How to make your doggy’s meal times more exciting!

At Bruce’s we love to make our pooches meal times more exciting by using creative ways to stimulate the senses. We wanted to share some of our favourites with you that you can use at home.

Does your dog inhale their food? Slow feeders and licki mats are a great technique that we use at Bruce’s for those dogs who have a habit of finishing their meal before the bowl hits the floor.

A slow feeder means the dogs are required to put a little more thought in to how they’re going to get the food and therefore meal time lasts for longer. This encourages some valuable mental stimulation aswell as nutritional enrichment.

Dogs are natural forages and love to use their noses to sniff out a tasty snack. We love to encourage this with our dogs at Bruce’s by using snuffle mats at meal times.

Snuffle mats present a fun and stimulating challenge for our pooches who love to solve a puzzle and uncover treats hidden in the fabric mat.

Some of our favourites include treat dispensing balls, puzzles and interactive toys.

Puzzle toys are much more interesting to any canine than a standard dog bowl. They help make meal time last longer and encourage your dog to use their brain!

Kongs are another great way to keep your dog busy during meal time. Naturally they encourage chewing which leads to the release of calming hormones and a natural way of self-soothing.

Kongs can be served fresh or frozen and some of our favourite fillings include:

• Peanut butter (xylitol free)
• Yoghurt
• Pumpkin puree
• Shredded carrots
• Banana

At Bruce’s we love creating home made scavenger hunts and scatter feeds for our dogs when it comes to their meal time. We love to hide the food around the room, under doggy objects or scattered within the grass and let them use their canine senses to sniff out their breakfast or lunch!