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Food Loving Breeds?


mixeduppup
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I'm with JulesLovesCavs...I was surprised to realize how food oriented my own Cav is...even after a very suitable meal he looks for more...and more and more!! If I gave him everything he asks for he would be enormous. This is why he has a lite kibble and gnaws on carrots instead of fatty dog treats. And the chicken necks have been drastically reduced. My sister and I fondly remember her Lab Retriever Nelly who even in her last days when she was hardly able to get up prior to being given her wings her ability to snatch a treat with lightning speed never left her.

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I've noticed huge amounts of variation in the greys.

We had one dog who could clean out a full, split marrow bone in about 30 minutes (when I say clean, I mean not even small bits of meat left, you'd get a perfectly stripped bone back) and then on the other hand, we recently had a foster dog who was so precious about food, I ended up having to feed her from a dropper (she hadn't eaten in over a week).

Of our current dogs, we have the old man (who likes to tour the backyard for grotty old bones that have been hidden and then forgotten) and who will eat until he pukes and then re-eat the puke. We have the older girl (who never appears to eat yet remains the same weight), the foster dog (who walked away from fresh steak a few nights ago, presumably because it was the second night in a row eating steak and he was bored with it) and the puppy who eats more than most of the adult dogs and yet still seems hungry all the time- he'll eat anything he finds on the floor that looks roughly food-sized (lint, paper, pebbles, etc) and is not above countersurfing if floor pickings are slim.

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My Lab is a total guts and will inhale food and eat anything he's given.

Thw Samoyeds like food and will happily work for a favourite treat but all of them have days when they will willingly miss a meal. None of my current Sams inhale their food either.

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Our male malamute on the other hand is much more discerning. If you offer him food he will sniff it first and if he's not keen shake his head and turn away. He also eats his meals much slower and takes things out of his bowl and will give it all a bit of a lick before actually eating it.

Sounds like my Husky.

I fed him a lamb heart, he licked the blood off it, sat by it for an hour or so then decided to eat it.

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My Chihuahua goes crazy for food but becomes fussier when we are at training. He will do as he is told with at the prospect of a treat, then spit it out if it isn’t something a little higher value. At home he eats everything probably so my parents dog doesn’t get it.

My parents foxie will eat anything and everything. She trains like a dream because she is super motivated by anything that squeaks. I thought she wasn't getting enough food so started feeding her more - she got fat so I put it down to her being a piggy.

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Our male malamute on the other hand is much more discerning. If you offer him food he will sniff it first and if he's not keen shake his head and turn away. He also eats his meals much slower and takes things out of his bowl and will give it all a bit of a lick before actually eating it.

Sounds like my Husky.

I fed him a lamb heart, he licked the blood off it, sat by it for an hour or so then decided to eat it.

Yep mine too. Mya does exactly this with her meaty bones.

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I have two guts and one picky eater. All Tollers and all related, thankfully my picky eater didn't pass that aspect on as his daughter is a guts.

Unfortunately the two guts stay at a good weight (and can go over very very easily!) by just the smell of food and the picky eater has a very high metabolism and runs everywhere. I can usually keep him at a good weight if he doesn't miss a day which can happen if he is a little stressed or sick whereas the other two would have to be dead to not eat! The pain in the butt has gone off his food at the moment as my girl is in season so he is looking a bit thinner than I like :(

Edited by tollersowned
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My Labrador loves his food, but he's not an inhaler or really much of a pig. The great excitement is there but he tends to approach food in a steady, methodical manner: taking a moment to calmly choose which bone to eat first or deciding whether to eat the fish before or after the dry food, etc.

I thought I had myself a broken lab for a lot of his first year as there were several long periods where he was almost completely off his food.

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Our family shih tzu has eaten some amazing things, including eating a hole through the cheesy, greasy lid of a pizza box, the whole pizza inside (without opening the box) and then most of a takeaway curry from the same coffee table after my brother and his girlfriend went to bed without popping leftovers away, she's also gone through my handbag for a single stray stale dorito (could be a sniffer dog perhaps!) and on my brothers 21st she perched herself under the spit, which was roasting pork and caught the drops, which led to a sick, greasy little puppy after.

She always outdoes herself at parties and barbecues, it's quite impressive!

I've always thought the fluffies could be fussy eaters, but boy is she the opposite!

Even rocks and dead birds are fair game, regardless of a full belly.

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Most of the time my ACD will eat cardboard - she often enjoys the empty toilet paper roll. She'd enjoy the full roll too but I like to avoid that one.

But there are also times she won't take a treat - doesn't matter what it is.

when she's frightened eg next to a busy road.

when she's really excited eg spies horses at the beach - and we're too close for any kind of doggy self control.

Most labs I know will take food no matter what. There's one line of labs around here somewhere - not that I've met them - but they don't care much about food. But produce a ball - and it's whole different dog.

I know a huge pile of BC who will ignore food in favour of balls or sheep.

So there's a sort of scale of food attractiveness vs distration attractiveness/scariness and it's different for each dog, and some breeds sit on average in a particular zone, but what a dog finds exciting will vary within a breed.

So you could argue that most BC will find sheep more exciting than food, but possibly not all.

and you could argue that most Labs will find food more exciting than anything - except the ones who like retrieving better...

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Lacey my Cavalier loves her food! She is smart too and knows when it is dinner time, she almost sits on top of me and stares at me until I relent :laugh: and her food is gone quick lol.

Sasha my Kelpie is also smart and knows when it is dinner time, but she is a good eater and doesn't gulp down her food :)

Edited by kiwigirl
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Our family shih tzu has eaten some amazing things, including eating a hole through the cheesy, greasy lid of a pizza box, the whole pizza inside (without opening the box) and then most of a takeaway curry from the same coffee table after my brother and his girlfriend went to bed without popping leftovers away, she's also gone through my handbag for a single stray stale dorito (could be a sniffer dog perhaps!) and on my brothers 21st she perched herself under the spit, which was roasting pork and caught the drops, which led to a sick, greasy little puppy after.

She always outdoes herself at parties and barbecues, it's quite impressive!

I've always thought the fluffies could be fussy eaters, but boy is she the opposite!

Even rocks and dead birds are fair game, regardless of a full belly.

:laugh: love the stale dorito. You have to give to give her A for effort Steph.

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Rozzie thats interesting. My three westies are all different and I think it's the boys puppy farm origins which makes them food obsessed. The two boys hang around any sniff of food and follow me or anyone else who heads to the kitchen hoping they'll get lucky - evertytime anyone moves! The boys are very food driven. Andy absolutely hoovers his food - I've never seen a dog eat so fast and always look for more. Whereas my girl who came from a registered breeder has to be called at mealtimes and seems to be only driven by genuine hunger. Their behavior in relation to food is really different.

So I think in my case the food behaviours are learnt. Sarah is relatively laid back (she's never known hunger or had to fight for food as far as I know) whereas the boys learnt to be very food driven in the puppy farm as I suspect they learnt to grab it while its there as they never knew when their next meal would be.

Edited by westiemum
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My goldie is highly food driven (surprise! surprise!). However she has been taught to slow down and doesn't gulp down her food anymore. My elkhound likes food but is not food motivated. He can ignore roasted chicken and peanut butter when he wants to be stubborn .

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