Doggy Mealtime Antics: Food Fights With Fred

Hi, I’m Dr. Karyn! Read my introduction to learn more about me and my five funny dogs, Poppy, Bailey, Kodah, Ned, and Fred.

Fred loves food. Fred is obsessed with food. Fred gets so excited at every meal time that I almost need to call a timeout. The problem, like most of my ‘naughty’ Chihuahua issues, is that his escalating misbehavior is also freaking adorable. So here’s the situation…

It Started with Porpoising

Like all our dogs, Ned and Fred have been taught to sit and wait until they have been given the go-ahead to eat. This is something I recommend all owners teach their dogs. As I prepare the various different bowls, food types, and medications needed by my five-strong dog pack, the elderly Labradors tend to hover quietly, Kodah switches between sitting and pacing, whilst whining excitedly, Ned keeps his front paws firmly placed on my leg, while Fred dances back and forth, quivering with anticipation, and occasionally rearing up onto his hind legs in a manner we have called ‘porpoising,’ with his bipedal bouncing so similar in appearance to a dolphin tail walking its way across the water’s surface.

Comically, Fred often pairs his porpoising with another party trick known as ‘seagulling,’ by which he can magically disappear an impossibly large piece of food in a single gulp, like a seagull throwing back a full-sized fish.

These behaviors have been naturally reinforced as they are closely linked to Fred’s favorite reward: food. But over time, his mealtime antics have taken on a new theme.

Fred’s Frantic Antics

Ned and Fred have always spent hours chasing, biting, and wrestling with each other, burning so much energy that around three-quarters of their day must be spent sleeping, dozing, or napping. Although Ned tends to be slightly higher on the chain of command, they each take turns being the aggressor. One play session will be initiated by a sneaky hind leg bite or daring neck grab, establishing the instigator as the dominant player for that particular round. Perhaps having a predetermined winner and loser takes away any real animosity, leaving them to focus on the fun and games of the fight.

Over the past few months, Fred has started to mix things up by incorporating fight club into his mealtime antics.

Most of the time, this is at the expense of poor Ned, who just wants to focus on his impending meal, and occasionally, Fred’s pre-food fight tactics are targeted at an unsuspecting feline bystander. To the casual observer, it seems like Fred has got himself so worked up with the excitement of food that he doesn’t seem to know what to do with all that energy, so it comes bursting out in WWE-worthy moves.

The call to dinner bell now has the Pavlovian effect of a boxing ring bell or the Rocky theme song (Pavlovian as in the famed neurologist, not the meringue-based dessert).

So I find myself once again facing that size-based double standard I often experience with my dogs. If it was Kodah turning mealtimes into wrestlemania, my actions would be swift and decisive, using familiar commands and negative punishment (which is not as horrible as the term suggests) to remove him from the situation until he calms down; we can’t be having an 80-lb Shepherd turning every meal into Friday Fight Night – could you imagine the carnage?

Strictly speaking, I should apply the exact same principles to Fred. Just because his 8-lb body is less capable of causing any major damage (or any minor damage, for that matter), it doesn’t mean he should be getting away with unsociable behavior. The trouble is that not only is there a size disparity between Kodah and Fred, but there is also something of a learning gap. Don’t get me wrong, Fred is smart and trainable, but he’s got nothing on the intelligence and obedience of his ‘big brother,’ and I know from experience that negative punishment (ie. separating Fred from the food-prep area and waiting for him to be calm and settled before feeding him) is not something he grasps easily.

Is my decision-making unbiased and adhering to training principles? Not really. But provided Fred continues to sit and wait to be told he can eat, I will continue to monitor the pre-feed porpoising and playfighting for now, because sometimes you’ve got to break some rules to make life a little easier.