Over-excitement around feeding times

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Pedro
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue May 14, 2019 4:14 am

Over-excitement around feeding times

Post by Pedro »

After our troubles with our previous rescue, who in the end we had to give up last May, we took our new rescue, René, into our lives in December. He is absolutely fab and has settled in really, really well. He's loving his 2*1+hr walks a day, is now off the lead and recalling really well, social with other dogs (he's not a fan of Labs though for some reason), happy on his own for a few hours, all in all he's a winner.

Except...

At mealtimes he gets very, very excited and vocal when he's expecting to be fed and we're prepping his food. He gets fed first thing in the morning and in the evening. In the evenings we were originally feeding him after we ate (we'd prefer to do this, this is what we've done with previous dogs) but he'd be prowling around the table, vocalising a LOT, panting, yawning etc, so in the end we gave up (if I'm honest, for the sake of a peaceful mealtime) and now he gets fed after his early evening walk.

Both morning and evening, when he's expecting to be fed (as he knows it's when we get up in the morning and when he gets back from his walk in the evening), he'll start up barking. It's excitement, not aggression/ordering (I'm pretty sure). When I have the full bowl in my hand, ready, he knows his it won't actually get put on the floor until he's sat down and quiet (even then he's only just about able to contain himself), but that doesn't stop him whilst the food is being prepared.

I've tried stopping prepping the food and turning my back on him when he barks and only starting again when he's quiet, but that can take forever. Fine I suppose in an evening when there's more time, but not in a morning when we're trying to get ready, him out for his walk and us out to work. Is it worth persisting with that? Any other ideas?
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Nettle
Posts: 10753
Joined: Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:40 pm

Re: Over-excitement around feeding times

Post by Nettle »

Hi Pedro, and welcome :)

You have a Rescue. You don't know if he has gone short of food in the past, and he doesn't know if every meal is his last. He may have been teased in the past over food. He may have been fed from the table during human mealtimes.

So - take the pressure off both of you. Prepare his meal either when he can't see you, or as he is eating the previous meal, and store it where he can't see or reach it. Feed him before you eat, preferably just before so that he eats when you do but separately from your dining area.

Food is terribly important to dogs, so understand he isn't doing this to annoy you - he just can't help getting excited about food. In time he will realise that each meal will arrive and he will become calmer, but it's early days yet.

We'd love to see some photos of him.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog

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Ari_RR
Posts: 2037
Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:07 am
Location: USA
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Re: Over-excitement around feeding times

Post by Ari_RR »

"Preparing meal" - is this a time consuming process?

My boy is not very patient either, when it comes to food :-)
But we feed him kibble, so "preparing" really means just getting a bowl, putting some water in it, then kibble, mixing it up, adding a bit of fish oil, and letting it all sit for a few minutes before giving it to him in 4-5-6 smaller portions put into his dish.
It's very easy, but still take a few minutes.
So, at the beginning of this process - I take some of his kibble and throw it into his snuffle mat. I takes him about the amount of time for find all the bits in the snuffle mat as it takes for his real mean to be ready.

So, in short - instead of him staring at the bowl where his real meal is sitting, he is busy finding the bits in the snuffle mat. Works fine :-)

Congrats on the new addition!
Ari, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Sept 2010 - Dec 2018.
Miles, Rhodesian Ridgeback, b. Nov 2018
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