ahh the quirks our little guys have, my last yorkie developed the fear of the bowl at about 3 yrs. He was not a big eater so in addition to free feeding dry kibble I had to start feeding him wet food. For a good year or more he ate the wet food out of a small plastic bowl and then out of the blue he started to act afraid of it as well as the water dish. He would start by stalking the bowl, he'd creep up at it, then jump back like it was going to attack him, he'd bark at it, circle it, then pounce at it until he got up the courage to tip it over and then eat it from the floor. He then started doing the same thing with the water dish and if he could not tip it over would splash the water out of it. There were absolutely no changes in the house or the bowls to bring on this change, we have a quite house, it's just me and the DH who has always worked a lot of hours and I work for home. It was funny at first but eventually it became a PITA, at barely 4lbs he could make quite a mess. He also never messed with the dry kibble that was in the same hard plastic bowl as the water. So the quest to get something that worked began. First I tried different type of plates and small bowls for the wet food, he still dumped them over and made a mess, I started feeding the wet food on a placemat, but then he started dragging that around the room. Someone suggested saran wrap and that worked, but it's a pain dealing with saran wrap all the time, especially since we traveled with him. Someone suggested a paperplate cut to the size of the food, that started working but I would make sure I was there when he was finished or he would wave it like a flag and carry it around the house. I used to cut up a bunch of plates into little circles so they would be ready, little by little I made them larger. We finally got to the point he would eat off the full size paper plate. By full size I mean the little 7" cheap white ones, but yeah this made life easier. In the mean time I was dealing with the water issues. I tried several heavier bowls but if he could not move or dump them he splashed the water out of them. I tried some raised ones on metal stands, well it was harder to move them or splash out of them, so he solved that problem, but lifting up the edge of the place mat and dragging that around until water splashed out if it. It was surprising how far he could move the wire stand with two dishes by pulling the placemat with his mouth. One day I happened to see a suction type placemat with a raised lip, BY GOLLY that was the answer to my prayers
He could not budge the placemat since it stuck to the floor and the raised lip made it impossible to move the dishes off the matt and since they were in raised stands he was not able to push them over and since I had already been only half filling his bowl the splashing had been cut way back. It was funny to watch because he would try so hard to move the matt and then paw at the dish and look at me like he was trying to say, Mom what's the matter it will not move. Thankfully he did drink the water and continue to eat the wet food off the paper plate, but he never gave up lifting that little paw
to try to knock over the dish, during the summer I would let him have is fun doing this with a water dish outside. Perhaps some of my tips will help you good luck because I know I bought a lot of products and it took at least six months of trying to outwit this tiny little quirky dog
