Rolling Dog Farm Blog

This is Travis, our dog with a fused jaw, diving into his dinner this evening.  Although he has a stomach tube for feeding and medicating, we learned early on that he can slurp liquids from the left side of his mouth and that he much prefers to eat on his own.

He would get so upset watching the other dogs eat, and he just craved eating!  Using a syringe and the tube to slowly squirt liquid food into his stomach didn’t do anything to satisfy that craving.  So we now fix him up a special liquid diet in the blender which he slurps to his heart’s content. 

As you can see, it’s a bit messy … but he couldn’t be happier.  He zooms into Widget’s House, races into his crate, turns around, and plops his head in the bowl.  He was a little put out that I kept calling him so he’d raise his head for the photo. "Let me eat, will ya?!" is the look I was getting.

Pavlov may have trained his dog to associate the ringing of a bell with food — Pavlov’s dog would begin salivating when the bell rang — but in Travis’ case the response is triggered by … the blender!  If he hears that blender whirring, he comes running!

His head looks thin and oddly shaped because his jaw muscle disease — masticatory myositis — also affects the muscles that run from the jaw up to the top of the skull.  These muscles atrophied, leaving his head looking a bit, well, pointy.

Pointy headed or not, this boy’s a satisfied diner.

(Click on photo for larger image.)