Border collie diva

The border collie does not want to eat.  This is not the same thing as saying he isn't hungry; he is hungry. He is hungry for milk bones, liver treats, the chicken that I chop up for my noontime salad, anything that falls onto the kitchen floor, my dinner, Doug's dinner, and dried fish skins. He just doesn't want to eat what he's supposed to eat--his dog food. 

And he has me over a barrel. He needs to eat his breakfast, every day, and he needs to eat his dinner, every night, because I need to give him insulin and I can't give him insulin on an empty stomach.

For the past two and a half years, he has happily crunched away on prescription kibble, augmented with prescription canned food. Very high fiber, which makes his poops nice and tidy, like cardboard, and which keeps his diabetic body going nicely.

But lately--maybe the last two or three weeks--he's been a reluctant eater, first in the morning, and now, these last few days, in the evening, too.

I try outsmarting him, but have you ever tried to outsmart a border collie? Can't be done, unless you're a Rhodes Scholar or one of those people who get the Genius Grants. But I try. When I am preparing his food, I slip him some kibble while I am working, hoping he'll think it's something delicious. This works for a few mouthfuls, and then he turns away.

I get his food ready, and set it down, cooing and ooing, and he walks out of the room. Riley, who has made a habit over the years of licking clean Boscoe's bowl after Boscoe is finished eating, rushes over, thinking he's hit the jackpot, and I have to shoo him away. He backs up, looking confused and slightly outraged.

Then I haul Boscoe back into the kitchen, shut the door so he can't escape, and start hand-feeding him. He will eat out of my hand, but not out of the bowl, for another, oh, ten or twelve mouthfuls, and then he turns away. I look at the bowl, try to gauge if he's eaten enough to make an insulin shot safe. Then I pull out the big guns: Tomato sauce.

A spoonful dolloped on his food, and then stirred (learned the hard way--if I don't stir it in, he just licks it off the kibble), and he's good for another dozen bites. Then he walks away, and I haul him back, and I hand-feed him the rest.

Feeding the damn border collie, who I love deeply and would do anything for, takes a good twenty minutes every morning, and another twenty minutes every evening.

I can't tell if he doesn't like his food anymore, or if he has just decided, late in life, that he deserves condiments.

In any case, I worry that the natural sugar in the tomato sauce is bad for him, given his diabetes, so I'm going to stock up on other possibilities--canned beef broth? Chicken broth? Mustard? Who knows what a border collie diva would like?

Sunday morning update: He wouldn't take even one bite hand-fed--until I drizzled beef broth all over his food. Then he ate the whole thing.  I think you're right that I have to change his food. I'll talk to the vet next week.

Sunday evening update: He ate just fine. Damn him.