fear of drinking water

Question
10 year old male min schnauzer recently became afraid of drinking water from same water dish.  i have tried all different ones to no avail. he will bark at his dish and clearly is thirsty.  he gets close to it and then backs up and continues to bark.  if i put my finger in or near his dish soothes him somewhat but he won't really drink alot unless i pick up the dish and hold it for him.  upon suggestions from his vet, i have allowed him to go without assistance but he doesn't go to it at all.  i use a mat or the carpeted stairs because he seems to be more uneasy on the bare floor. he eats his dry food on the floor without a dish as well.  please help because i know he doesn't drink any water when i am away from home.  also, he is not alone all day because my mom is with him when i am at work. i am afraid of dehydration.  please help.

Answer
This really is a bad situation and you *must* get him to take in more water. The fact that you let him eat his kibble without a dish is not helping matters at all.

Try different water containers and see if you can find one he is not afraid of. Stainless steel bowl, glass, or ice cream bucket. Try to get him to eat out of a bowl, too. Then you can put water into his kibble so that he is forced to take in more water.

I had a rescue in here a few months ago who wouldn't eat well. It turned out that she was afraid whenever her bowl moved. It took time, but she learned that the world wouldn't come to an end if the bowl moved.... and she eventually could eat out of it anywhere in the house.

My daughter runs her dog in agility, and on their last trip out-of-town, the dog got sick... mostly diarrhea. When a dog here gets sick and we need to get it back on solid food, we start them out on Gerber strained chicken (yes, the baby food). A veterinarian in Wyoming suggested that my daughter mix some of that in the dog's water to keep her from dehydrating as Terra tends to not drink as much water as she should when she is trialing. Let me tell you.... that worked so well that Katie has mixed up a bunch of this and frozen it into ice cubes to use at upcoming trials in the dog's water. (Remains to be seen as to how the ice cubes will work....)

So, you might try doing something similar with your dog to see if you can get him to drink easier. I would start out letting him lick the baby food off of a spoon first. Give him a real hankering for the stuff! Then mix some of it into a small bit of water, and gradually increase the water to baby food ratio. The problem with this is that you really cannot leave it sit around all day as I would think the water would "go bad" with the baby food in it.

After re-reading your comments again, I wonder if he could have a bad back/neck issue and that is why he cannot/will not drink out of a (normal) container. It sounds like he drinks if you hold up the bowl for him. Have you tried giving him water out of an elevated bowl so that he doesn't have to drink with his head down? If he will drink out of an ice cream bucket, that could well be the problem.

Karen