Eating issue

Maizie has habit of not eating her food.

When we feed the dogs wet food she refuses point blank to eat out of the bowl 95% of the time.

She shows interest in the food when you dish it up then when you offer it she walks away. She also acts quite oddly. Her tail is curled under, her back is bent and she almost seems to tip toe away from or round the food. Sometimes she will walk round the bowl several times looking at it and then walk away, sometimes she walks away straight away. Either way this all done very very slowly. Once she's walked away she sits and looks at you as if she is waiting for something.

She will eat the same food if it's on the floor and also if given by hand. We've tried the take it away and offer it again later loads of times and really stuck with it but it doesn't work. She will also do this with treat food given in a bowl like chicken or mince etc, but she eats kibble from a bowl quite happily every day. On very rare occasions she will eat the food on the second or third attempt to give it to her.

Anyone got any ideas on how to encourage her just to settle and to eat? I can't always be here to keep offering it and I really don't like having the food hanging around in the warm weather even though it's covered over.

You could try the trick I usually use and that is to dish up, have a biscuit or something yourself and let Maizie watch you eat it and then fling the last mouthful in her bowl and say "your turn".

This comes from the wild when the alfa animal eats and the onlookers get their chance to have whats left.

Once she starts to eat the food you have thrown in she may get a taste for what is left of her food.

May not work but worth a try.

Maybe she likes the noise the kibble makes in the bowl - it has been known.

Like that idea of the left oversfrom me - she loves getting stuff we eat. I'll give it a try and let you know if she goes for it.


That's funny about about the kibble - she does make a bit of a game out of eating it often picking up one bit at a time and making a big show out of crunching it. She takes it and shows it to Amy sometimes too just before she crunches it.

Our dogs can be very odd at times