enjoyed searching for it in there, if she wouldn't eat it out of her bowl, it makes it a game and that's much better than eating for a gsd!

However, knowing what I know now about kibble on it's own I don't do that (the bloat thing), unless I give her something soft first and then immediately give her the puzzle with the kibble in.

I've just put Zena on adult food, because she kept spitting out the puppy kibble and I got to thinking she can't cope with the size of it, so I changed it yesterday to the larger adult kibble, but the same brand, and she woofed it down crunching every bit on the way, and has done ever since!

Maybe now that Tilly is a year old you could think about changing to adult? I remember my vet telling me he wanted me on the puppy for one year, so in my mind, it's ok to do it now, and I've done it anyway!

I'm in the process of changing from pedigree puppy mixer & chappie wet food or chum wet food to Oscars Junior Chicken & rice. She's had a few bouts of the squits lately so thought we'd try wheat free, gluten free & all that. I'm still not sure though as now searched for comments on Oscars it comes up with high salt content. Ideally I want to get her off the wet food as was told natural yoghurt is good for sorting out bacteria in the tummy.
If she prefers to eat from the kong that's fine - need to get a bigger one though as we still have the puppy size one, so I filled it twice!!

I don't know anything about bloat & kibble though? other than not to have lots of water around meal times & not to walk and hour before or after eating. Is it because the kibble swells? I asked the Oscars bloke if this food sweels & he said no.

Hi
I don't actually feed my complete meals in a kong, but I did used to use them quite a lot with mine, I used to use recipes (many can be found on the net). BUT my eldest dog did start to destroy and eat the indestructable kong!!!

I don't want to bring the thread up again coz it was John Bull's sad thread when he lost his dog, but we all came to the conclusion after doing lots and lots of research into bloat, that you must ALWAYS feed some wet food with the dry kibble, and yes, because it swells up, the wet food helps because of course you are not feeding as much of it in one go to make up the meal size. Tilly is a big dog and this type of dog is far more prone to bloat than other, it's always big, deep chested dogs. Hope that helps.

Another good remedy for sorting out the bad bacteria in the gut are those powders, the pro-biotics you get from the vets and Tupac knows all about those, but I'll look them up again for you in my old thread if I can find it! Although the live yoghurt is good, it's not as good as the probiotic powder I was told by my vet recently, the powder is of course, more concentrated.

As for the food, I can't advise, you must do what you feel is right, horses for courses isn't it! I've had the same problem, but at least I can stick to the same brand even if it's a different flavour and different size kibble! Good luck

Oh dear that is scarey stuff - and here's me saying I'd rather her just have the dry food Thanks for the info though - I think I'll read up about it.

(Sorry off topic) does it have to be wet food or does soaking some of the kibble before hand have the same affect? Are only large dogs at risk or bloat or any dog?

I honestly don't know the answer to that question? Maybe it's the process of the dry kibble swelling IN the stomach that could cause bloat, which would then make your theory ok to feed it soaked? All I know is, from doing lots of research on bloat, it would appear that feeding a wet food WITH the dry kibble is much better, and some sites say to put pieces of something in it too (a bit of meat). When you think about it, would we ourselves, actually eat something on it's own which would swell in our own stomachs?? I don't think so!