This is DRIVING ME BANANAS!!!!

[vainchick5]

I realllllllly hope someone can tell me what to do here. Coco has recently been picking at her kibble and they end up all over the floor in random rooms. She'll drag some kibble in her mouth drop them and eat two of them, and leave 1-2 of them. Everywhere I walk (other than my bedroom), there are kibbles around. It's driving me bonkers. I already saw some ants today on my floor boards, but I don't know if its from that. Please help...It sounds cute, until you spend 5 minutes picking up random kibble only to turn around and have them be there again..lol..it's like she's laughing behind my back lol

[candybaby]

I don't have no advise for you but I wanted to say thats too cute

[Yorkease]

LOL! Sorry, I can't help. Sonny plays with his food too but he eats it afterwards. I know its funny at first but like you said...you worry about ants later. Maybe someone will be able to offer helpful advice soon. Good luck.

[KellyV]

Can't help ya... Pixie does the exact same thing. I find bits and pieces of food all over my house....

She'll grab a couple pieces, bring 'em in the living room, then drop 'em on the carpet and then proceeds to run around it in circles barking her head off. Then she'll bolt top speed down the hallway, back into the living room and snatch it back up while running past... Then drop it AGAIN on her way back to the bowl to start the whole process over with a NEW piece.

Out of every 10 she grabs she probably only eats one or two. The others I pick up and put back in her bowl at the end of the day....

[YorkyMommy]

A couple of our sweeties do the same thing only they do end up eating what they carry out. Our little Buddy will devote several minutes at a time to bat his paw at the food dish picking out what he feels are the "choice" niblets which can drive someone crazy wondering what he is doing if they were unfamiliar with the routine. But it's cute to us. My only suggestion would to be not to leave the dog food dish out all of the time if you are doing that. Or perhaps you can try to change dog food brands to something where the flavors are all the same. It sounds like she is picking out the pieces she likes best and leaving all of the rest. Best of luck to you!

[vainchick5]

It is actually really cute to watch but she doesn't like to eat off the floor so she eats maybe 1 or 2 off the floor then realizes she's eating off the floor and goes back to her bowl. I have 3 different kinds of quality kibbles in there for her. I have Innova, Innova Evo and Nutro. She loves all of them and eats them all but sometimes she only eats the nutro, then an hour later she only wants the Evo, or Innova..lol..I free feed her so taking the bowl away is not an option. She eats as she gets hungry.

[MinMuf1]

MAN O MAN... I thought I was the ONLY one having this problem. Glad to hear that I am not alone in this... Bits and pieces ALL over my house. So far without the ants.

[Kizzys Mom]

kizzy started that for a couple of days. But she would only get one peice of her food and run to the rug between my kitchen and living room. she would lay it down and look at it for a bit then I would tell her to take it back to her bowl, well like she really understood. ha. But when I acted like I was gonna take it away she would eat it real quick then run back to her bowl and stay there till she ate the rest of it. She hasnt done it now for a couple of days so i'm hoping she got the message, but I'll be watching her. I dont want food laying around everywhere so I just try to put a stop to it as soon as I see her do it like I do other things even tho some of it is cute, I know eventually it will not be cute.

[KRCDM]

Hi! Oliver does that too. He won't ever eat right out of his bowl. He always has to pick one up (always one at a time) and walk over to the carpet, set it down, and then eat it. He doesn't like to eat on the floor, only carpet. Sometimes he moves a piece and then forgets to eat it.

Maybe that is what Coco is doing too??

[FirstYorkie]

Maybe you could babygate her into a small space while she eats?

Oops! I see now that you free-feed. Might be worth changing at this point?

[vainchick5]

Originally Posted by KRCDM

Hi! Oliver does that too. He won't ever eat right out of his bowl. He always has to pick one up (always one at a time) and walk over to the carpet, set it down, and then eat it. He doesn't like to eat on the floor, only carpet. Sometimes he moves a piece and then forgets to eat it.

Maybe that is what Coco is doing too??

Yea I think she just gets too lazy to go back and eat all of the ones she stranded along the way..lol..I don't want to be stern about it because I don't want her to think I'm punishing her for eating so I quietly just pick them up and put them back in her bowl. She eats out of her bowl but it's like the occasional ones she MUST have off the floor

[vainchick5]

Originally Posted by FirstYorkie

Maybe you could babygate her into a small space while she eats?

Oops! I see now that you free-feed. Might be worth changing at this point?

I'm afraid that won't work because she is small and I am at work all day and I don't want to risk hypoglycemia. I can't not leave her any food while I'm at work. Plus in the morning she doesn't want breakfast, she just sleeps. Free feeding works for her and my schedule, so getting rid of that is not an option at this point. But thanks for the advice

[wss1]

Originally Posted by vainchick5

I realllllllly hope someone can tell me what to do here. Coco has recently been picking at her kibble and they end up all over the floor in random rooms. She'll drag some kibble in her mouth drop them and eat two of them, and leave 1-2 of them. Everywhere I walk (other than my bedroom), there are kibbles around. It's driving me bonkers. I already saw some ants today on my floor boards, but I don't know if its from that. Please help...It sounds cute, until you spend 5 minutes picking up random kibble only to turn around and have them be there again..lol..it's like she's laughing behind my back lol

Do you leave dry food out all day long? I don't b/c I want to be able to predict when my boys will poop. Plus I wanted to give them a standard schedule.

As soon as I wake up in the morning I'll take them outside to do their business then take them right back in. I then give them a small portion of dry food (they dislike wet food) and they'll eat a good amount and whatever is left over I’ll throw out b/f I head out for work. I'll also do the same when I come back from work around 5 and again around 8:30pm.

This has always worked for me b/c I'm giving them time to get hungry so when they get their food they eat it rather than play w/ it.

Try it...couldn’t hurt.

Leaving dry food out too long is not good b/c the food looses its freshness and will probably taste staled to them…maybe that’s why your furbaby plays w/ it rather than enjoy it.

GOOD LUCK

[mhorst]

Another thought would be to use an X-pen during the day while you are gone to restrict the spread of the food. I used to free feed all our dogs until one of them became overweight. Now I feed morning and evening, but for my little Zoe, who's ~3 lbs and 11 months old, I leave her in an X-pen during the day with her crate and a little bit of dry Innova on a saucer for her to snack on should she become hungry. She likes to distribute food when she eats also, so in the evening, she eats in the laundry room, and in the morning, she's in the bathroom with me while I'm getting ready for work.

This works great, and the added bonus is that the X-pen helps with house breaking. It's located near a french door to the outside so she can see what's going on. I spread out a cheap shower curtain on the floor and bought a roll of "newsprint roll ends" from an agency who prints advertizing inserts for the newspaper. I roll out the clean unprinted newspaper over the shower curtain and put the X-pen and her crate on top of this with her toys and kibble. My husband is home at lunch to let her outside, but I have put a pee-pad in the X-pen if no one was going to be home during the day.

This has worked great for us, and may be a thought for you.

Wishing you the best!!

[vainchick5]

Originally Posted by mhorst

Another thought would be to use an X-pen during the day while you are gone to restrict the spread of the food. I used to free feed all our dogs until one of them became overweight. Now I feed morning and evening, but for my little Zoe, who's ~3 lbs and 11 months old, I leave her in an X-pen during the day with her crate and a little bit of dry Innova on a saucer for her to snack on should she become hungry. She likes to distribute food when she eats also, so in the evening, she eats in the laundry room, and in the morning, she's in the bathroom with me while I'm getting ready for work.

This works great, and the added bonus is that the X-pen helps with house breaking. It's located near a french door to the outside so she can see what's going on. I spread out a cheap shower curtain on the floor and bought a roll of "newsprint roll ends" from an agency who prints advertizing inserts for the newspaper. I roll out the clean unprinted newspaper over the shower curtain and put the X-pen and her crate on top of this with her toys and kibble. My husband is home at lunch to let her outside, but I have put a pee-pad in the X-pen if no one was going to be home during the day.

This has worked great for us, and may be a thought for you.

Wishing you the best!!

Thanks for the great advice. My girl is 1.5 years, she's potty trained and doesn't really do the food thing when I'm not home..lol..she does it when I am home. I'm too afraid to free feed her because she is so skinny. She's in the 4 lbs range but looks much smaller, she's just so thin looking but she eats like a little piggy. So I'm afraid that if there is no food there while I'm at work, she'll go hungry or have hypoglycemia. Plus I work too far to come home at lunch and she's too sleepy in the morning to eat breakfast before I leave.