# Solved one problem but created another



## BrooklynBonnie (Jan 16, 2015)

Mochi was having food aggression towards the new pup, Chuui. It made me nervous and as mentioned in Chuui's intro post, I had started by feeding them separately, then by hand feeding with the bowls only feet apart. This sort of worked in that both dogs ate all their own food, but I don't always have time to hand feed the whole bowl (and they had started getting less interested in their food and more interested in other things during meal times so I had to walk away from the bowls a few times. 

Which led to the puppy going straight to Mochi's bowl and Mochi jumping at the chance to eat the puppy's food. I tried keeping them out of each others bowls with commands but they didn't stick for long and I noticed that Mochi did not seem to care if the puppy was eating her food, as long as Mochi had access to the puppy's bowl. Blocking them in separate areas isn't feasible any longer our home is just one long room so gates don't work and the makeshift blockade we used at first had to go (the vacuum, the shredder, Chuui's shipping crate, and an empty shoebox balanced on top of the vacuum canister to add height was just too annoying to deal with).

So one day when Mochi had not finished her food (but had finished the puppy's) I left Mochi's bowl on the floor and the puppy ate from it on and off all day. Mochi did not care. The breeder had said she free-fed the puppy.

Well I didn't want the puppy eating only adult food (even though it's an all life stages food) and I had just finished weaning Mochi off puppy food the week before puppy came home, so I decided to mix half and half and leave just one bowl (1cup full) down. It's half a cup puppy kibble and half a cup adult kibble mixed. I was feeding half a cup twice a day to Mochi.`

They've been eating freely for two days now with no fights or even growls. :amen:

My main concerns are:

They are not eating the food intended for them, but a mix and I can't tell who has eaten how much. :argh: But at least they are eating and not fighting!

Also, it seems Mochi is back to hardly eating anything (I think) as it's normally the puppy eating, and Mochi only seems to eat later in the day so sort of only gets one meal. 

This is how she was before the puppy; she'd usually not finish her breakfast or only ate it around 5pm then wouldn't eat much dinner. The vet said I need to up her food since she's so skinny, though. How to do that when she won't eat much on her own? Over the last month she's gone from 12.2lbs to 11.6lbs (and it had taken us 3 months for her to go from 11.7lbs to 12.2lbs in the first place!)

Argh.


----------



## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

Why don't you just feed them separately in their own crates?


----------



## N2Mischief (Dec 3, 2012)

Since you just recently changed foods with Mochi, I would look at which food had higher calories per cup and feed only that to Mochi. It will most likely be the puppy food. 

I agree with CM, feed them separately as you want to keep track of how much Mochi is eating. Feeding them in the crate is ideal.


----------



## BrooklynBonnie (Jan 16, 2015)

Crate feeding doesn't work right now. Mochi won't eat if the door is shut despite always having been fed in her crate, and if it's open the puppy can get the food. If the puppy Chuui is in her crate she also ignores her food and just fights to get out. Her breeder did have her crate trained but only to sleep at night. She was fed outside the crate. :argh:

Hmm. I'm leaning towards just upping the percent of puppy kibble in the bowl until the adult food is gone and keeping them both on the puppy kibble until Chuui is about 1 year old in June. Mochi will only be about 18 months by then and she does need the extra calories...


----------



## Poodlebeguiled (May 27, 2013)

I always fed my dogs in separate rooms when I had a lot of dogs. That way they eat what's intended for them, there's no chance of guarding behavior (let the poor animals eat in peace, right?) and it establishes a routine. I recommend no free feeding...give them 15-20 minutes to eat their food, give them their own space where they're not bothered and pick up the bowls when they're finished. 

If you want to work with any of them to prevent resource guarding from humans, work with one at one meal once or twice a week by being in the same room, tossing in a piece of steak and then leaving the dog be for the rest of his meal.

Now, with my 3 dogs, I feed the two Poodles together because they don't fight over food, they both eat what they need and then I pick up anything they leave...before I let Jose` out of the laundry room where he eats. If there's any chance of getting extra food left by the Poodles, he'll dive into it, being the pig he is and I can't let him get extra....he's bordering on chubby right now. So, he eats in a separate room from them. If I had a problem with the two Poodles, I'd put one of them in another room.


----------



## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

BrooklynBonnie said:


> Crate feeding doesn't work right now. Mochi won't eat if the door is shut despite always having been fed in her crate, and if it's open the puppy can get the food. If the puppy Chuui is in her crate she also ignores her food and just fights to get out. Her breeder did have her crate trained but only to sleep at night. She was fed outside the crate. :argh:
> 
> Hmm. I'm leaning towards just upping the percent of puppy kibble in the bowl until the adult food is gone and keeping them both on the puppy kibble until Chuui is about 1 year old in June. Mochi will only be about 18 months by then and she does need the extra calories...


If she were my dog, I would be feeding her in her crate anyway. She won't starve herself. I don't play food games or cater to dogs who refuse to eat when I'm not around because I don't believe it's in the best interest of the dog to do so. She can learn to eat with the door closed. She'll catch on. Give her 20 minutes to eat and pick up her food until the next meal. 

You might be interested in Sue Ailsby's teaching a dog to eat article. She's a well known positive reinforcement based trainer. http://sue-eh.ca/page24/page39/


----------



## sophie anne (Feb 17, 2015)

Did Mochi lose weight after you switched her off of the puppy kibble?

My spoo, Sophie lost weight at one point and we couldn't figure out why until we realized that we had changed her over to a "senior dog" formula and that it had a lower calorie content. Switching her back got the weight back on in short order.

Poodles seem to have high metabolisms and need all the calories we can get down the hatch.

Chuui should be fine on an all life stages formula at her age. You could try a higher calorie food for both of them.

And, I would separate them during meal times and I agree that Mochi will learn to eat in her crate if you are firm about it. She is just being a princess and might be a little jealous that there's another little princess in the house now!


----------



## glorybeecosta (Nov 11, 2014)

Agree feed them in their crate, as my vet said, it's there they won't stave themselves, eventually they get so hungry the will eat. Bella will not eat if we travel she has went for over 2 days. I ran her to the vets time after time, she now comes around


----------



## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

As a former free feeder, I have to tell you that I now realize that it was a huge mistake.
It was OK when they were younger, but wow as they got older and their appetites waned, it really got tough to get food into them! 
I began giving Timi meals right from the start, and OMG it is such a pleasure to put down a bowl of food and have a clean bowl a minute later!
In order to keep Timi on meals I have been reduced to hand feeding Teaka - first I have to play ball with them for twenty minutes, and then I have to give Teaka one tiny piece of food at a time. She then will guard it for ten minutes, and then either eat it, or fall asleep. If she falls asleep, Timi gets it. If she eats, then we repeat the process. I tell you it is torture - it can take me 2 hours to get a meal into her! Never again will I free feed, and I strongly advise you to figure out a way to get your babies back on meals while they are still young enough to adjust their habits. Or before you know it, you will be throwing roast chicken across the floor trying to get them to eat (not joking - been there, done that)!

By the way, are you on Facebook? Would you mind voting for Timi please?


----------



## Quossum (Mar 18, 2011)

I totally agree with CM. No food games or eating idiosyncrasies allowed around here. All of our dogs eat separately from each other, in their own rooms or crates. (Because we have corgis, and corgis would scarf down a bowl full of rocks if you put it in front of them.) The IG usually picks at hers for the duration of food time. But, bottom line: Dogs go into their eating places. Food is placed with them, they wait until we say, "Break! Get it!" and start eating. They have the amount of time they have, and then the bowl is taken up. Period. For the corgis and the poodle, the bowl is shiny clean, though the IG sometimes leaves smidgens for the designated "cleanup corgi" (alternating corgi on alternating days) to lick up.

Unless there are some really weird and rare psychological or health issues going on, normal, healthy dogs just won't starve themselves. Don't give in to any sort of, "He/She won't eat if..." conditions and you'll make life much easier for yourself!

Just my thoughts,
--Q


----------



## BrooklynBonnie (Jan 16, 2015)

*Update*

Well, we sort of fixed the issue and it does not have me hand feeding or letting them free-feed.

I instigated the 20min rule. Food goes in bowl, on crate floor and picked up after 20min no matter how much or little they ate. Hardest part if remembering to pick it up. Chuui still wants to free-feed. She has no attention-span when it comes to food unless she's really hungry. Mochi goes straight into her pen when she sees me reach for the empty bowls. But in the morning she will stay in her pen to guard her food, but often won't eat still. Then we get hunger pukes. Often. But when she eats, she eats most if not all. Since I switched them to the highest calorie food in the Instinct kibble line, she's put on about 1.5lbs and Chuui has also. Yay!

I slide the door on Mochi's pen mostly shut to keep Chuui away and Mochi doens't have to growl or snap if the door is shut. But she opens it (so cute!) whenever she feels done or if something is more interesting outside so I ask her if she's done yet and make to get up, and she runs back into her pen because she knows I'll pick up her bowl if she's not in there. LOL! 

Because both are so lazy about eating breakfast and both have hunger pukes, I will sometimes hand feed a few bites to each to make sure they have something in their tummies before I put the bowls up. Sometimes that is enough to get them interested in eating a bit more themselves, sometimes not. I am not stressing over it though, as long as they don't loose weight or become lethargic.


----------



## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

BrooklynBonnie said:


> Well, we sort of fixed the issue and it does not have me hand feeding or letting them free-feed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Believe me, I understand wanting to avoid the empty stomach syndrome, but if I were you, I think that instead of hand feeding them their food, I would do a little training session and get some treats into them instead - that way they don't know that they are being hand fed! If it is a persistent problem, I might have them get some exercise before mealtime as that can stimulate appetite, and do a short training session and let them earn a couple of treats first too, as getting a couple of bites into them will often wake up the appetite. And if those things were effective, I would work on gradually and significantly reducing the time that they have the food - dogs who are good meal eaters don't take but a minute or two to clean their bowls!


----------

