Bowled over, and over bowls October 28, 2009

I have a little dog, and I admit, I do spoil him, kind of a lot. But he really is my surrogate child, and we spend entirely too much time together. He has his own, very unique personality, and he is really smart. I am not just bragging because he is my dog. I am not one of those “puppy mothers” that thinks their “baby” is the best ever just because he is mine. He really is smart. I will prove my unbiasedness by saying that my dog can sometimes resemble an angler fish. You know, one of those insane looking fish with the super snaggley teeth. He has a terrible underbite, and the bottom teeth can always be seen. He has a fairly good disposition, but really isn’t too fond of young children.

As I mentioned, I do spoil this dog. But until recently, I didn’t really think that this was a problem. As it turns out, it seems to me and others that I have discussed this with, that it appears that my dog thinks he is a human. Some of the things he does, or has to have are what led me to this conclusion. First, he has to have a pillow to sleep on, if not, he will crawl up to my pillow and sleep with his head on my pillow. So he has his own pillow to put his head on while he sleeps. He also hates riding in the car in his kennel. The only way he is content in the car is if he is on someone’s lap, or is in his own seat. This has been the case for a while now, along with additional human-like qualities, but the most recent on really has me puzzled.

It started by him crying at his food bowl. He would cry at his food bowl even though there was food in the bowl. He would lean in and sniff at it, but not eat. I though he was just crying to get attention, he does this from time to time on days when I haven’t played with him as much or paid enough attention to him, so I pet him and went on with my day . That night, before I went to bed, I went to fill up his other bowl with water and noticed that he had not touched his food. This did not initially concern me because from time to time, he has displayed dog-orexic tendencies before, and has gone a couple of days without eating. I figured he was just going through one of these phases. I checked the next day, and he hadn’t eating anything. On the third day, he was crying at his bowl again. I threw out the old food, and put new food in the bowl, and he stretched towards it, sniffing, but didn’t move in close enough to eat. I was curious now, because he was on his third day without eating, so I took a treat, broke it in half, gave him one half and put the other in the food bowl. He stretched to the bowl, but would not step up to it. And he started to cry again. I was puzzled, so I remove the treat from the bowl and put it on the floor, which he walked up to and ate. I then decided to take out a couple of pieces of his food from his bowl and put them on the floor, and he ate these as well. He would also eat when I handed him food. 

This made me think that there was some sort of negative connotation with his bowl, maybe he was bit by something while trying to eat from it, I am not quite sure. I decided to get a bowl out of my kitchen and put his food in a different bowl, he hesitantly walked towards the bowl, but would not eat from it… He would eat off the floor, but not from the bowl. Since I didn’t want to pour dog food all over my floor, but I also didn’t want him to not eat. So I decided to put his food on a plate, and he walked right up to the plate and happily ate all his food. I tried to put his food in a bowl the next day, but the same thing occurred, and he cried at his food. I put the food on a plate, and yet again, he ate it all. So needless to say, my dog refuses to eat his food from a bowl, but will only eat from a plate… I mean really?! My dog is insane, but I love him all the same!