food bowl

Has anyone every had a problem with there dog just not like there food bowl!fred has not being eating great for the last few days and i notice him trying to get something from under the table and it was on of his nuts so i put some of them out on the ground and he eat every bit of them!

did this ever happen to any of ye?

Lol, our dog does this as well. We bought a cute place mat from the pet store, and we put his water dish on one side, and then for meals, pour his food onto the other side of the place mat. He also swipes at them with his paw so a few fall away, and then eats them. It's pretty funny lol. When we first used a bowl, he would swipe at the bowl until all the food would fall on the floor, or would try and knock the bowl over, and then eat it. I really don't get it lol , but that's what has worked for us.

My MIL's cavalier will stand and bark at the bowl in hopes that some one will spill it out onto the ground for her.

We eventually realized it was because she didn't like the noise of her tags hitting the ceramic bowl. We began taking her collar off during dinner and the problem went away.

What's kind of nice now is that if Bailey gets hungry, he scratches the place mat to let us know. He usually gets hungry between 5-7pm, but it's nice to just feed him exactly when he wants. And the occasional weird day when he actually decides to eat during the day he can let me know. My boyfriend is convinced this makes him VERY smart. I wonder if he thinks scratching it makes food suddenly appear hehe

He does that as well takes the food out of the and will eat it once it is on the food! Think i will try and get the mat that u are talking about and put his food on it!

Waddles didnt like the no tip stainless steel bowl I got for her probably because its too big for her. But I got this cermaric dish at petco and its smalle rnad not as deep. I think she has having a problem just getting a hold of some of the kibble cause the stainless steel one was so deep.

Also I dont know about other puppies, but Waffles likes to grab a piece of kibble and lay somewhere eat it and then go grab another piece of kibble and laysomehwere and eat it. She never actually eats it standing in front of the bowl. ANyone elses pup do that?

Jean swears that ours don't like plastic bowls, but I don't remember that. We bought some smallish Corelle (sp?) bowls that are working just fine. Non breakable is important, because Elvis likes to pick them up and carry them around... and he drops them frequently. Kinda funny to watch.

KC

Not a chance, Prince would eat his dinner off nails, nothing would stop him eating, its embarassing when people call at his dinner time, he eats his dinner so quick, I think people must think that I am starving him!!!

Daisy is funny with her bowl too, sometimes she will eat from it and other times she won't, sometimes she will eat if off the floor!

Puppies often do this kind of thig with food -- take out individual kibbles etc. -- just seems part of playinggames. Generally a lot of this goes away as they get older when actually eating becomes the priority! :lol:

One BIG word of warning though -- be very cautious about putting food on the floor or doing ANYTHING to indulge or fuss over the pup/dog once the food bowl goes down. First off if you board your dog, kennels/boarding homes are not going to indulge the dog by dumping food on the ground. Secondly, 95% of the time this behaviour has nothing at all to do with any real problem with eating from a bowl -- it is game playing to get attention from you and is part and parcel of problem eating, where a dog might start to refuse food, or wait til you offer new things, or change the food, or feed from a spoon, or from your hand... as long time members will recognise, all these things are probably the NUMBER ONE problem people find arises with their puppies and is one of the most frustrating and can become a very long term, major feeding issue.

In other words, do NOT indulge it. Put the food in the bowl, put the bowl on the ground, IGNORE the dog for the next 15 minutes; if any food remains uneaten lift the bowl without comment and put away -- no in-between treats -- til the next scheduled meal when you repeat the process.

I cannot tell you how many times people say "But my cavalier will only eat off a plate, not a bowl/only eats off the floor/ and only picks out this bit of the food, or refuses to eat, or will only eat Food X'. Then they are totally shocked when the dog goes to stay with someone else or is kennelled, eats from the bowl normally, and eats whatever is given to him or her! It is because the dog learns quickly that YOU will pay all sorts of extra attention if they try these techniques -- they have trained YOU to do what they want and this is only going to continue and possibly get a lot more frustrating -- very quickly it will no longer be cute or quirky but a headache. A fresh person and situation means they cannot do any of these things.

It is much better to not encourage potential eating problems and fussiness and just expect the dog to eat normally, eat the food you choose to offer, in a proper bowl. And the way to help avoid problems starting is to not watch and fuss over the dogs while eating, especially puppies -- yes they are cute and this can be a temptation, but a puppy learns immediately that the more it fusses and does odd things, the more you will pay attention to it constantly during a meal. Just put the food down and ignore the dog.

Thanks karlin i will start to lift his food and see how it goes!

Alfie sometimes for no reason will stare at his food instead of eating from the bowl and he will only eat if I put some on spoon. He eats that then eats everything else in the bowl, we have give out trying to fathom it out.
It only happens now and then.

Scout eats very quickly, she eats her 1/2c of kibble in under one minute. She's like a hoover or dyson.....

KC don't believe that Corelle can't break. I dropped a serving bowl from about 4 feet and it shatted into a million pieces. It was very loud too. People were amazed when I told them it broke. It must have hit at just the right angle to shatter it. It took a long time to clean up, little shivers of glass.

lady's sometimes picks kibble up and eats it in her bed she runs back and forth till it's all gone.

Natalie said:

lady's sometimes picks kibble up and eats it in her bed she runs back and forth till it's all gone.

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haha Fiona does this exact same thing! Her X-pen, crate, and food/water bowls are all in the kitchen, and usually when she eats, we are in the living room, and she will run into the kitchen, grab a full mouth of food, come to the living room, and empty it onto the carpet, and eat it off of there! it is hilarious. We thought for awhile that she just wanted to be closer to us, and as she's gotten older she has stopped doing it as often. Food isnt a priority for her yet, she only eats when she's really hungry.