Eating behaviour

Question
I have an 10 month old Jack Russell bitch who is now refusing to eat the food given too her at home at feeding times. This started about 2 months ago. Since she was very young we did not let her in the same room as us when we ate and we had no problems then. Since then I have found out that when she was with friends for a short period they were feeding her tit-bits regularly and during their own meals. She now refuses to eat any food I put down to her in her bowl. I have always fed her the dry biscuit type food and she happily ate this. It is now becoming a very worrying situation. She refuses to eat any food put down to her in her feeding bowl and continuously begs for food. When i am preparing food for myself in the kitchen she just sits staring up at my every move looking for food. She continuously sniffs around the house looking for crumbs etc. When we take her out for a walk she eats everything she comes across in the street. last month we had a bad scare when we took her down the beach, she ate a fish hook! However all is well and luckily no damage was done. I have invested in a muzzle for her which she hates and when I put it on for a walk she refuses to move at all! I am at my wits end can you please please help me?
Many Thanks
Alan

Answer
Hi Alan;
I think I would go out to a cow pasture, follow a cow around until sahe had a movement, catch it in a box, and give my "friends?"A gift for ruining my dog.LOL
Bless their hearts!
Well, A JR is a bit of a stubborn lil thing, so you may be in for a long battle of wits.
they spoiled her to people food snacks.
This is like keeping you child as a favor and teaching it to beg for candy at every meal.
They stepped WAY over the line!
I do give my dogs people food treats.
I have had some dogs that would get a little stomach flu like bug, and have to cook chicken and rice for them, and most foods we eat are good for animals too.
BUT! When I an slicing cheesem they know they can come for a bite. I give them a couple of small bites. Enough so they get a good tate, but not enough to add too many calories to their daily intake.
AFTER dinner when I make a pot roast or roast chicken,or something like that, I give them a little bit of it, along with some of the vegetables, like carrots, peas, green beand, mashed potatioes etc. They love it and it is good for them. I NEVER give them any fat meat or chicken skin.
They get too much colesterole and fats just like we do, with the same bad results.
I always cut down on their dog food to account for these calories.
They DO NOT get bites from ANYONE at the table!
She has tasted these foods now, and she smells them all through the house when you are cooking, so it is going to be hard to break her of them completely.
Dogs, like children know we will eventually wear down if they are persistent enough, so they will push it as far as they can.
She will not starve though.
Offer the food, and if she refuses it, just walk away and leave it.
Don't try to coax her to eat. She will see this as a possibility that she can wear you down.
She will probably sneak back in and eat bits of it without you seeing her.
She will look after her own interests, but if she can get enough of your symapthy and scare and worry you, she knows she will eventually win.
If you hold out long enough, she will eventually give it up.
You can. if you wish, save a spoonful of beef gravy or a bit of roast beef or chicken ( any meat except pork) and cut or shred it up very fine and mix it with her own food sometimes.
That won't affect her health, and will please her taste buds.
A little pampering won't hurt.
When you take her for a walk, keep her on a leash, and watch her carefully to keep her from gewtting to things to eat she chouldn't have, which is anything lieing around. Dogs can get food poisoning from spoiled foods too.
When you are preparing foods, could you put her in another room where she doesn't have access to the kitchen?
If she can't sit at your fet and beg, she can't put a guilt trip on you.
Dogs are good at putting guilt trips on us.
In fact, I think they are born with that knowledge in their genes.LOL
They can rip your heart out with pitiful stares.
If she refuses to move with the muzzle on, forgo the walk.
It shouldn't be necessary for her to have to wear that muzzle because adults acted like idiots and spoiled her.
You are permitted to spoil your own children and animals, you are out of line to do so with other people's.
If she doesn't eat the food you put down, and you just walk away, and don't make a big deal of it, she will eat when she gets hungry enough.
Do those friends know that because of something they taught her, she ate a fish hook and could have died?
Don't even leave an animal or child with them again.
Write anytime.
Charlotte