My Dog Doesn't Eat the Food in His Bowl

My dog is a picky eater.

My dog grazes.

My dog won’t eat the food in his bowl.

Have you said any of those sentences before? I hear these on a daily basis. I also hear that a dog won’t eat his food after a training session. I think people feel I “spoiled” him by training with chicken. We look through the human lens with human thoughts and human emotions even when we look at our dog’s behavior. Let me ask you this: why do we feed our dogs from bowls?

We feed our dog from a bowl because we eat from bowls. There is nothing doggy about eating out of a bowl. Most dogs find this very boring! There is no hunting, sniffing things out, and no challenge! Your dog is programmed to seek food each day. His entire body is perfect to sniff for food, chase things, bite, chew and eat!

And if a bowl is boring, a bowl that is full all the time is even more boring. A dog that grazes or free-feeds can eat whenever he wants. He doesn’t even need to wait for meal time or look forward to meal time. A dog should always have an appetite. If you have food in a bowl and your dog isn’t eating it, I call this doggy depression! He needs a purpose! Our purpose is something we search for, but an animal’s purpose is to survive. A dog wants and needs to have things to do each day that make him feel satisfied. Working for food helps a dog feel fulfilled.

Working for food for a dog is not the same as a wolf or other canid, because he does not actually NEED to work, yet the desire is still there. Here are some ways to meet your dog’s needs:

At a minimum, feed your dog at specific times - am and pm. Offer the food for 10 minutes, then remove it until the next mealtime.

Feed your dog for things you like! Wear a treat pouch for a few weeks and feed your dog a piece of food for each behavior you like. You will have new dog in a couple of weeks.

Feed your dog from food dispensing toys. My favorites are Kong, Kibble Nibble, Snuffle Mat and Licki Mat.

Toss your dog’s food all over your floor or outside in the yard and let him sniff and eat.

In addition to feeding your dog in novel ways, he needs to have a good chew! A dog likes to work to eat. Get some raw bones, bully sticks, dump a can of tuna…..make it a challenge and stinky! Hide an item in the yard and let your dog go find it and then enjoy his “kill!”

If you are really worried that your dog may starve, do this - measure out his needed food amount for a day and divide it by two. Offer him a portion of food in the morning for 10 minutes and pick the bowl up - eaten or not. Repeat this in the evening. In 2-5 days, your dog will eat the food in his bowl at each mealtime.

Most of what goes wrong with dogs and food is our human intervention. Let your dog be a dog!