You probably spent quite a bit of time setting up an area of your home for your dog to eat. You likely have a matching food and water bowl for your pet as well as decorative a mat to prevent your dog from making a big mess. So why then do some dogs take the food that you give them, put it into their mouths, walk to a different part of your home, spit it out, and eat it there? Is it because they don’t like the area that you have devoted to them?
It isn’t unusual for a dog to pick up food out of their bowl, scoop into their mouth, and carry it to a different location to eat.
The truth is that this is not all that uncommon in dogs, so if yours does it, don’t be worried! It’s not that your dog doesn’t like the food area that you prepared for it. It’s also not because your dog doesn’t like the food you have given it. Rather, there are some dogs who instinctively still behave a little bit like wolves, according to The Mercury News. When wolves are out in the wilderness and they find food, they really need to protect it at all costs unless they want other wolves to swoop in and either steal it from them or try to fight them for it. So often times, wolves will take food that they find and retreat to a safer space so that they can enjoy their food in peace.
When your dog takes its food and moves it to another area of your home before eating it, it is essentially doing the same thing. In some cases, if you have another pet in the home, it might be doing it because it actually thinks that the other pet is going to try and take the food from it. If you don’t have another dog in your home, your dog might simply be looking to eat closer to you and it might just be lonely.
More often than not, your dog is just moving the food without even really knowing why it’s doing it. There is no real threat to your dog or its food, but the act of moving food before eating it is ingrained deep in its psyche. So no matter how hard you try to change your dog’s behavior, it will more than likely continue to move food before devouring it.
At Lanka Labs, we enjoy offering people the opportunity to purchase new puppies that they can then take home and learn all about over the years. Issues like the one involving dogs moving their food is just the tip of the iceberg, as you will learn so many other things about dogs and their sometimes peculiar behavior when you get one. Call us at 785-626-9313 today to welcome a Labrador puppy into your family.
