Doggie feeding problems

[Marty]

Maybe someone has an idea why Biscotti does this. We have 4 dogs and feed them 2x per day. I start to fill the dog bowls, and she runs out the doggie door. We call her for breakfast ("hungry" is our word), but she doesn't come until the others are done eating. Louie is fed in his crate, but the others have had bowls put down as we have always done. Louie is the new guy, and we have adopted him, but as a foster, I crate trained him and kept it up.....he is not the problem. This morning, biscotti did not come in for breakfast within her normal time frame, so I did not feed her...the others were done, and I had let Louie out of his crate. We gave her extra food tonight, but I have no idea why she is doing this. The funny thing is, she is the one who usually tells me that it is breakfast time..I am clueless..

[E's]

Oh my! Know just how you feel... I feed cat and dog twice daily at the same time - cat has chow in a counter feeder at all times but dog does not get between meal food. My Winnie is usually like a big, furry alarm clock, very set in her routines, letting me know in no uncertain terms if MY timing is off or if she thinks the cat is getting more attention or special food (Win gets a small amount of canned food in her chow) than she is... Most days if that happens, she goes ahead and eats her breakfast eagerly. But on other days just a slight variation of routine will cause her to go into the refusing breakfast bit, maybe all day... Her vet said if it happens just once in a while, even for 2 or 3 days, not to worry: the dog can go without regular feedings that long. But one should try to follow the dog around and see what might be different behavior. Sometimes the problem is obvious - she has swallowed part of a paper towel or something like that... Other times I never find out what it was, the trouble just goes away...

Have you tried feeding canned pumpkin... that works with Winnie; or cottage cheese or plain yogurt... something good for her but helping get her system back in sync... I'm ashamed to admit what happened to us just this year: I was negligent about applying the Frontline for a couple months and my dog got tapeworm! Horrors! She had never had any internal parasites before in her life... but that's what was causing the unusual eating patterns...

Thus, all I can think of is for you to go outside with Biscotti and try to find out if anything is different in her yard behavior, and if the pattern of upset (refusal to eat or overeating at odd times) continues, then you know the drill off to the vet! Good luck and let us know what happens.

[k9Karen]

It's certainly possible that there is something medically wrong, but if all else is unchanged, it may just be that she's either stressed out by the whole thing, or her eating patterns have changed. (Could happen as she ages - hormones that affect appetite can change over time). While most dogs easily adapt to the schedule you set for them, some just don't want to eat when you want them too. I suspect not wanting to eat around all the other dogs is related to one of two things - either Biscotti finds it too stressful, or she enjoys the extra attention she gets by doing it this way (so by allowing the behavior, you are in effect, rewarding it - which, BTW, I don't find anything wrong with, but if it really annoys you or makes you late for work, you could work on changing it). When we first got Foxy, she was used to free-feeding, and didn't want to eat in the morning with the other two. It took about a week of not getting fed until the evening (with us working, we weren't home to give it to her until later), but now she chows down at the same time as Allie and Angel with no problems. I just picked up what she hadn't eaten in the morning, and she didn't get it again until the evening. It did take a while for her to completely shift her eating pattern. Biscotti may just prefer to get her large meal in the evening. If stress is the cause, I doubt you'll be able to change anything, but it might work to feed her in a different room. Of course, as E's says, if she just does't seem to be herself or you notice something else wrong, it would be a good idea to see the vet.

I did just think of one other thing - have you changed the order in which the dogs are fed? Mine get really out-of-sorts if I don't feed them in the 'right' order. It must occur Angel, Foxy, Allie. And even then, Angel still sometimes has problems with being number one. That was Mickey's place, and she sometimes doesn't think she's supposed to eat it if it's set down first.