Dog eating habits

[UTChick]

I just started noticing this a couple of months ago. Our dog will only eat when DH and I are eating. Dex is not an overeater (yet), so we put out his entire day's worth of food in the morning and he eats on it throughout the day, or rather anytime we are in the kitchen/breakfast nook eating. When we notice it, we tease him by saying things like, "Yes, you now have permission to eat." Or "Ok...let's all eat as a family now." (Yes, we are huge dorks. ;) )

Is this a social thing with all dogs or just my weirdo? I never noticed this with the dogs we had growing up. Just curious...

[kanga1622]

Our dog won't eat if we aren't somewhere he can see from his food dish. He'll often go into the kitchen to his food and then peek around the corner to make sure we haven't moved off the couch between each bite of food.

In fact, our dog almost never eats unless he can see me. He's home with DH all day long and he won't eat anything until I come home for lunch or at the end of my work day.

[IrishMeg]

Weird. Our dogs won't eat if we are eating. We have to feed them before or after our meals. They are so interested in what we are eating, they don't give a crap about their own food.

We do have to seperate them though because E's dog thinks he's at an all you can eat buffet and will eat all of the food in my dogs bowl.

[karlatta]

Mine eat right when we put their food out, and they eat all of it right away.

I think it's because they both know if they leave even just a little bit in the bowl, the other dog will come and eat it. We also feed them in seperate rooms.

[craftyT]

Our dog's are snackers too - but only when we are home and only after we have finished dinner - I think they like to make sure they have room in their bellies in case they get some people food.

Once they see us up and doing the dishes, they go straight for their food.

Aren't all of our dogs personalities so funny? They're all so smart and/or sneaky :D

[smiles33]

I can't even imagine my dog behaving as well as some of your dogs, in terms of waiting to eat until I eat. As soon as I let him out of his sit/stay, he jumps up and INHALES his food (sometimes it even falls out of his mouth when he lifts his head!). Unfortunately, it causes some digestive issues as he sometimes throws up/spits up half-digested food he didn't even fully chew.

We adopted him from a rescue group and they told us he was found on the street (at only 6 pounds, half his current weight) so I think he has this major starvation avoidance complex.

[UTChick]

Very interesting...

kanga1622~ Dex does the same thing. Sometimes we will eat in the family room on tv trays and when we do this he will go in the kitchen get a mouthful of food and then come into the family room to chew it. He repeats this until he has had enough or we finish eating.


Dogs can be so quirky sometimes...I just love it. :D

[snowzilla]

Our dog, Dexter, won't eat his own food if we are eating, so we have learned to feed him after we're done eating and our dishes are put away. Otherwise, his food will sit untouched, even if he doesn't get a bite of what we're having. He's a chronic hunger-striker and it drives me nuts.

He will only eat ONE particular brand of kibble mixed with another particular brand of wet food. He won't eat dry food by itself or wet food by itself, and we have tried switching brands several times, but finally gave up because we were wasting our money. We tried to outlast his willpower when he went on these mini-hungerstrikes, but he will seriously go for two or three days without a bite of food. :rolleyes:

When it comes to snacks and treats, he won't eat them if we're not home! We will give him a treat when we're going out somewhere, and when we come home, even if it is a few hours later, he'll run and get the treat, bring it back and eat it in front of us. He's a strange, strange dog. :)

[nylons73]

We have 2 dogs and they are very different with regards to eating.

Our bulldog - Stella - will eat anything and everything we put in front of her. The moment we put her food down, she inhales all of it as fast as possible.

Our yorkie- Martin- won't eat unless either DH or I are eating. Sometimes, if he's been home with me all day, he won't eat until DH gets home and eats something. Martin is definately a 'grazer.' Yorkies typically won't overeat, so we put his food out and just let him eat as he wants.

[KeliAnn]

My dog Macey won't eat when I'm eating, because she usually stares at whatever I'm eating.

She doesn't eat all at once, either. I give her food in the morning, and she usually doesn't finish it until right before we go to bed.

She also carries it in her mouth everywhere, so I'm constantly stepping on hard bits of dog food. That's always fun in the middle of the night. :rolleyes:

[Katy]

Okay, every time I do a "new posts" search and come across this title, I just have to giggle, as I do not eat dog, and therefore have no "dog eatting habit"! :D

But otherwise, my schnauzer/cocker mix eats twice a day, mostly 1/2 cup dry and probably no more than 3 full-sized treats (I break them all down) a day. Every once in a while he'll get a 1/3 of a regular sized can of food (or one Iams pouch of wet food).

We try not to feed him people food and if/when we do, we keep it small and usually wash the added seasoning/flavoring off. The only time he's a big begger is if he *knows* someone will feed him (like his grandpa) or the time when he was on cortisone/steroids (and *that* was just crazy insane begging).

[gayle]

My dogs are free feeders. They always have a full bowl of kibble availible, and nibble on it off and on all day long.

[UTChick]

Okay, every time I do a "new posts" search and come across this title, I just have to giggle, as I do not eat dog, and therefore have no "dog eatting habit"!

Ha! I never saw it like that until now...pretty funny.

[katmg]

We feed our dog twice a day. He always scarfs down his kibbles as soon as we put them down. Breakfast and Dinner are his two favorite times of the day. We make him sit and wait while we put the food in his bowl and then tell him "okay." As soon as we say the magic word he is chowing down!

[irish74]

Oh my gosh, you guys have dogs with so much control. My crazed lab-mutt barely can stand to sit long enough to let the food fall out of the cup into the bowl. It probably takes him 30 seconds to polish it all off and scour the floor for stray kibbles. He gets 1 cup twice a day and he's certainly not starving, but he sure tries to convince you otherwise. He also has ZERO qualms about eating when you are not looking, I mean ZERO. If you leave food and leave the room, you can kiss that food goodbye, he's also got a bit of a kitchen trash addiction. You can't leave him home alone with food trash or it will be all gone except for the bag. He is super clever, he can open cupboards, & the oven, we finally had to just do away with a kitchen trash can since he can open or knock over all the ones we tried, so food has to be way secure in our house. :rolleyes: Thank god that he can't open the fridge, yet... Though amazingly enough, with all of his food drive he has no problems with letting you take it away from him, I don't even want to count how many times I've pulled a chicken bone out of his mouth that he has picked up from the sidewalk.

[pompomgirl]

Our dog's the same way. I think it's the whole pack instinct thing. In the wild, dogs hunted and then ate together. Since we're his pack now, well, go figure...or I could be way off w/this!! ;-)