Problem with messy eating

[Stephanie Flannery]

My Goldendoodle Dancer is 5 months old. She is very well-behaved, loving, sweet, and all around the best dog I have ever owned (first time doodle owner).  The only thing she does that drives me bonkers is when she eats, she takes a mouthful of food, then walks away from her bowl to chew and eat it, meanwhile, dropping little pieces of dog food all over the house. We feed her in the kitchen on the vinyl floor, so it's not so much a huge mess to clean up, it's just constantly finding little pieces of dog food everywhere.  Does anyone else have this problem? What's the best way to curb it?  She just will not eat at her bowl - not even near it! She walks all over the place chomping and dropping!!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

This isn't uncommon, although my dogs have usually confined themselves to the kitchen and immediately adjoining areas to drop and eat the kibble. You could try feeding her in her crate, or keeping the kitchen gated off, assuming she's fed in the kitchen area.

It helps, though, to be sitting near her at mealtimes...either having something to eat yourself, or just keeping her company. That way, you can also discourage her from leaving the area with food in her mouth.

[Stephanie Flannery]

Thanks - yes she does eat in the kitchen - I have tried to keep her close to her bowl (sit down with her), but problem is, she's a grazer, so we will give her food, and it will take her about 4-6 hours to eat it all. (Which the vet says is good for her digestion - she's not a gobbler) so she just wanders over to her food whenever, and it's hard for me to stay with her!  I have 3 young kids, so this is a crazy house, but the kibble everywhere is driving me nuts (more so than I already am!) I will keep trying!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Your vet is correct in that it's healthier for them not to gobble their food, but grazing can present its own problems. If you ever have another dog in the house, it's very difficult to have food left sitting in the bowl for any length of time. Scheduling issues (jobs, appointments, veterinary procedures, vacations, etc.) can become difficult too, if you can't depend on knowing that the dog has gotten a decent amount of food in her within a certain time period.

There are lots of ways to encourage a dog to eat within a reasonable period of time, including adding something to the food to make it more appealing, or simply taking up the food dish after 30 minutes.

[Jennifer Tramell]

My sister's doodle used to take a mouthful of food, go into another room, drop it all onto the floor and then lay down and eat it.  I think he grew out of it.  My cousin's doodle won't eat until about 2am - a very noisy eater, I might add.  My dogs are fairly normal eaters :-)

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Both of my dogs did this, especially the nervous one.  She would do this all day. I have pictures somewhere of the messes.  Both of them grew out of it. 

Spud my oldest used to follow Starlit around and clean up the food behind her.  He likes the food to stay in the bowl. 

We no longer have this problem.   

I believe that puppies, like kids, can't stay still for too long, need to find out what is going on all the time, but eventually slow down as they mature.   Hope yours grows out of this too.  Not only does eating on the go make messes, food is really expensive these days.

 

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

That is her with the purple leash on. Notice the bowl on the left is upside down!  She would grab and go, always needing to walk around with food.  She STILL walks around with empty food bowls in her mouth though.

She stopped doing this as she grew out of puppyhood.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Luca scatters his food around the bowl when he eats. He also will walk away and chew at a distance sometimes dropping kibble. Luca will eat breakfast anytime from morning until evening. Then he will finish his food at midnight or later. Calla, on the other hand, generally eats all of her food immediately after it's served or soon thereafter. To prevent Calla from eating Luca's food, it has to be near me or locked in his crate. I don't have a solution since I don't want to encourage Luca to become a gobbler like Calla. He has better control of his weight than she does.

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

Chloe did this as a puppy- turns out after she switched from a slippery steel (loud) bowl to a plastic slow feed bowl she was better, I think she was scared of the other one a bit. We also found out we were over feeding her as a puppy so she wouldn't eat all at once. When we got the food iming down and switched the bowl she was good, I think they grow out of it and yeah it's messy! Good luck

[Gail+Kathleen,(Sydney+Olivia:)]

Sounds familiar to us.  When we first brought Olivia home as a puppy, she would lay by her bowl with paws wraped around each side of the bowl and lay down and eat.  Then she transitioned to taking a bite at a time and she would walk around the bowl and around the kitchen and chomp on one piece at a time.  This would go on for as long as she finished her bowl of food.  Now we just lay out a towel along side of her bowl and she drops her kibble on the towel and eventuallu gobbles up the rest of the kibble.  Olivia tries to be neat for our sake but otherwise, she could care less if she leaves some kibble around the house!