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Doggy Eating Disorders. Thoughts of a Bemused Caretaker. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-17
I am the proud caretaker of a 17 year old Puggle. I refrain from the term owner or master because at this point it's clear who owns whom, and who has the upper hand in the relationship.
She was a pretty normal eater, a grazer, her entire life until she turned twelve and came down with a thyroid condition that required medication both to treat the condition and the side effects. She hated the pills. She would not take them.
I tried everything with varying degrees of success, crushing and sprinkling them in her food, pill pockets, etc. She would pick the pills from the pockets, eat only undusted bits of kibble, etc. Her recalcitrance lengthened the course of treatment, but she eventually recovered, and no longer requires medication.
Unfortunately, she developed a bizarre eating strategy to evade the medication which continues to this day. She methodically picks each morsel from her bowl, and tosses it on the floor. She then inspects it, and if uncontaminated, eats it. Mind you none are contaminated, but she is convinced otherwise, and there are always a handful of morsels scattered across the floor when she's finished.
It's comically bizarre. When I say toss, I mean toss. Some land a couple of feet from the bowl as if the greater force will dislodge any contaminants. I have videos of her doing this, but don't know how to embed them.
So I transformed her from a casual grazer, to a persnickety eater, but it gets worse. I live on the second floor, and when she turned 16, it was clear she could no longer go up and down stairs. Well she could, but it's not good for her, so I built a pee patch on my porch.
After a couple of accidents, I got her in the habit of using it. Number one wasn't a problem, however number two required bribery. She got a biscuit whenever she made use of it for that purpose.
It worked, but enter the law of unintended consequences. Whenever she wants a biscuit, she'll do the kibble toss to get things moving, head to the sliding glass door, yell at me until I let her out, take care of business, come back in and yell at me until I give her a biscuit.
She's, gone from a casual grazer to a persnickety gobbler, and I have only myself to blame.
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