Eating schedule problems

Well, I posted a while back because we were having trouble brushing our
new pound-pup. We bought the book 'Mother Knows Best' and have found
it to be invaluable in training our puppy. He is becoming extremely
well behaved.

We are having a problem getting him on a schedule eating. We have
tried everything we can think of (we were only giving him access to his
food for 30 minutes, we [at the recommendation of a friend] put a
little peanut butter in there and stirred it up to try and make it more
appetizing [it made him throw up]) and are now at a loss. We feel bad
if he doesn't eat, but we don't want to leave his food sitting in the
house for him to go chow down on at 4 am.

Kathleen...

Unless this is a very young toy breed it's not going to kill him to
skip a meal or two. Offer him food - his normal rations, sans gravy or
peanut butter or anything else, give him maybe 15 minutes to eat it,
then pick it up and put it away. He gets nothing but water until his
next scheduled meal time. No treats, no tidbits "to keep his strength
up". Chances are he'll be pretty darned keen to chow down next time you
dish up the kibble.

This regime worked quite well within even with my mother's extremely
spoiled free-fed canine brats. Within just a few days of boarding with
old meany-pants Aunty K. everybody was chowing down with great gusto on

JodiSue...

This made me laugh -- it exactly describes how Tallulah eats every meal.

The last two times I boarded her she came back and didn't want to eat at
meal time for whatever reason. So, if she doesn't eat in the morning by the
time I have to leave, her food goes away. It comes back out at dinner time,
and usually she is more than ready for it, and the reluctance to eat goes
away in the first 24 hours that she is back home.

a regular schedule.

Paula...

How long have you waited the dog out? If he doesn't eat in the
evening, take the food up and go to bed. Don't feed him again until
your morning feeding time. Take it up after the alloted time again
and don't feed until evening feeding time. He won't starve to death,
so don't feel bad if he doesn't eat. He may not be hungry at the time
you are feeding him, but he will be the next time you feed him if
there are no in between snacks or anything. Don't do anything like
the peanut butter unless you want to do it at every feeding. If he
likes the food but just eats it at 4 a.m., you don't need to do
anything to the food, just get him accustomed to a new eating time.

Any suggestions?

FurPaw...

Is there something that frightens him about his food dish or
surroundings (that's absent at 4 AM)? Does he cringe when you
try to entice him to approach the food dish? Will he take the
food from your hands?

One thing occurs to me - it might be you (or whoever is feeding
him). Is he a submissive pup? If he's a bottom-of-the-pack
sort, he may be reluctant to eat when other members of his "pack"
are present. (If you want to see a graphic example of this
submissiveness around food, rent the video "Wolves at our Door.")
He may be returning to his food in the middle of the night
because no one is around. Will he eat if you leave him and his
food in a room by himself and close the door?

Paula...

Our chihuahua is like that. She doesn't like to eat when anyone else
is around. It's still easy to get a dog like that to eat on a
schedule, though. Just leave her alone with her food at the desired
time instead of making her wait for everyone to be asleep to eat.

MattW...

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think part of the problem is that my
wife was putting treats in the food and giving it to him after I took
it away. We had a talk, withheld food last night, and he ate this
morning on time. Hopefully now that my wife understands we can get him
back in line.

And Paula, he doesn't like to eat when people are around because he is
so interested in what people are doing. We become way more interesting
than the food. Hopefully we can get him to where people don't bother
him.

MattW...

I should have placed a disclaimer - he is only bothered by people when
trying to eat. He likes people so much that he can't concentrate on
the food. If we are in the room he wants to be near us.

We also think it may be the food, he seemed to like the other food
better (although this food is technically better for him). We are
going to switch back to his old food to see if that will aid the
problem.

montana wildhack...

Switching back and forth is probably not a good idea for a finicky dog
and will reinforce his refusal to eat what you give him.

Having him work for food and having different people in the house make
him work for food will reinforce that people are good and food is good
and obedience training is good. That's a lot of good stuff!

Thanks for the suggestions.

This is just wild speculation based on what you wrote - but I had
a Chihuahua who would cringe and roll on his back and refuse to
approach his food. It broke my heart - he acted as if he were
about to get a beating. I trained him to sit up and beg for his
food (incompatible with cringing), and after a few weeks, that
solved the problem.

Matt