Only One Annoying Thing

[Guest desertdog71]

We had our greyhound "Larry" since he was 4 months old. He doesn't really have behavior issues except one thing that is really annoying.

 

He likes to grab a mouthful of food, run from the kitchen across the living room, drop it on the floor and run back. All the while he eats maybe 25% of the food he picks up. Now he will EVENTUALLY pick it all up, since I won't feed him again until he does. I am wondering what this is saying about him? He was injured as a puppy before we got him, and his litter mates had chewed him up pretty good in a few spots. I am thinking that when he was a puppy, he had to grab food and run, drop it somewhere and run back for more before it was all gone. Just a guess. He is 3 years old now and no other pets in the house and nobody trying to take his food.

 

Any thoughts on this? Otherwise he is great, he lays in his crate most of the day, plays outside for a few hours running the fence with the neighbor dogs, then sleeps some more. Pretty typical day for a grey. LOL

[Guest twhitehouse]

I don't really have any advice or reasoning. I just wanted to say, Lexi has recently started doing this as well. We've had her for almost 2 years and this started in the last couple of weeks. I think her reason is that she's on a medication and I hide the medication in cheese, meat, etc in her food. Well I think she takes mouthfuls to the living room to sort it all out so she doesn't have to eat the pills. Often times, I'll find the ball of cheese with the pills on the living room rug and that's all that's left. Little stinker!

[Guest desertdog71]

Larry only will eat 3 things...dog food, beggin strips, and peanut butter. Everything else he wants nothing to do with, so no tricking him with pills. I give him fish oil pills, but gotta shove em down. He doesn't mind since he gets a beggin strip after his medicine. Then he will run to the living room and toss it all over the room, and bow, and pounce on it. Its pretty funny to watch.

[RobinM]

My Beau does this, he was a racer and we adopted him at 2.5 so I doubt it has anything to do with his puppyhood!

 

We never did figure it out with Beau- but he tends to do it when his tummy is off - he does suffer from IBD.

[Guest Greyt_dog_lover]

Feed him in his crate, then you dont have to worry about it. Reason he does this, I couldnt begin to pose a reason.

[Guest desertdog71]

No he has no bowel issues ever. Not much gas even since we changed his food, and started him on fish oil. He had skin problems and rashes, so he is on the fish pills for that. Works great by the way. Its not that big of a deal really, just annoying sometimes. I want to understand it more than correct it.

[Guest kydie]

non greys do this too, I think it's a way of 'eating alone" kind of a hoarding thing, Look out they will want to put him on that "Hoarding" show

[GeorgeofNE]

Feed him in his crate, then you dont have to worry about it. Reason he does this, I couldnt begin to pose a reason.

 

Exactly! Super easy fix.

 

Or put a baby gate up so he can't run out of the kitchen! This is a fairly common thing, actually. Two of my three cats do it in fact!

[greysmom]

If you're not looking to fix the problem, you could try free feeding him. He doesn't have any housemates to worry about so this might help him move beyond his food "hoarding" issues.

 

It could be caused by numerous things - behavioral, environmental and genetic. And some dogs do it just because. Seems like he has a pretty quirky personality to go along with it.

[Guest FreddyGirl]

Freddy did this for about a month, then stopped. Go figure...

[Guest GreyFan09]

Comet also did this when we first got him and fed him dry kibble. He would take a few pieces out of his bowl and go drop them over on the carpet and eat them one at a time. It stopped when we started mixing pumpkin and/or yogurt in his kibble, and now he just scarf's it all down.

 

Yes, strange behavior!

[Guest smudgebear]

Shadow does this with treats.

[tra708]

Abby used to do that, too, especially when someone was at the door. she would get so excited that she would grab a mouthful of food and drop it all over the hallway. I really miss it now.