Dog afraid of stainless steel bowl

Question
Good morning,  In doing my research on this, I came across another person who asked you about this last December. You were stumped, but I thought I'd take a chance to see if others have discussed this with you.

Our 13 yr old shih tzu started backing away and barking at his water (in a stainless steel bowl)a couple years ago. The only thing we could gather was that he wanted it fresh. Once we gave it back, he would drink up and run off. This behavior is getting worse and now fresh water doesn't work like it did. Its like hes afraid of his reflection. He takes a mouthful of food and brings it to the living room, possibly to avoid the bowl. He approaches it cautiously and yesterday as I watched he didn't even get the drink! Immediately I gave him one of our plastic bowls and he drank fine. I will get him a new dog bowl, but I'm wondering if you've gained any insight since December ;o)

Thank you for your time.
Cindy

Answer
Hi, Cindy,

This is the 3rd case I've come across, and I still don't have a clue. In the case of your dog, since the bowl is stainless steel, he may have gotten a static electric shock once, and that might explain the behavior. In other cases though the bowl wasn't metal, so I'm still stumped.

Thanks for telling me about this, though. I'll give it further reflection.

LCK