Portion Pacer (tm)

We've recommended clients to add a large ball, or even a golf ball for the smaller toy dogs, to the food bowl to slow down the eating frenzy. It works great to keep dogs, or even cats, from gulping their food then soon after, regurgitate it all up.

What a surprise to see this idea as a ''Portion Pacer'' at the local pet store. It looks like a nice, safe, easy to sanitize version --- at $14.99 for the medium to large dogs.

If you don't want to spend the $15 and don't have a ball large enough to avoid ingestion, you can try inverting a smaller bowl in the larger bowl. Pets have to eat around the smaller upside down bowl. Does not work as well as the large ball but will slow them down some.

Another tip for pets gulping canned food: smear the food onto the bottom and sides of the food bowl. Slows the eating as they have to lick and work at getting the food off the bowl.