Food agressive

[chelle]

Originally Posted by Samba

Some will guard water, but the food has a much higher value and is worth defending.

Yup. Food is definitely higher value than plain 'ole water.

My oldest two were free-fed until the pup came home. The food bowl was always there and usually full, so no one felt a worry there wouldn't be something for them. Therefore, they never fought over food or water.

Then the pup came in... and it all changed... The pup is on different food, so the free-feeding came to an abrupt end with his arrival. Now I feed the two oldest in the spare room and they have no guarding issues, they're just fine eating and drinking together, but Lord Forbid the pup get NEAR their food OR that THEY get near HIS food. They will guard theirs and he will guard his. Long story short, there's no point for me to try to get them to do any different. The two are fed together, the pup is fed alone. That's all.

I will never free-feed again, anyway, so I don't care if it is like this.

I'm no expert here, but it might seem that the more you try to "push" the older dog to accept the pup's intrusion, it might actually make it worse. Give poor Saki a break. Let her have her dinner in peace from the pup.

[codmaster]

Originally Posted by Kittilicious

So you all think there is no way to break this?

Of course there is - esp. since one is a young puppy! I would strongly urge you to work on this feeding thing - will be much better for the future if you train them to accept each other when eating. And also will reduce the chances of either developing any food guarding against people.

[BowWowMeow]

You can create structure (ALA NILIF) around eating. As Deb suggests, feed them in opposite corners and don't allow the pup to approach your older dog until she is finished eating and vise-versa.

You need to remove the thing she is worried about (the pup) before you can work with her on feeling more secure about her food.

[Kittilicious]

Ugh. None of this is working. The only thing working is keeping Knuckles away from Saki - when she decides to eat. Neither one of these dogs want to eat when I want them to eat. I know Saki is going to take awhile to get used to this feeding schedule thing, she just wants to eat whenever because she has been free fed since she was a pup. But now... take this morning for example. Knuckles hasn't eaten since about 6pm last night. I got up at 6am, let him out, put food down for him when he came in. He doesn't want to eat it right now, he wants to play. He'll walk over and take a bite or two and continue playing. I've got 2 full bowls of food on the floor right now and nobody is by them. Saki is on the floor here in the kitchen playing with Knuckles... even if he walks over and eats she doesn't care, as long as he doesn't walk over by her when she's eating.
I've tried putting the food up if they won't eat, but when I put it down they look at me like "yep, thats where it goes, now leave it there" and walk away and they will go back on their own time.

[BlackPuppy]

They will get used to the new schedule. And keeping Knuckles away is what you need to do. It's what everybody is telling you to do. You are going to need to do this for a long time. Not just a couple of days or a week. We are talking months. Maybe forever. It depends on how much work you want to put into it.

When a new puppy comes into my house, he gets the crate for his house and he eats in there in the beginning. There is ALWAYS a problem when a new puppy arrives. At some point, when the puppy is much older, I start feeding the dogs in the same room. At that point I spend a lot of time with the puppy, physically blocking him from the other dogs' food.

When I have a very high value food item, like their weekly chicken breasts. I go outside to feed them. They each take their piece of chicken and run to different corners of the yard. If one dog is too slow, I'm ready to repel any greedy dogs looking for crumbs.

[Cassidy's Mom]

Carole is right, it will take some time for them to adjust to the new schedule, but they will eventually figure out that they need to eat as soon as you put the food on the floor because if they don't they're not going to have an opportunity again for awhile. Start by feeding in the crates if you have to, and leave them alone with the food for a period of time, so they can't choose to play instead of eat. Mealtime is mealtime, playtime is playtime.

Puppies shouldn't go for too long without food, but you can use some of the kibble as training treats.

[Kittilicious]

Remember this problem? Well... I gave up and let them figure it out on their own.

Now they are BOTH respectful of who is eating. They usually just take turns - I take a few bites, you take a few bites. It's kinda funny watching them.

Here's Saki waiting for her turn -


And yes, I still have 2 food bowls, but THEY chose to share. They will both eat out of one bowl until it's gone, then move to the next one. They are both getting about 2 cups a day total, 2 cups go in each bowl and they are both getting pretty close to an equal amount by the end of the day. I gave up on the scheduled feedings too. They usually eat one bowl in the morning and the other late afternoon. They did it on their own.

Its working for now, so I'm not going to try to fix it unless something else happens.