Fear

Question
I have a female toy poodle rescued 3 years ago.  She just started wagging her tail about a year ago.  She has always been afraid of her food and water bowls.  She will sneek up on her food bowl in a crouched posture and lift a back foot then put it down run away, come back grab a mouthfull of food run to the carpeted area drop it and eat it there.  She will not voluntarily drink water in the house.  There is water next to her food bowl which she will not touch although it is always clean and filtered.  She will drink water from a plastic bowl outside near a post on our patio.  If you move it she will not drink.

Answer
Hello Marcie,
Have you tried slowly moving the water bowl closer to the patio door.  Everyday, move the bowl just a tiny bit closer to the door and leave it there.  She will eventually drink from it.  You might try getting some other plastic bowls like the one she Will drink out of to put in the house.  The other thing you may try is using rabbit or small animal water bottles where they lick the end of it to get water.  Sometimes they use these in kennels and she may be more used to them.  
As for her "sneaky" eating, she most likely had to do this where she was before she was rescued.  There were probably dominate dogs where she was and it was either sneak your food or don't eat.  Now that there is food aplenty, its still habit for her to sneak pieces.  You might try putting her food in a crate or making her a small "den" for her to eat out of.  Dogs like her don't like having to eat their food in the open, so if you make a small "cave-like" area, it might encourage her to eat more since she is out of sight.  If you have a plastic crate, this should work fine, if you have a wire crate, put a blanket over it to create that "den-like" atmosphere.  You should also start putting her in her crate for a little while to get her used to it if she isn't used to one already.  When putting a dog in a crate for the first time, you need to resist the temptation to "run to your baby and rescue her" if she cries or whines.  Once she is in the crate, you need to ignore her (even when she fusses, or gives you those "poor baby" eyes) unless she is quiet and you are going to get her out.  If you give her any positive or negative attention (especially if she is making noise) she will whine or fuss everytime she sees you.  Only go to her if she is quiet and only when you are going to get her out.  Otherwise, don't even look in her direction.  It may sound mean, but she needs to know that when she is in her crate that you aren't going to "rescue" her out of it, no matter what she does.  
I would start by putting her in the crate for no longer than 5-10 min. at first.  You can put her in the crate multiple times a day, but try to gradually increase the time she is in there so she doesn't start to dislike her crate.  Don't put her food in the crate until she is more relaxed in there.  You don't want her to think that the crate is punishment and come to see the food as something negative also.  You can however put some treats, toys or things that she chews on in her crate.  You might also try sleeping in an old tee shirt for a couple nights and leaving that in the crate with her.  That way, she has something that has your smell on it to comfort her.  You can put the drinking bottle in her crate to see if she will use it.  
Once she is more comfortable in her crate, you can start putting some food in there with her.  At first, just add a few kibbles in a corner and see if she nibbles on them.  You can eventually add a bowl of food.  You want to get her to where you can leave food in her crate at all times and you can leave the crate door open so that she can go in at her leisure.  Once she reaches this stage, feed her only in her crate.  She may not eat for a couple of days, but it won't hurt her and she should go ahead and eat once she gets hungry enough.  

Give this a try and I hope this helps for both of you.  If you have other questions for me, please feel free to ask me.  

Thanks for using AllExperts.com,
Kim