breakfast

[meggit]

well my latest thing with tilly (she is defiantly harder work than buddy ever was) she is now crated she is getting on fine with it she will go in and out of it all day and is quite happy to have the door closed on it she eats in there with the door closed as she guards her food, in a morning i get up let the dogs straight out for a toilet break then say good morning to them oh ok i grunt at them till ive had my cup of coffee then i feed them buddy by this time is in his feeding place waiting for his breakfast i feed them both and tilly just sits and stares at hers she wont touch it she wont let me near the cage so shes guarding it so she wants it but not to eat, ive tried staying in the kitchen leaving the kitchen but neither option works so we end up calling her out of her crate and removing the food and she has to wait to eat till next feed time i thought a couple of times of this would make her stop and think ooops i had better eat this or it will go but no it hasnt i dont want to change the feed time as buddy whos narly 5 now is settled to this time scale so any ideas any one

[JudyN]

So just to clarify - when they come in from the garden, where does Tilly go then? Does she go straight into her crate and you then put her food in? Or do you put her food in before she goes in the crate? And then do you shut the door? If the door is shut you must go up to the crate to open it - what does she do then?

It's good she comes to you when you call her away from the food - do you see any sign of stress or aggression when she realises that you're now going to go and get the food?

What happens at the evening meal?

I think it will help if you can spell out what happens in minute detail, just so we have a really clear picture of what's happening.

What food do they have? Do you get the impression she isn't very keen on it in general? (A dog may still guard a food she doesn't particularly like.) And is there anything she loves so much she would eat it in her crate at breakfast time? I'm thinking that it might help if she has just one main meal in the evening for now, and a really delicious small treat in her crate while Buddy's eating.

[meggit]

she is raw feed loves her chicken wing so i know its not the food, i get up open the crate get jumped on by both dogs do my best to shepard them both to the back door while being greeted licked, send them both out tilley crate is left open buddy has a bed they come back in and bud goes straight to his bed to wait for me to put his mat down for the chicken wing tilley is still on where have you been i love you let me clean your ear oh a dirty spot on your left ankle let me clean it mode so i put the kettle on and sort out the feeding mats get the chicken wings out ect i put her food mat into her cage then put in the chicken wing she goes in i close the door then i sort out buddy. buddy finishes his in ten seconds flat he dosnt play with his food tilly is still looking at hers buddy then goes into the other room to see everyone else there is no one else in the kitchen but me i stay in the kitchen away from the cage to drink my coffee she may or may not have licked the chicken wing at this point now we get to the funny bit she will start growling at me if im to near the cage (which is fine i understand shes bothered) then she will start to try to bury the wing under her feeding mat (these are just pieces of plastic table clothes) if i go to open the cage she will some times growl at me so l leave it other times she will let me open it but not let me put my hand in there after about 15 mins i call her and she will come out and i then remove the food, she is only 16 weeks old and has done this more times than she has eaten this week.
lunch time and evening meals are not a problem and she is put in the crate with the door shut for both these meals as well

[JudyN]

My best guess - though I'm not an expert - is that she's just not keen on eating in the mornings so wants to save the food for later. She's in a difficult situation where she doesn't want to eat the food, but she values it highly and is worried about how to protect it till she needs it - a worry that is justified because even though she does her best to hide it, you nick it! At 16 weeks I think she could now go down to two meals a day, so you can get away with just giving her her lunch and evening meal. What I would do is see if you can maybe do a bit of training with her and, if you can face it, give her cut-up raw meat as training treats, so she gets some food but there's never anything there to guard.

The no. 1 priority (apart from making sure she has a healthy diet overall of course) is to work out a strategy that means she doesn't experience any stress or feel any need to guard - she wants to feel that food is something that she can be totally relaxed around, so you need to avoid the situations where she does feel worried. You also don't want her to feel that your approach is a threat, so when she's having her lunch and tea in the crate I'd walk up as close as she is relaxed with, throw her a high-value treat and move away. I'm not sure how well this works when she's in a crate... if she's relaxed when you approach at lunchtime and teatime you might even be able to feed her high-value treats through the bars, so she associates your approach with something good happening.

[WufWuf]

Great advice Judy My own dog does not currently have any RG issues but will sometimes refuse a meal if she deems it too hard work (which means she's not really that hungry ).