# 6-month-old pup won't drink out of bowl



## Oaklys Dad (Dec 28, 2005)

I have to say that is a new one to me. You certainly want to make sure she is staying hydrated. If it were me I would use a scatterbomb technique and fill up every vessel I could find and fill them all with water and hopefully find something that she would drink out of. I've heard of dogs that were startled when their collar tags hit a metal bowl. Maybe even try a small kiddie pool outside.


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## Finn's Fan (Dec 22, 2007)

I've known three dogs who simply refused to drink out of their bowls when it had never been a problem before. Two of them had tags that were clinking on their new bowls (stainless steel where they formerly had plastic), and one apparently got frightened of her reflection in her new stainless steel bowl. One owner switched back to plastic, one made her dog tough it out and he eventually (three days!!!) got back to a regular drinking schedule, and one switched to a bucket. Good luck!


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## grimace_86 (Jul 21, 2010)

Sounds to me like Luna has unfortunately associated negative feelings to her bowl. This is kind of similar to when someone is affraid of spider/snakes etc...

Something you could try doing is begin getting luna to associate positive & pleasurable feelings to drinking out of the bowl. While this probably wont happen overnight, you could begin by having Luna play with her favourite toys with the bowl near by.

Your goal is to get the bowl as close as possible to her without evoking the phobic response. As soon as this happens, move away. 

So ensure she is having a great time by using treats/toys and move her closer to the bowl. With some patience, she should link up in her mind that the bowl equal pleasurable feelings.

Let me know how you go.


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## LibertyME (Jan 6, 2007)

if you empty her bowl, smear a little bit of peanut butter in it...and hold the bowl for her will she lick the peanut butter off it....?


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## amy22 (May 11, 2008)

Poor Luna, I like the PB idea that LibertyMe had! Does she eat her food out of a metal bowl? Good luck and Im interested in seeing how this works out.


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## Starfire5 (Apr 23, 2010)

My girl Cobey who died in January spent her whole life not liking to drink water and it caused problems, of course. So to get her to drink her water, we used to put a little all natural - no sugar or sweeteners added - apple juice to her water. She loved it and she would drink it right down! Worth a try - make it a little more interesting than plain water.


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## petlove (Apr 29, 2010)

Thank you ALL for the information! I tried a combo of your solutions. First let me say that I forgot to mention in my original post that Luna WILL drink out of the stainless steel bowl IF we hold it up for her - she'll lap it right up. But, over the last few days when I SLOWLY tried to lower it down to the floor, she'd stop drinking at some point a few inches from the floor. So, I tried to elevate the bowl by putting it on one of my kid's very low step stools. Didn't work. I also forgot to mention that she will still EAT out of an identical bowl 

So, I took Oakley's dad's advice & kept trying even more vessels. Didn't seem to work. I then took Starfire5's advice & added apple juice (unsweetened) into the metal bowl. Didn't work. Then I combined the two pieces of advice & poured the juice-water into a tupperware bowl & voila!! She lapped it up! I guess it looks like her new water bowl is plastic tupperware. I'm not thrilled about using plastic, but it's better than being dehydrated (poor Cobey; I hope she didn't pass away due to dehydration complications).

LibertyME, we were thinking very similarly. I was planning on mixing some peanut butter INTO her water to see if that would work (yuck, but dogs aren't people), but tried the apple juice first. Grimace 86, I will try your approach eventually to see if I can get her back to stainless steel. For now, though, I was desperate as she is going to spend time at her breeder's house and I did NOT want her to get dehydrated!

Thank you all!


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

My old border collie would rarely drink out of a bowl. We had no idea why and were worried he wasn't drinking enough. If it was a choice between a bowl and a puddle, he'd choose the puddle. We started bowling water for him then letting it cool so it got rid of all the metallic tastes/smells and only filled up his bowl with already-boiled water from the kettle. Eventually we found a real shallow bowl - almost like a pan - (like people get for cats/dogs with smushed in faces like persians and pugs) and he'd drink happily from that. It was very weird, needless to say.


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## petlove (Apr 29, 2010)

Interesting, Ranger! I've been filling up Luna's bowls to the very top, thinking she wouldn't have to bend down so much. Maybe I need to just fill them with a small amount of water instead. 

She now is drinking out of the tupperware but is starting to seem a bit wary of those as the day progresses. WEIRD! Next I'll try boiling water like Ranger said. This is getting closer & closer to raising kids the further I get into it.....


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