Petey's Eating Habits

Doing the posts about the lemon poppy seed muffins made me think of Petey's eating habits in general. Petey is a finicky eater. He is the most picky eater of any dog I have ever known. I think that is the problem - all the other dogs I knew understood that they were dogs!! The other dogs I knew always ate whatever was set before them with great gusto. Not Petey. It hardly matters what is put in his bowl; he won't eat it, at least not initially. He'll go sniff it and turn away as if we've put poison in his bowl. He will even walk along the other side of the room from his food bowl, perhaps thinking that the food will jump out on him if he gets too close.

I am of the opinion that Petey is a dog and my only job is to make sure he has food in his bowl. When he gets hungry he'll eat. John does not hold this opinion. John will save the 'juices' from meat that we've had for supper and pour over his food. He's chopped up bits of fat trimmed from the meat and stirred it into his food. He's even heated Petey's food in the microwave. All this is to no avail. Petey will turn his nose up at whatever is offered. He begs shamelessly while we are at the table eating, but will often reject even that. The vet says he is at a good weight, so we aren't worried. He does eat eventually. Most of the time it is after John has thrown the old gross dog food out in the yard in order to clean his bowl. He'll eat that like he hasn't eaten in days. Go figure. It wasn't good enough for the 24 hours it was in the house. We've even taken his bowl outside. It doesn't work.

Petey's drinking habits are just as odd. He has a couple of water bowls in the house, but he prefers one over all the rest; the one in the master bathroom. We can only surmise that Petey drinks once a day since we aren't home during the day. In the evening, he'll drink half the bowl of water. We fully expect one day to see a camel hump arise on his back!! If that wasn't odd enough the thing that triggers his marathon drinks is John going to the bathroom. We haven't figured out that connection. Perhaps the sound of running water reminds him that he's thirsty!!