Dog bored of his food bowl

[Abbie]

Hi everyone,

So my border collie is 6 months old now and we went through an issue with him while he was teething in that he went off his food. He's now getting back on track with eating but he eats really slow and sometimes seems too bored of having to stand there for 5 minutes to eat.

We have fed him in a slow feeder for as long as he could eat from it which helped for a while because he's had to work out how to get his food but even that seems to have became too boring for him. I tried stuffing an empty bone with food and that has been working, but I don't really want to get in the habit of finding new ways of giving food to him every time something gets boring for him.

Has anyone else had this problem? I heard of dogs becoming fussy eaters and getting their bowl taken away but he doesn't seem too bothered about What food he's getting, he's just more interested in playing!

I've also tried putting him in his crate so he can't play with anything but he just goes to sleep instead.

Any suggestions would be great.

[Ari_RR]

Maybe he is just not hungry when you feed him?

[JudyN]

What are you feeding him? How is his weight?

[Nettle]

All his teeth may be through but he hasn't finished the teething process yet. Maybe his mouth is sore.

[Abbie]

We feed him dry topped with wet. His weight is around 15kg which the vet thinks is fine.

The issue doesn't seem to be the food itself but rather whether or not it's fun to eat. He likes to work for his food but once it becomes easy for him he seems to loose interest.

We also don't give him any treats until he's eaten his food so he's not filling up on anything else.

I'm hoping maybe it is still his teeth and he will soon grow out of it.

[Erica]

A toy like a Kong Wobbler might be good - it's easy and fast to fill up (unscrew, put food in, screw back together) and is more active - the dog moves it around with their nose/paws and then finds the kibbles as they fall out. You can rotate between a few different toys to keep it interesting, if he gets bored of one

[JudyN]

Treat balls come in different 'difficulties' too. I really like this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trixie-Activit ... treat+ball It takes quite a lot of work to get all the treats out, but as it's soft rubber, if it gets stuck in a corner the dog can easily pick it up to get it out. And it doesn't make a racket if he drops it or it hits the skirting boards!

If he's a good weight, I wouldn't worry about it too much - one way or another he's getting what he needs.

[Lisky]

My dog often goes through phases where she won't eat very much, and I've found when that happens it is best to cut back on treats and if the food bowl isn't working, rotating certain toys filled with food can help too. You can try filling a kong with food, there's also a toy that is a ball with a small entrance site so the dog has to work a little harder and then weighted kong wobblers, all of which make food time a bit more exciting! There's also a range of puzzle toys by Nina Ottosson, another alternation between toys you could try. I swear a lot of dogs fully believe when food goes inside a toy, it magically converts to a treat In fact, my dog would never eat regular kibbles as a treat if she knowingly knew what they were. However, I put them in a bag and suddenly she's really interested in getting rewards for tricks!