Someone, I think it was Coalsmom, already poste the link to the Purdue study on this thread. Go to the link and read it. The PUrdue study lasted for five years and studied over a thousand dogs. They were trying to find the cause/s of bloat. They haven't so far. But what they did find were statistics of how likely bloat was to happen under certain conditions. They found that feeding from raised dishes increased the risk of bloating by about 200%. They were surprised, so they redefined their search criteria to remove other possible factors, like had the dogs involved bloated before, how old they were, etc, and after they did that, they still came up with 110% more likely to bloat when fed from raised bowls than when fed on the floor. They don't know why that is so, but those are the statistics.
On the other side of the coin, while a lot of people "say" raised feeding is a bloat preventive, I've never seen one scientific study to back it up. It's just something that has become part of the conventional wisdom apparently, just like a lot of people "say" Dobermans will turn on their owners.
25 years ago, when I had my first two Dobermans, no one "said" raised feeding prevented bloat. But I did read some articles that said it was better for the dogs' posture to feed elevated. So for awhile I fed them on the kitchen chairs. I quit because they kept pushing the bowls onto the floor and spilling the food. What a mess.
When my dogs died, I was away from the Doberman world for awhile, didn't read any magazines or anything. When I got a new puppy and started reading the magazines again and then got on the internet, "everybody" was "saying" that feeding raised prevented bloat. It was a surprise to me, because I still remembered when it was supposed to only be good for posture. Every time somebody tells me feeding raised is a bloat preventive I ask them where is the proof, the study, that shows this is so. They never have one, they just "heard" that it was good. So I'm going with the Purdue study. I was feeding on the floor anyway, so it means I don't have to change.
