Why does my dog do this????

[Brian Hale]

She'll pick one piece of food out of her bowl, walk into the living room and drop it on the floor, go back and get another piece. She'll do this several times before she actually eats what's in the bowl but won't eat what she leaves in the living room. I hate stepping on these in bare feet at 3:30am :mad:

Also, when we go camping, she'll bury half the food in the leaves or gravel or what ever before she eats the other half. The squirrels think it's great but ....

Brian :)

BTW, she's an 65lb black lab named Deezul....

[Doug Shepard]

Is the living room floor carpeted? My girl does (or did) something similar. I finally realized she much preferred to eat while laying down and just wasn't comfy doing it on the linoleum kitchen floor. So now come feeding time I put her bowl down in front of her about 3 ft into the living room from the kitchen. She almost never leaves anything on the floor and will even retrieve a pc from the carpet if she noticed it dropped before she'll go back to food in the bowl.

The only small problem I'm having with this arrangement is one of the cats. If China (the dog) doesn't finish everything in the bowl and I don't remove it until later I'll often find the cat has dragged magazines or papers off the end table and covered the bowl. I think in her mind she's burying her kill.

[Steve Clardy]

They are strange at times. We have a 12-13 year old cat that apparently can't see if theres water in her bowl. So she sticks her paw in it, sliding the bowl around spilling it.:rolleyes:
Does it every time.:(

[Joe Pelonio]

:D That's funny, I thought my mother in law's late daschund was the only one that did that. It started at about 15 years old (lasted 18). She'd take bits of kibble and actually hide them under the couch, usually 5-10, then eat the rest. My MIL asked the vet about it, and said it's a fairly unusual thing that is most common with hunting dog breeds. The only ideas he offered for the reason is going back to their wild instinct to protect their food from other animals, but then can't resist the temptation to eat so they stop hiding and drain the bowl. He said they are not smart enough to be saving some for later, but I wonder about it. My two dogs will scarf it all up immediately, go outside to do their business, then when they come back in each goes to the other dog's bowl and licks it.

[Lee DeRaud]

Huh, never heard of that one. I had a dog who used to take a mouthful of dry food from the bowl, carry it into the living room, drop it, eat it one piece at a time, then go back for the next mouthful. The odd part is, at that time, the powder room (where the food dish was kept), the hallway to the living room, and the living room itself all had the same carpet. Go figure.

[Ian Abraham]

Most domestic dogs are a bit overweight anyway, try putting her on a diet ;)
Our working farm dogs were fed well, but ran many miles every day so were pretty lean. They KNEW there was only one safe place to keep their food :D
IF your dog is getting just enough food they are much less likely to 'save some for later' or share what they have found with the pack leader (You).

Ian

[Brian Hale]

The living room floor is is oak. Maybe she has a thing for hardwood floors??

Deezul runs a couple miles each day because she'll drive me nuts if i don't spend an hour each day throwing a Frisbee for her. That's my job as a biped :rolleyes:

If i point the pieces out to her and tell to eat it, she just picks it up, rolls it around in her mouth and spits it out again. If she sees me put it back in the bowl, she'll get couple more pieces out. :confused:

Brian :)

[Larry Klaaren]

Your black lab is doing that because she is a black lab. I don't know why other dogs do it.:rolleyes:

Are you or your family in the living room when she does this? Labs like to bring things to their owners, after all, they are retrievers.

On the other hand, our rat terrier does pretty much the same thing. He takes a mouthful of food and drops it in the middle of the kitchen floor. The we step on it, get mad at him, and clean it up. Works for him.

Our dogs on the farm used to get rats when we shelled corn. If you watch dogs when they catch rats or mice or even find a bird carcass, they like to carry them around a while before they do whatever they end up doing with them. A lot of them would pick a place generally go there when they catch some prey. I think some of it is an instinctual behavior, and sometimes they want to be by us.

If you figure it out, let me know, because I want to know. I don't think it is that unusual; it's probably a pretty normal thing. The only way to stop her is probably to keep her ravenously hungry, and I doubt if you feel that is a better thing.

Larry

[Jerry Olexa]

My daughter's black lab also MUST take food OUT of the bowl drop it on the floor before he eats anything. His ritual:) :D

[David Dixon]

My daughter's Yorkie is staying with me for awhile. She does the same thing you stated. The living room is hardwood with a rug. She goes in the kitchen gets one piece of food and brings it back to the rug and eats it. Then she goes back several more times and does the same thing. The last trip she jumps up on the sofa with the food and plays with it throwing it in the air and sometimes rolls on it. I thought it was funny and unusual too. David

[Joe Chritz]

Just so happens the wife and I are dog behaviorists and trainers.

Short answer... because she is a dog.

Long answer... because she is a dog. It is not likely any sort of a natural canid behavior as nearly all don't "stash" food for later. The hard wiring of a dog is mostly wolf like, although juvenile in nature. If I had to hazard a guess without any real research at your home I would say she was "accidentally" trained to do it.

When we were housing dog as a rescue we had a few hundred come and go (probably pushing 500) and we would regularly see stuff that had us scratching out heads.

PM me or email if you want to fix it. In the grand scheme of things is a pretty small price to pay as there are lots of worse habits she could have regarding food.

Joe

[Vaughn McMillan]

...I had a dog who used to take a mouthful of dry food from the bowl, carry it into the living room, drop it, eat it one piece at a time, then go back for the next mouthful...
I had a dog that did the same thing. I always figured she wanted to be in the living room with me, but I defer to Joe's more educated answer...she did it because she was a dog. :p

- Vaughn

[Dan Forman]

All dogs named Deezul so this.

Dan

[Michael Stafford]

My little Cairn terrier did this. She would take 3 or 4 pieces of her food and walk about 4 steps into the family room and drop them. Then she would go back to the bowl and eat the remainder. As soon as the bowl was clean she ate the pieces in the family room. Never had any problems with her not eating it. She always hid the food in her stomach and looked for more. Dogs are funny creatures but they are smarter than us. After all they have us working for them.......;)

[Brian Hale]

All dogs named Deezul so this.

Dan

ROFLMAO :D

[Curt Harms]

They are strange at times. We have a 12-13 year old cat that apparently can't see if theres water in her bowl. So she sticks her paw in it, sliding the bowl around spilling it.:rolleyes:
Does it every time.:(

We have a black male cat that that does something similar. He'll stick his paw in the water dish, pull it out and lick it off. He doesn't seem to have anything on his paw so I don't think he's washing anything off, looks like he's just being a goof.

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

Our cocker and the new puppy both take a piece of two out of the bowl and walk away to chew it. The puppy drops it on the floor first. OTOH, the Saints park over the top of the bowl, stick their heads in, and generally stay there until the bowl(s) is empty.

KC

[Mark Singer]

I asked Java and Dexter and they said your dog likes the asthetics of the living room more than where his food is being served....kind of like asking the waiter to change your table to improve the view or get away from smokers...
The bury food thing is psycological....your dog is afraid you are going to eat his food...try to enter a group therapy session with the dog....Java and I did this before he took several of his woodworking seminars:rolleyes:

[Lee DeRaud]

Depending on the size of your dog, a ton of free entertainment is available by feeding out of a "food ball". It's an orange rubbery thing about 6" in diameter that looks like Fred Flintstone's golf ball. It holds about a cup of kibble and dispenses it one or two pieces at a time as the dog pushes it around the floor. Ozzy usually brings it to me to shake out the last piece or two for him.:D :cool:

[Jim O'Dell]

We have a black male cat that that does something similar. He'll stick his paw in the water dish, pull it out and lick it off. He doesn't seem to have anything on his paw so I don't think he's washing anything off, looks like he's just being a goof.

In the past, a couple of our Irish Setters would go to the water bucket outside and start drinking. After a few licks, one front paw would enter the water, after a few more licks, the other front paw would step in. When finished, they would start digging in the water bowl splashing water all over the place. We finally went to a #2 wash tub for outside water so that there would be some left for the next dog without us having to go and refill. Jim.

[Joe Chritz]

I got a feeling if I gave my Rottweiler one of those feed balls I would be replacing the TV as he flung it across the room and made a smoking hole.

Nice friendly and good looking dog. Dumb as a hammer.

Joe

[Gary Herrmann]

My labs eat so fast, that I can barely get out of the kitchen before they're done. I think it takes them about 20-30 seconds to eat. Maybe they hurry because they go out afterwards and when they come back in, they know they'll get their after dinner treat.

As someone else already said tho, your dog probably does that because she's a lab, ergo, nuts.

[Jason Roehl]

My cat won't carry his food into another room, but sometimes, he will take a large mouthful of food out of his dish and drop it on the floor next to the dish. Then he'll eat some of it and either walk away or go back to the bowl for more. Weird thing is, he doesn't like shrimp, but his ears always perk up when we open the freezer--the ice cream scoop is his for the licking after we've dipped ours.

[Curt Fuller]

You didn't mention what religious denomination your dog is. But most dogs belong to the "Untied Dyslexic Church of Dog" which is loosely based on many of the same principles of Christianity. You dog is probably just paying it's tithe and if you place a small plate next to his bowl he'll quit carrying the food into the other room.;)

[Robert Mickley]

My labs leave a few bites every nite for breakfast, only problem is the female gets it all.

In answer to your question
Because she can!

[Jim Hinze]

Your not alone...

I have a chow, German Shepherd mix that will grab a piece of kibble out of her bowl in the kitchen, then walk to the family room, sit down and chew it... then she returns for another piece and it repeats...

Never seen a dog do that before....

Dog's are just wierd... as long as she's safe and it isn't going to hurt her, I over look it.. but then again, I'm not crunching kibble underfoot at 3am...

[Greg Heppeard]

She'll pick one piece of food out of her bowl, walk into the living room and drop it on the floor, go back and get another piece. She'll do this several times before she actually eats what's in the bowl but won't eat what she leaves in the living room.

She actually thinks that you need to eat more, so she's giving some of her food to you. Actually, that's probably what she's doing. She's a retriever, so instead of her bringing you rabbits or birds, she's bringing you some of her food. She's doing it out of love, so, you might have to live with it until she decides not to do it anymore. :D

[Bryan Rocker]

They are strange at times. We have a 12-13 year old cat that apparently can't see if theres water in her bowl. So she sticks her paw in it, sliding the bowl around spilling it.:rolleyes:
Does it every time.:(


ROFLMAO my 13 going on 14 year old black cat "Shadow" puts her foot in the water bowl intentinally. Its her mission in life to spill the water out of the water bowl! She can see the water no problem....me thinks she is going through kitten hood again.

PS my dogs take mouthfuls of food and put them on the carpet to eat them. However, my catahula is a terrible crumb eater.......

[Russ Filtz]

They are strange at times. We have a 12-13 year old cat that apparently can't see if theres water in her bowl. So she sticks her paw in it, sliding the bowl around spilling it.:rolleyes:
Does it every time.:(

Cats supposedly can't focus that close or something. It's better to have a water bowl with a pattern in the bottom or one of water fountain things. With the running water they can see the ripples on the surface.

[Jack Dickey]

PupnDawg does that occasionally , he's a BlondeLab/Sheperd .. His thing is he will not eat unless we are in the room with him .. His "table" is midways between us and the TV , and , unless he has had an extremly hard day supervising us around the shop , he will not eat a bite ..
And when LOML gets a bowl of ice cream or glass of milk , better make an extra of each .. Or he will be in yur lap in short order ..

[Al Willits]

Interesting replies....:)

I'd bet with a little (maybe not so little) training you could get the dog to eat all in one spot, but wondering if it'd be worth it, after training 3 springers and one German short hair, we've found there usually isn't a easy way, all takes time and patience, not to mention a good trainer.

Might just be easier to live with it. :)

We had a springer that would get a mouthful of dog food, then walk around the house eating it, while leaving crums everywhere.
One who would chew the plastic food bowels, so we went with metal bowls, which when she was hungry, she would pick up and drop down the basement stairs, that'll wake ya up about 3am..:)
Another who when she was sick, we had to hand feed her, after she got well she would take a mouth full and bring to you, dropping usually into your lap, so you could feed her.

We got all these little quirks taken care of, but it takes a bit of patience.

Good luck

Al