[Dailydrool] Getting to know Mila

[Valerie via Dailydrool]

Our navy houseguest, Mila, who has been with us for a year and a half now while her mom is on active naval deployment, has always been here with our hound boys, Bo and Harley. Now Bo and Harley have both journeyed on to the Bridge, and it is just Mila and us humans. I have written before that Mila has been very food protective/aggressive and trained both boys to stay at least four feet away from her bowl if she was anywhere in the vicinity. For the first three days after Harley passed away, Mila refused to eat unless hand fed something more delicious than her usual fare. and yet she did not look depressed. We would pick her untouched food bowl up after about an hour, since it contained boiled chicken breast in addition to kibble and attracted flies as well as risked going bad in the heat. Yesterday we just put down dry kibble and left it, and lo and behold this morning it was all gone. We are thinking Mila likes to "graze" rather than eat at specified times, and prefers to eat unwatched. Possibly she was food protective with the boys because she couldn't just leave her bowl and nibble at leisure (because they'd eat her unguarded food and she didn't want to be on permanent guard duty) so she was trying to teach them to leave her bowl alone even if she wasn't eating it. I am relieved she is not starving herself. (she had a physical the day before Harley died, and all was fine except for needing a dental). I seem to recall Doug's Millie is like this too? Any others? Is this form of dining a problem? i have never had a dog that did this before. Val vlbzwick at yahoo.com