Outward Hound Fun Feeder Slo Bowl, Large

Some dogs eat. Some dogs inhale, finish in twenty seconds, and then stand looking confused and slightly unwell. The second group is who this bowl is for, and it is one of the few pet products where the mechanism is obvious and the result is immediate.

How it works

The base is moulded into ridges, grooves and maze patterns, so kibble sits in channels rather than in a pile. The dog has to work the food out with its tongue and nose instead of scooping it. Outward Hound says this keeps dogs engaged up to ten times longer at mealtimes, and while your mileage will vary with the pattern and the dog, the difference between a twenty-second meal and a four-minute one is obvious from the first use.

Why slower matters

Eating fast means swallowing air, which causes the burping and discomfort you see afterwards. In deep-chested breeds it is also associated with bloat, which is a genuine emergency. Slowing a meal down is a cheap piece of preventive care, and it doubles as enrichment — a dog that has to think about dinner is a dog that is slightly more settled after it.

Worth knowing rather than worrying about: bloat is a twisting of the stomach that mostly affects large, deep-chested breeds, and the signs are a hard swollen belly, unproductive retching, drooling and obvious distress. It is an emergency measured in hours, not days, and a vet call is the only response. A slow feeder is one of several sensible precautions, alongside not exercising hard immediately after a meal, rather than a guarantee.

Choosing a size and pattern

Three sizes: small holds three quarters of a cup, medium two cups, large four cups. Buy for the meal, not the dog — an oversized bowl with a small meal means the food sits in one section and the point is lost. The patterns come in difficulty levels described as slow, slower and slowest, and there is a version for flat-faced breeds whose muzzles cannot reach into deep grooves.

Practical points

The base is non-slip, which matters because a determined dog will otherwise push the bowl round the kitchen. It is top-rack dishwasher safe and made without BPA, PVC, lead and phthalates. It works with wet food as well as dry, though wet food in a maze is considerably more effort to clean.

The one caveat: a dog that is genuinely frustrated rather than engaged will chew the bowl. Start with an easier pattern if yours is that type.

Cleaning it properly

The grooves that slow the dog down are also the grooves that hold food residue, and a plastic bowl rinsed rather than washed grows a biofilm that you can feel as a slight slipperiness. That film is the usual culprit behind chin acne in dogs, which shows up as small bumps on the lower lip and chin. Wash it daily in hot soapy water or run it on the dishwasher's top rack, and use a brush rather than a cloth so the bristles reach the bottom of the channels. Replace the bowl if the plastic becomes scratched or gouged from chewing, because scratches hold what washing cannot reach.

If the bowl alone is not enough

For some dogs a maze bowl takes a twenty-second meal to four minutes and that is the whole problem solved. For the truly determined, two cheap additions help. Split the daily food into three meals rather than two, which reduces the volume available to gulp at any one sitting. And scatter part of the ration on a snuffle mat or across the lawn, which turns eating into foraging and takes considerably longer than any bowl. Neither costs much, and between them they cover the dogs that treat this bowl as a mild inconvenience.

Should you buy it?

Buy it if your dog finishes a meal in under a minute, or if you want a little mental work at dinner time. Skip it if your dog eats at a normal pace, or if they are a determined destroyer of plastic.