Help With My Dogs Not Eating Properly

Recently (over the last couple of months) my 3 setters (only my eldest and youngest) have become a bit of a pain at feeding time. They've always been fed twice a day and in separate bowls, and I've spread the bowls at equal distances across the patio at the back of our house and there has not been a problem.

I've had to move their bowls (again eldest & youngest) because I purchased an inflatable hot tub spa thingy and it needed to go in the right hand corner of my patio to be near drainage, etc, and one of the bowls was in the way.

Consequently I moved the bowls closer together and this seems to be when the problem started! I am guessing it's a dominance thing perhaps. I didn't move the middle one's bowl as his was the furthest away and didn't cause a problem. Since then I've moved the eldest and youngest's feeding bowls again so that they are spread apart.

I'm wondering if this is what has caused the problem - they had been fed that way for 4+ years and then suddenly I upset their arrangements.

It doesn't happen everytime but happens quite a lot. Today I gave up trying to coax Jenson so put his dry food back into the bin where I store their food in the shed and thought I would make him wait until teatime tonight?

Look forward to your responses (sorry for long winded story!).

What's happening? Are they fighting over food or just refusing to eat? Are all the bowls back to an equal distance apart now?

If they are fighting, maybe you could move that one's bowl further away or to a different room/outside.

If they are not eatig, I would leave the food down for 30 mins, then remove it until next feeding time. I had to do this with my foster dog and it was really hard for me to do, but she soon started eating.

HTH x

Hi Sarah

Thanks for your response. Thankfully they are not fighting over food although we have had a problem on a couple of occasions with the middle (8yrs) and youngest (4yrs) as the youngest used to eat his food so fast and then go to the other bowls and the middle one took exception (probably the more dominant of the 3!).

They are just not eating it (sometimes they will wander up to it after a while and eat it, othertimes leave it all together).

They are all a reasonable distance apart and the only difference is that one is now moved a few metres back and is in front of the shed.

Up till now they've always been very good - I've gone out to feed them, put their food in their bowls and they've always gone straight to their bowls and eaten the food. I've not changed their food or their routine (ie, timings, etc) at all - all I have done is moved two of the bowls.

Regards, Karen

is the weather hot where you are it could be that its to hot and they just dont want it not that you have moved the bowls mine do that if its been hot i have to wait an extra hr before i feed them then they will eat no problems.

I would carry on offering the food then taking it away after 30 minutes

Let us know how you get on. x