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The doghouse

Looki.ng after a 2nd dog - my dog goes insane at feeding time!

10 replies

feesh · 22/03/2012 10:39

I have had to take in a friend's dog for a week while she goes back home, as her mother died at the weekend.

We're doing OK, but at feeding time all hell breaks loose.

My dog is normally fed her (raw) diet inside her locked crate in the kitchen, so we've been carrying on as normal. I separate the two dogs, shut mine in the kitchen with me, pop her inside her crate and give her her dinner.

I then start to prepare the other dog's food (Royal Canin unfortunately) and put it in a bowl, and take it out of the room to feed him across the other side of the house.

This is when my dog goes ape-shit, throwing herself against her crate door, screaming, barking and making the most amazing racket.

This morning I tried a different tack - fed my dog in the crate, stayed with her, and let her out when she'd finished. Then prepared the other dog's food, took it to him (he was in another room behind a stair-gate).

My PLAN was to give my dog lots of treats for her sitting quietly while the other one ate, but this didn't happen!

Actual result: My dog went mental again, kicking and screaming blue murder, despite me having her restrained on a lead and kept away from him, and he refused to eat.

I eventually had to shut my dog in the kitchen and go and sit with Dog2 until he ate all his food.

Bizarrely, they've been really nicely sharing the remains of an old lamb bone which my dog brought in from the garden yesterday. But when I tried to give them both a rawhide chew each earlier (which my dog perceives as very low value) all hell broke loose and I had to separate them.

She hates to see me giving him anything edible and I don't know how to handle it! Has anyone got any tips, because I can't take it any more!

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fussbucket · 22/03/2012 14:45

Is there any way you can prepare the food and give it to dog 2 out of your own dog's sight and sound?

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feesh · 22/03/2012 14:59

Not really, fussbucket, she can smell it from a hundred miles away. Plus our house and garden are totally open plan.

It's dinner time where we live so I am about to go through the nightmare all over again.....

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feesh · 22/03/2012 17:42

Well that didn't go too badly. I put my dog on a lead, and shut the guest dog in the office behind a baby gate. While my dog was distracted, I ran into the kitchen, quickly made up a bowl of Royal Canin, and brought it out. Simultaneously plonked it over the baby gate, grabbed my dog's lead and exchanged a look with her before marching her off to the kitchen! It all happened so quickly that she didn't have time to react and as soon as we got in the kitchen, I tempted her with some squeezy cheese and and started preparing her own very smelly dinner (fried kidneys - she won't eat them raw!). There was only a bit of whinging and whining and no great dramatics.

Both dogs sniffed eachother's mouths quite intently after being reunited, trying to suss out what the other had been eating, which was quite amusing!

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RedwingWinter · 22/03/2012 19:35

That sounds much better! Well done. Maybe when they sniff each other, they each think 'ooh that smells nice' of the other food!

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Flatbread · 22/03/2012 20:28

Ooh, not sure I would accept that. All the food in the house is mine, and my dog has no right to kick up a fuss if I remove her food or feed another dog.

Quite often our friends leave their older dog with us, and our neighbour's dog is over everyday for tea. My dog knows that she has to sit for her meals, and I do remove her food or bone and share it around.

Once, early on when my dog was a wee thing, and my friend's dog was over, I gave her a bone. And also gave my dog a bone. Got some blissful hours of uninterrupted reading done Grin Then, when going to bed, our dog took the other dog's bone upstairs, along with her own. Our friend's dog is very gentle and ours can be bossy.

I saw both bones in our dog's bed and took both bones and gave them to our friend's dog who was sleeping in the dining room. My dog saw it and did not sleep all night! She sighed and turned and generally moped about the bones! Well, she certainly learned her lesson about not stealing another dog's prized possessions and does not take food or kick up a fuss when we feed another dog. She knows that is a sure way of her not getting dinner and probably watching me feed her dinner to the other dog

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Flatbread · 22/03/2012 20:31

The dogs do the cutest thing of running to check each others food bowl after both have finished and then running back to see if they forgot some delicious morsel in their own bowl Grin

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fussbucket · 23/03/2012 09:12

Sounds like it's all under control now. I had a thought in the middle of the night, if you were still having trouble - entice one dog into the car, feed the other, then take both out for short walk in car, then leave fed dog in car while taking in hungry dog and feeding it, then finally let fed dog out of car. Desperate measures but might just work...

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feesh · 23/03/2012 10:50

Thanks fussbucket for thinking of me in the middle of the night :) New dog is not happy in the car though.

But new regime of feeding him openly in front of my dog, whilst restraining/confining her and giving her lots of attention and treats seems to be working well. She still kicks up a bit of a fuss, but nothing major.

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fussbucket · 23/03/2012 17:45

You'd be amazed what I sometimes think of in the middle of the nightGrin.

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Flatbread · 23/03/2012 20:57

Glad that is sorted Feesh. Sorry for your friend, must be really hard for her, losing her mum and living far away.

I am going through some feeding challenges at the moment. Puppies are remarkably well behaved and eat their food nicely from the same bowl. Problem is mum wants to join in too, and she can hoover it all up in a nanosecond! So pretty much pandemonium at meal times making sure the puppies are eating enough, watching mum and catching the fed ones who are pissing exploring around the room

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