give it to him frozen.. it will really slow him down !!! worked for my gulper !!

 

Big food, weirdly shaped food, partially frozen food. I have found that small things can be an issue (e.g. chicken drumsticks could be an issue, leg quarters usually aren't), long skinny things could be an issue (turkey or duck necks, for instance), and solid meat without bone can be an issue (my dog will try to gag down whole lamb hearts). Do not obsess or hover... you will make your pup anxious, which leads to desperate gulping. I wouldn't worry about a slow introduction... your pup shouldn't have any problem unless there is something wrong with him... explosive diarrhea is not the norm!

Raw food is YUMMY! When your pup figures out that this new, wonderful food is going to keep on coming, he will probably become less crazed <G>. He needs to learn how to eat, and he will do this best if you give him large challenging pieces and let him figure it out. Also, what looks like scary gulping is often totally normal behavior... chomp! chomp! gulp! is how many foods go down.

 

Yes, typical eating for Jordan is chomp chomp gulp. He'll gnaw a boneless chunk to just swallowable size and down it goes. Even with a gag, usually they'll get it up themselves and try again. Typically off out goes too fast our is too big it might come back up for him to try again. It gets better but honestly he will always be a gulper most likely. I have started cutting up big pieces I know he won't chew into bites sometimes, but honestly a points sized chunk of meat usually just goes right down. It ask comes out the other end digested just fine, even bone.

 

The only thing Flirt won't choke on is very very very bony things like backs with the neck attached. Not the back 'pieces' that have meat on the sides. She's a very odd duck and tried to swallow a 1.5 lb turkey leg whole. If it is soft, she will try.

 

Sounds like Niz. I agree with the frozen thing. The only thing that kept Niz from swallowing his turkey necks whole was that they were frozen and were stuck together (3 pieces). He chewed them apart and then chewed all over, then chewed off pieces. If it's soft--he'll gulp w/o chewing--we figured that out the first time we fed him raw. He had an entire bone out rib eye steak and swallowed it without chewing. He didn't choke, and it came out the other end fine, but we always cut his food into chunks after that.

 

Neither of mine are gulpers, but they do eat fast....crunch crunch crunch....swallow, that would be a chicken leg gone in a minute flat. I feed partially frozen a lot, not to slow them down, because my xtra fridge is super cold and nothing defrosts in there too quickly.

 

I had a gulper, and he choked and died after stealing a piece of meat that was being cut into smaller chunks

His brother was also a gulper, but we have addressed that and slowed him down to half speed by putting him in an X-pen or the garage with his food so he knows the others can't come and take it.

Meat is cut into pieces smaller than the throat. Bones have to be bigger than the throat. My oldest almost choked on a turkey butt - we don't get those anymore.

If you have a gulper, you have to manage the size of the food and try to separate them from children and other dogs or cats when eating.

 

Thanks for the all the insight. Fed him a chk thigh tonight and he did better. Chewed it up for a while but then still attempted to swallow a little more than he can handle. He choked it up w/ a little coaxing and then took the rest down fine. mmctaqOn the issue of diarrhea, all I can say is this is not what I experienced with our first girl. She had some diarrhea with switching "cold turkey" and then had mucus and a little blood in her stool for about a week. I was very concerned at the time and researched as much as possible only to find that it was not a rare or odd occurence. Info I found led me to believe that all of those could be experienced for a relatively short period as the dog's body adjusted. It also said it could occur from too high of a fat content when starting out.