The Science of Feeding and How Mealtime Impacts Your Pet's Health and Happiness

0:21 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Welcome to another episode of Healing Tails. And today we're talking about being way beyond the bowl and the science of feeding and how mealtime impacts your pet's health and happiness. So with me today is Dr. Carol Smeja. Welcome to Healing Tails. So happy to have you here. And I'm really wanting to get you introduced to our audience. So if you don't know Carol, you have missed a trailblazer in the science of feeding pets and the creator of the Original Mine Pet Platter. Her philosophy is super simple, but profound. How you feed your pet may be just as important as what you feed them. With a PhD in psychology and sociology, Carol B. Gann, her career, studying human eating behaviors, working with global food companies and helping government agencies learn to improve public health. But her passion for animals led her to apply this expertise to understanding the natural feeding instincts of dogs and cats. So through ancestral research on wolves and wild cats, wildlife observations, and interviews with specialists, she's developed a science-backed approach to mealtime that's transforming pet health and happiness. So Carol, welcome. So glad to have you here.

1:44 Dr. Carol Smeja: Thanks for having me, Dr. Ruth. It is such a pleasure to finally get to talk to you about this, and I appreciate you giving me a platform to speak to your audience.

1:56 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Oh, it is all my pleasure. So let's start with the story behind Mine Pet Platter, because I think that may be the simplest place to start. So what inspired you to create it?

2:11 Dr. Carol Smeja: Well, it's sort of an interesting journey, like with all ideas that typically involve your own personal experience. And we had an adorable little Habanese named Pip who was only 14 pounds but packed a punch. And when she would eat, she ate so fast that she would let out the most horrendous belch. If I had people over, they would have tears streaming down their eyes. I mean, it was so loud and so profound, you couldn't escape it. So one day I was making her chicken breasts and there were scraps and juices left on the cutting board. And my daughter said, "Mom, don't throw those away. Give them to Pip." So I put it down and for the next 15 to 20 minutes, I watched as this dog was totally engaged in this meal. And she was circling and licking. And after she was done, she looked up at me, licked her little chops and said, "This is the best thing that happened to me." So my husband came home and I explained it to him. And he said, "Oh my God, Eureka." Now we had been long time mountain hikers. We traveled through the Rockies five and six days at a time. We experienced a lot of wildlife out there and really saw how animals, wolves attack their prey, they're eating carcasses and all of that. So he said, "You know what? You look at Pip and then you look at what nature does. There's a disjunction here.” And that set us off on our journey.

4:05 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Crazy, crazy.

4:07 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So I'm assuming that you took that experience and then Pip never had another explosive belch after that. Is that a fair assessment?

4:17 Dr. Carol Smeja: That's a great way to, I love that explosive belch. That's exactly what it was. No, she did not. And it changed us forever. And we started to simply think, okay, so dogs closest living ancestor is the gray wolf. They share over 95% of their DNA. When you look at them in the wild, they're used to carcass feeding. And then what happened? Over time, we're the ones who domesticated them to work to our advantage. And when you look at it, all of a sudden, we're feeding from a bowl. We're the ones who changed their eating dynamics. We're the ones who took away the exploration. They spent 95% of their time in the wild, hunting, foraging, deconstructing carcasses. And we narrowed it down to 30 seconds in a bowl. So this whole domestication process led us to realize we haven't done them any favors. It was a convenience for us, but we took away who they really are as animals.

5:39 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Well, now that you're saying that, I think you could apply that same concept to us, right? Because we didn't have plates and bowls and stuff to start with. We were roasting, we were cooking at that point, but we were roasting stuff and then communally eating from the same, really, from the carcass, or from a bowl or from whatever cooking pots we had developed. Right. That concept of communality around a meal, while we still have it, it's changed dramatically, probably in a very short period of time.

6:13 Dr. Carol Smeja: Very well. We've even had a total of 12 people buy the Pet Platter for themselves to help them slow their eating. We do not discriminate against humans at all.

6:27 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That's very interesting. And that makes sense, right? Because we put it on this plate, we're like shoveling it in. Right.

6:32 Dr. Carol Smeja: It really helps slow them down, they're feeling much better. And I mean, of course we thought it was a big joke, but this way they create two platters, one for their pet and one for themselves.

6:44 Dr. Ruth Roberts: It's amazing, they can do the original crock-pet diet and just add a little salt to the stuff they put on their own platter, right?

6:51 Dr. Carol Smeja: Exactly, exactly.

6:53 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Wow, that's crazy. But that makes sense because that's sort of become the culture, is to just shovel food in, eat it on the go, eat it on the run, and we've done essentially the same things to our dogs and cats.

7:07 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So talk a little bit. So you had the eureka moment, you had the aha moment, Pips feeling better, but that's not where you stopped. So you did a lot of work looking at kind of the science behind how animals eat. So a little bit about that, it'd be amazing.

7:23 Dr. Carol Smeja: I spent all this time studying human eating behavior. And we actually would look at what people's nutritional attitudes were and compare that to their actual nutrient intake. So all these years, I'm sort of focused on the eating dynamics and psychology behind human eating. So what I did is to say, let's go to the original source, their ancestors, and I took on a journey which has been one of the most amazing things in my life, working at zoos, working with zoo nutritionists, observing animals. I've watched probably over a thousand hours of tapes dearticulating the carcasses. It's fascinating. But what I learned is that there are basic instincts that are operating that are totally suppressed by the bowl. So when you look at bowl feeding, what we're asking them to do is to put their head into a dark hole. The sides of the bowl block their peripheral vision. They can't engage with the food at all. It's just a pile. And so they can only clomp down and eat whatever is there. So all of the behaviors we saw in the wild are suppressed in the single bowl. Plus, and this is probably most serious, they have no control. There's no way that they can protect somebody from coming in and grabbing the bowl from them. It's so small and in such a tight, compact way that it just raises their anxiety because controlling your food resources in the wild is how you survive long term. So the bowl is actually completely counterproductive to healthy eating. It suppresses all of the natural instincts of the dog.

9:32 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Oops.

9:36 Dr. Carol Smeja: That's a great response. I love that.

9:39 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yeah. Well, and that makes a great deal of sense when you explain it that way. I mean, anyway, we've done lots of that, suppressing natural instincts and then creating problems, whether they're societal or psychological for the individuals right on. So, all right, if we back up 12 steps and then look at how wolves do this or dingoes or pinas do this in the wild? And they are different species. I know they broke off down the chain a little while ago. And how does sort of returning to that concept improve digestion, behavior and health for our pets?

10:22 Dr. Carol Smeja: Well, a very important part of it is eating too fast. Okay. Really has an impact on their digestive ability. And you have people who are spending so much money on the food that they feed their pets, but they never ask themselves, are they actually absorbing the nutrients? Dogs have one of the fastest digestive tracts of any living mammal. They have a very short, small intestine. And so if the food is coming in too fast, it doesn't have time in the small intestine for the nutrients to be absorbed. So, fast eating is reported as a problem by over 50% of consumers. So there is a huge population of dogs out there that suffer from this. But if you're going to spend all that time and money in selecting the best foods, how you feed your pet becomes very important for that digestive issue.

11:29 Dr. Carol Smeja: And the other thing, just in terms of overall health, is the feeding situation is one of the most stressful and anxiety times with a wolf or a dog because they have this extraordinary sensory circuit which is designed to help them protect it. So if I can just use this as an example, I just want to talk about some of the ways that we help those instincts come out. So with the pet platter, the shape and the size of the platter is specifically designed to give dogs control over their feeding environment. It's more expansive, as you can see, than a bowl so they can circle it. Why is circling behavior so important? It's a critical part of wildlife existence. In fact, a good example of this, there was recently an earthquake, I think several months ago at the San Diego Zoo, and all of the adult elephants gathered there young, brought them into the center and they circled the young in order to protect them. So when your dog is engaging in the feeding territory, you want to make sure that they can circle it in both ways. So the size of the platter makes a difference, but also there are no sides coming up to block their peripheral vision. And the importance of that is their eyes are set at a 20 degree angle to have better peripheral vision. They have, they're very near sighted, 2075, and so they can only see close up. So it's important that they have that immediate vision to actually go around the feeding territory.

13:32 Dr. Carol Smeja: And they also have more rods than cones in their retina. And what that basically means is they have superior night vision and motion detection. All of this is designed and is different from ours to protect their food resource. So having that complete visual territory and being able to circle, that's why when animals kill prey in the wild, they won't immediately deconstruct it. Rather they'll circle in both directions to make sure there's no threat coming up on that. And another important element is their sense of hearing.

14:16 Dr. Carol Smeja: They can hear over a mile away and their hearing is about a hundred times more powerful than ours and they hear at much higher frequencies. They can hear up to 65,000 Hertz. So what that means is we're not hearing what they're hearing. They're hearing a lot more noises that are coming in from all directions. So if you're feeding near a washer machine or a heavy traffic area, or there's loud noises going on, this is going to impact the way that they interact with their meal at the time. Many times they will either not eat or dump their food and relocate it to an area where they feel safer about it.

15:07 Dr. Carol Smeja: So vision and hearing play a critical role and we can't relate to that because we don't have what they have. So again, yeah, looking at this from a dog's perspective. The other situation is the broad surface area. With a bowl, there's no way that they can interact with the food. There's an instinctive need to be able to interact and identify what they're eating, what it is, how to get it. This is how they interact with the world. In fact, their sense of smell is their most powerful sense.

15:52 Dr. Carol Smeja: And they can smell a teaspoon of sugar in an Olympic-sized pool. One veterinarian figured out that particular analogy which I love. And the area of their brain which is used for decoding smells, is 40 times larger than ours.

16:16 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That's astonishing. And I hadn't realized it was that much bigger. That's crazy.

16:21 Dr. Carol Smeja: So they can actually function strictly with a sense of smell. And in working with different zoos and wildlife specialists, many times you have blind animals. Blind wolves can survive at a zoo easily through scent mapping. They learn throughout the den what different smells are and where they're located. It would be impossible for us to do that.

16:53 Dr. Carol Smeja: We're not good at that. But it is amazing. And here's hopefully one important fact that your audience will enjoy. Dogs taste their food through their sense of smell. Why is that? They only have 1,700 taste buds versus our 9,000. And cats, I believe only have 390 taste buds. So if you cover their ability to smell, you've disabled them. They stop functioning in the world. So with the Pet Platter offering this broad territory, you're allowing them to actually make food choices much like they did in the wild. When they deconstructed carcasses, they would go for the organ meat first, followed by the muscle meat on down and sometimes eating the hide for fiber. So they actually made food choices. When you feed from a bowl, you eliminate their ability to engage with their meal and to make those food choices. So you're making meal time, you're dumbing down meal time. There's no mental stimulation in the process.

18:13 Dr. Carol Smeja: And the last one would be that the Pet Platter really resembles an actual carcass and they sort of deconstruct it. First of all, by spreading the food all around, the importance of that is because they don't actually, they're not turning the meat off of the bone. We have to provide an alternative way for them to slow down. If you spread it all out and they're taking the time to smell and move around and engage with it, you're naturally slowing. But also there's no sides where they can shovel the food against. So it acts as a backward conveyor, which makes eating faster and the amount eaten faster as well.

19:03 Dr. Carol Smeja: So it really acts as sort of a deconstructive sort of feeding territory for them. Also, the scoops resemble the ends of bones. We specifically measured them so their tongues could actually fit in there to get every speck of food. And the ridges resemble the rib cages where they can dig food out. So it's really sort of replicating in our own way how to do that. And I actually studied the behaviors we wanted to get at and then my husband took that and he was the product designer on it. And after nine different versions, I'll have to show you our earlier versions sometime. They're quite hysterical. But this is what we came up with.

19:56 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Amazing.

19:58 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So one of the interesting things is for little dogs especially, so many of them will go and get a bite of food off of the bowl or plate or whatever it is and take it of course over to the carpet to eat it. And so that's a reflection of not feeling safe. Is that correct?

20:15 Dr. Carol Smeja: That is exactly true. In fact, I love telling this story. I met this woman at a conference who had a little Yorkie that was nine years old and she came up to us and said, "I don't care what you're selling, there is no way you're gonna get my dog to eat off of that thing." And we said, "Why is that?" And she said, "I've had to hand feed my dog for nine years and there is nothing has ever worked." So we said, "Okay, take the platter. You don't have to pay for it. Take it back to your hotel room, come back tomorrow. If you wanna return it, that's fine, no problem." So she came back the following day and she goes, "Damn you." It was so hysterical. Her dog ate off the platter right away and she never would accept hand feeding ever again. And so we became fast and furious friends and I would get words from her saying, "Still isn't letting me hand feed her, thanks a lot."

21:25 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Well, there you are. So that sort of changed the bond between pet parent and dog, right?

21:31 Dr. Carol Smeja: It did, it did. But you know what, you're absolutely right Dr. Ruth. When you look at how their sensory circuit is designed, everything is sending warning signals. That's the only way they could survive in the wild. Our goal since we've domesticated them is to make sure we suppress all those warnings and allow them to eat the way they were meant to eat. And that's really what the pet platter is all about, understanding their instincts and their physiology.

22:05 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That is so cool.

22:06 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So one of the things that Hayao has done over the years is like many little dogs go and take a bite and take it over to the rug and eat it. And she came out of a situation where a woman had 140 dogs in her house. And literally she was the first person to be convicted under the felony animal abuse law in South Carolina. And the sad thing is that this is the third time she had been arrested and unloaded. And I mean, just anyway. So the good news is that the third time was a charm and there were enough teeth in the law to prevent her from being able to do this in the future. But I know that Hayao had essentially PTSD because when my mother adopted her, she had a broken right front leg and was just extremely anxious and understandably so. I mean, she was in a situation where she couldn't trust anybody. Her fur was six inches thick matted. I mean, just deplorable.

23:20 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So she's always been weird about eating except for with McDonald's hamburgers. When mother would go, she was like, Hayao was like climbing up her arm to get to them. But she's always been a little weird about eating. And to be fair as well, she had to have all of her teeth extracted because they were rotten. So she has issues, right? So we finally got her to where she was eating pretty comfortably. And then over the last two years, she's had very significant neck pain and would get really intense muscle spasms, especially changing positions of her head. And one of those times is when she was eating. So she was pretty convinced that the big bad bear was at the food bowl waiting for her to eat to attack her. I mean, and really that's what it looked like. So she became very afraid of even approaching a bowl, a plate, anything. And finally we just had to feed her on a placemat. And there was a lot of hand feeding involved. So, you know, exactly as you were saying, as we gave her bigger options and the ability to maneuver around, then she became more comfortable eating.

25:31 Dr. Carol Smeja: Interesting. Well, you know, there's a big emotional component to eating as well. And one of the things that I learned to be more appreciative is watching special treats being thrown in at the zoo for the wolves to get at how protective they were. They would grab a bag. They wouldn't necessarily know what's in there, but we would hide treats in there for them to engage with it. And you could see the circling behavior and looking around. And if another wolf came too close, they'd pick up the bag and go to another location. And the dynamics of it was amazing. But this is one of the reasons we came to learn that having your own personal feeding territory is so meaningful to pets. It's security. And as I told you before, because they have more rods and cones in their retina, they don't have the same color spectrum that we do. So what we did was to look at the spectrum and we found out that dogs have basically three colors which are teal, red, and golden rod. And the importance of that is they can see and differentiate those colors. So the color they're first served on is the one they adopt as their own personal feeding territory and they respect the color of the other dog's feeding territory. So what it does is to eliminate food crushing and food stealing. So we're actually giving them the opportunity to own their own territory, which is why we call it the Mind Pet platter. It's their personal.

26:31 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Amazing. And so that sounds like in a multi-pet household that could be a game changer at mealtime because there often can be aggression over, no, this is mine and that sort of stuff. So if they're color coded instead of stainless steel, which I mean, that's just gotta appear as now grayscale, I guess, there's no differentiation.

26:58 Dr. Carol Smeja: Exactly. So what we try to do also is work with rescues and they'll start their pets off on a particular color pet platter. And that platter goes to their forever home with them. And what they've reported back to me is because they have their bonded friend with them, it helps reduce anxiety because a lot of pets won't eat. When they enter a new household, there's a certain amount of fear with the environment. Having their friend with them that they've bonded with allows them to eat and feel more at home. So it really helps the transition into that forever home.

27:43 Dr. Carol Smeja: So we love helping rescues on that basis because it is an anxiety ridden transition. Psychologically, think of all the new sounds, the new people, the new outdoor environment. Everything is new and it's overwhelming. There's a sensory circuit. So this is just one small way we can help them.

28:06 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That makes so much sense. I mean, so we travel frequently and part of what's helped Hayao adapt to that is the fact that she literally has her placemat and where she will eat and get her water. And then also she's got her little blanket so she knows where her space is within the new environment. So regardless of that everything else has changed, she knows she is home and safe. So very cool, makes sense.

28:36 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So for folks that are just like, oh man. Okay, so what are some steps that people that are just getting this information can take to start making mealtime a lot healthier and more enriching for their dog or dogs or cats?

28:57 Dr. Carol Smeja: That's a great question. And that's why I'm so happy to be able to talk with you because my goal is to share all of our information to help pets. And one of the first things I'd say is take the time to actually observe your pet eat. Are they eating over? Are they in a relaxed position? Do they feel comfortable moving around? If they're not, see what the problems are. Because the one thing I can say about our dogs as well as wolves, they communicate to us all the time. And we had one very interesting case where a woman posted on Instagram her story, she had a rescue that was very anxiety-ridden and they tried bowls, slow feeders, lick mats, raw food, kibble, she tried everything in the world. And then one of our fans said, you have to try the Pet Platter. Well, sure enough, she put the food on the Pet Platter and the dog never had another problem again. Now, ear bearing, which is what this dog was doing, and people have come forward more and more now, is when your dog is circling their head like that, which in a wolf pack means there's discomfort, they're not feeling good, something's wrong. And then they're putting their paw up in the air and it's almost like they're trying to bury the food in the air. And unfortunately, a lot of people say, oh, that's just instinctive behavior, ignore it. No, what that dog is trying to say, the way you're feeding me, I don't feel comfortable. I need a change, I need a change of venue.

30:54 Dr. Carol Smeja: So observing their behavior becomes so important and any movement they make, food dumping and relocating it saying there's something wrong about my environment. I had one woman during a consultation, we finally figured out she was feeding her pet near the washer and dryer. And so when different cycles would click in and the reverberations on the floor through the paws made the dog run away. So again, it's looking at their extraordinary sensory circuit all the way around. Another thing that I would say is never feed your dog in a kitchen corner. It's where 80, 90% of us feed. It's the most threatening for your pet because their eyes are basically blocked by the sides of the bowls. But then you have the sidewalls blocking their peripheral vision as well, which heightens anxiety. And then they're hearing all these noises that have higher frequencies behind. That's why when you feed in a kitchen corner, it basically accelerates the pace of eating. They wanna get through it to make sure nobody can take it away.

32:15 Dr. Carol Smeja: And so it's simply the location and how you're feeding again by understanding their perspective. The other thing I'd love to say, and I know you preach about this, food monotony. Do not continue to serve your pet the same food. Even at the zoo, we have to mix up the proteins, the treats, all zoo animals experience food monotony without a doubt. So make sure you put different proteins on there or use your recipes, create an exciting meal time like you sort of do for yourself. And the last thing is one of the focuses that I've had is the vehicles that people are using to slow down their pets feeding. And their nose is very, very sensitive. The exterior has a lot of sensory nerve endings. That's why when you try to touch a dog's nose, they'll immediately pull away. But the inside of their nasal cavities is a mucous membrane. And if you have a slow feeder that's keeping it to their nose, it causes swelling, which becomes painful. And if food flies up in there while they're attempting to get to the food, it dries out the nasal cavities so they can't smell. So it's very important under thy dog's nose. I mean, that is, it's one of my- That's where they're living.

33:59 Dr. Carol Smeja: It's definitely one of my commandments. And then the other one is with lictite mats, you have to be very careful because they're designed to really not allow their pet to get the food. The problem is because they have such a powerful sense of smell, they're smelling the food, but they can't get at the food, which leads to rapid licking, which leads to obsessive compulsive licking, which can then lead to aggressive behavior. That's why you'll see a lot of dogs tearing it apart. So that's why everything with the pet platter, it's designed so their tongue can fit and get every speck of food. It's appreciating the power of their noses and giving them the ability to finish their meal, much like they would off of carcasses in the wild. So those are just a few tips.

34:57 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That's amazing.

34:58 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So where do you see the future of pet feeding heading? And how is the Mind Pet Platter gonna fit into that vision or maybe change it?

35:08 Dr. Carol Smeja: That's a very good question. What I would like to believe is going to happen is that we are able to educate people, pet parents more and more on the importance of feeding. And through you and platforms like you, you're helping me share and get this information out. So I think we're going to start dealing with a more educated pet current population, and we can really make a difference because the way I see it, I sort of have an equation, how you feed your pet, and then what you feed your pet is the equation for healthy eating. Because if we're really going to deliver unhealthy eating, it has to include the delivery system. We wanna reduce the amount of, this is a key thing for emotional health as well. Because the feeding scenario can be so anxiety-ridden, it increases cortisol levels.

36:16 Dr. Carol Smeja: And if that continues over time, it leads to oxidative stress as well. And then we're impacting our pet's immune system. So we really have to be sensitive that the feeding occasion is a much bigger deal than just putting your dog's food down on the floor for them to eat.

36:37 Dr. Ruth Roberts: And that makes sense, right? Because if we're in the chronic state where cortisol is elevated, that means that the dog or the cat is living in the sympathetic nervous system state, the fight or flight state constantly, and not the rest and digest. So they're pounding the food, getting whatever, doing whatever it is to take the food in, and then that amplification of anxiety stays up for a long time. I think the last time I read stats, it takes something like six to eight hours to drop back down into parasympathetic, and if you know better numbers, the correct way, please. That's right, yeah.

37:19 Dr. Ruth Roberts: But if they don't, if it takes that long, and they've eaten this massive, like if they're eating kibble, and they've literally pounded a softball-sized amount of food, that stuff is gonna sit there in their stomach, not moving, not digesting, and then the whole digestive system begins to have issues because when it finally does drop, it's like the croutons drop in an undigested state. So if they cannot rest and digest, they can't move the food through the digestive tract in an appropriate way, and they cannot heal either. They can't have that time to regenerate cells and self-heal.

38:05 Dr. Carol Smeja: Yeah, that's such an excellent point because we see this with a lot of Frenchies. I mean, the choking, the regurgitation, they're not absorbing the nutrients. They're in almost a perpetual state of stress when it comes to mealtime. So by not having anything poke into their snouts because everything with the Pet Platter platter goes down, they're able to sniff out food, and the whole notion of licking. The Pet Platter promotes positive licking, which releases endorphins and actually combs Frenchies and the flat face breathes down. All that licking is such a positive contribution to their overall digestion.

38:52 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Beautiful.

38:53 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Carol, where can our listeners learn more about Mine Pet Platter and connect with you?

38:59 Dr. Carol Smeja: You can go to our website at mine, M-I-N-E, petplatter.com, and if you wanna touch base with us, then we just want everybody to know, even if you don't have a Pet Platter, even if you're not interested in getting one, you can always contact us about your pet's feeding issues. We're always here to help.

39:25 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Beautiful. Thank you so much for spending time today and helping us rethink one of the most important times and how really, how important it is.

39:39 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So until next time, for those of you that are listening to Healing Tails, stick with us, we're gonna have an amazing guest coming up. And if you love what we're doing, spread the word. Share the podcast, share the videos on YouTube. You know the drill, like, subscribe, share, all of that. That helps us grow, it helps us reach more people, and it helps pet parents become the best pet parent they can be for their pets.

40:07 Dr. Carol Smeja: And Dr. Ruth, thank you for everything you do in the pet world and the information that you share, you've contributed so much, and we really value you in the community. Thank you.

40:20 Dr. Ruth Roberts: With pleasure. Okay, until next time.

40:22Dr. Ruth Roberts: Thanks for listening to Healing Tails where pet parents become healers, one tail wag at a time. Want more tools and support? Head to DrRuthRoberts.com. Until next time, trust your gut, question the noise, and keep showing up for your pet.