Our great Dane does this. If he doesn’t want a treat, he’ll go and put it by our small dogs’ kennels for them to have. He also won’t eat treats he likes unless the small dogs get one too.
And, oddly enough, he’s the only dog I’ve ever encountered that can free feed (great Danes are notoriously food motivated). But water, though. We have to chase him away from the bowl or he’ll sit there and drink the whole thing.
Between the thousands of years of semi-selective breeding and the parallel evolution that made our ancestors want the selective breeding to happen, the emotional compatibility between dogs and humans is amazing. They’re not humans of course, and we do well to remember that, but the connection is eerie, and when you see a dog display that kind of pack/family oriented behavior, it’s heartwarming.
@wjrii I just wanted to thank you and @thepianistfroggollum for sharing cool stories about your dogs.
my dog wont eat her treat until we come back home. which used to work until we got another dog who did not have this issue
Mine would hide his treat until he was ready to eat it. Sometimes he’d hide it in our other dog’s bed, then be all shocked Pikachu when it wasn’t there later.
that other dog must believe in treat fairies
I like to think she knew the limitations of her roommate.
Funnily enough, now that she’s passed away, we hide bits of boiled chicken around the house as enrichment for Tiny Butthead. We call it "chicken fairy"ing and he gets a kick out of hunting through the house.
let 👏 him 👏 drink
I can see you’ve never had to mop up a great Dane accident. They’re basically made of piss.
Weird. All of my dogs are free feed. While raising them, we always allowed access to a full bowl, and they’ve never wanted to eat the full thing since they know they’ll always have access.
This person doesn’t have Labradors lol
Or Dalmatians. They will eat until they can’t eat anymore and then puke and then eat some more.
Must be a Roman breed
We have a dogsitter when we are on trips. According to her, our heeler would politely take blueberries that were offered and then wander off, returning not long after. It was only later that she found a stash of uneaten blueberries on the couch. My little man was a desperately skinny and frightened stray in a kill shelter before he came to us, and on the theory that whatever makes him feel safe and content is better than the alternative, he’s, uhhh, put on weight. If he liked the blueberries, they would not be left on the couch.
Then some other dog will be walking along and - Look! There’s a magic Milk Bone!
I do the same with the chipmunks my cat brings me.
If this isn’t a joke, keep your cat indoors. It’s a danger to your local ecosystem. Cats don’t belong outside.
The squirrels freak out whenever my cat is outside and I’m sure he’d love to catch one of them, but my feline is simply way too fat for that to be possible. So, he just sits there and stares at them while they make “danger” noises. For some reason, one of the squirrels sounds way more concerned than any of the others. I don’t like feeding wildlife, but whenever that high-anxiety squirrel is out there alone, I give him a couple unsalted peanuts as an apology for having to put up with my cat.
Chipmunks get indoors occasionally in the middle of nowhere.
Such a considerate doggy.
is that a border Collie?
Yes, that’s why it’s between the sidewalk and the grass.
…I’ll see myself out.
yes. I had to read that 5x 😞
I done let random strangers give random treats to my dog.
