I've had dogs as long as I live but I have never seen a dog have this quirk. I've had my 25 pound Boston. (Vet says he is healthy and just is a REALLY big boston). We have had him 6 months and we have gotten to know most of his quirks. The one that makes us raise our eyebrows is that he refuses to eat unless one of us is in the room.
He can have a full bowl of dog food in the bedroom, but if we are in the living room, and he is hungry, he won't go eat out of it. However soon as we bring the bowl into the living room with us, he will eat like it is going out of style.
Since we realized that, we started keeping a small bowl of food in the bed room, and then his big one in the living room.
If we are going to be gone for a while we will let him stay in the livingroom/kitchen so he is crammed in his kennel for long hours. We will leave him with a full bowl of food and water. While we are gone he will not have touched the food, but soon as we get settled, he will start eatting his fill of food. Doesn't matter if it is 2 hours, 4 hours, or 8 hours same thing.
Am I the only one something like this has happened to?
He is a loveable dog but he has some of the oddest quirks. IE loves real bones, squeaky toys, and fresh meat, but refuses to chew on rawhide bones. Even when we coat them in fresh gravey. He won't touch them. Like I said weird, but loveable.
He is acknowledging you as pack leader. That's one of the reasons I feed Bailey when I'm having breakfast.
He will even save his morning cookies until milord gets home from work.
Bostonss are incredibly smart dogs. When Max went to the kennel they had to latch his crate with a clothes pin because he learned to get his paws through the bars and open the latch.
i think it's just his personality since our boston passed in may my little mix puppy who used to gobble up her food in one setting now eats her food in several settings sometimes on wednesday nights when i get home from church she has barely touched her food and starts eating if you put her in the bathroom alone and go off she will eat it while your gone most of the time and sometimes if you put it in the kitchen while we are at the diner table she will eat some of it then i think it's just their personality i know our boston always seemed to be quiet insecure not sure why it might be just the breed but she was a good dog.
last fall when i went to south america for vacation even though she was my mother's dog the boston followed me around for weeks i joked i had a shadow with four legs
it's going to be interesting to see how my sweet mix breed reacts this fall when i don't come home at the end of the day
Typically I won't fill his dog bowl until AFTER we at least start eatting. A book I read said it is a way to say, "Everything in the house is MINE. You only get it when I say you can." So far he seems to know even his toys belong to us. He is just "privledged" to get to play with them.
Speaking of toys, Dona, did you have trouble finding Boston proof toys? Fenway has been destroying even "touch" toys in a matter of 2 hours. He won't touch Kongs at all. I even tried filling it with food, and slathering it with gravey. Still nothing.
I know he likes real bones because he desimated a pig femer in a couple hours! We are going to look into getting him a cow femer this week. Good grief that dog has some jaws on him! Thankfully he only uses them on his toys.
i found some cute toys that are suposed to be good for puppies and vertually indistructable it's from Kong my puppies won't touch them hardly i had to take one outside for s80 to play with it but she prefered the frisbee
Our golden retriever/yellow lab mix, Glory Halleluia, won't eat until you put the bowl on the floor and sit in the chair next to her. Then she chows it down. We had 4 dogs (2 crossed the bridge within the last month), and even though the other dogs would be very interested in getting to her food, she wouldn't eat until the above scenario.
I've noticed that our lab/border collie mix prefers us in the room with her when she eats, she'll eat if we aren't there it just seems to take her a lot longer. Our pug could care less, as long as there is food! Toy-wise, I've noticed our pug prefers rope toys. He loves stuffed toys but they are gutted within hrs or a few days. Neither of the dogs care much for rubber toys.
You try Nylabone dog toys. They make both edible and inedible toys for all breeds. I know Sir Miko Roundbottom absolutely loves when I bring him home a new Nylabone and they are virtually indestructable.
Cow femurs are great. A friend had it for her Great Dane/Blue tick hound mix who could down a rawhide in 5 min (I know, he did it to my puppy's rawhides). She left the bone for my puppy, and her and her brother have yet to make dent in it. They are shepherd/retriever mixes. Mine is a 27 lb runt we think has Rhodesian Ridge-back. We think her brother is part border-collie. He's about 50 lbs (big one of the litter).