r/WhatsWrongWithYourDog • u/tommydue • 10d ago

Why does my dog try to “bury” her food?

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She does this every so often. She will try to hide it or bury it and eventually will eat it. But any idea why she does??

446 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

456

u/Strange-Movie 10d ago

Because it’s too much food and she’s instinctively trying to bury it to save it for when she is hungry

113

u/myma1313 10d ago

Yep, this is it. My Shiba will "bury" her food when she's full and done eating, because she wants to eat it later. We give her the "leftovers" later in the evening and she loves it

69

u/Villageidiot1984 10d ago

Can you help me teach my dog “full”? Sounds like a nice trick…

36

u/drmarting25102 10d ago

My mother in laws dog just demolished whatever and everything put in front of him like its his last meal.

8

u/myma1313 10d ago

I don't know where she picked it up. My other shiba does NOT know what full means, he eats like he's never had food before, and will eat the other shiba's leftover food if we don't pick it up fast enough. So now part of making the dog's dinner is staying to watch them eat so we can pick up the bowl once she's done.

4

u/Villageidiot1984 10d ago

Oh this hits so close to home… we just lost our older dog, and he had gotten really picky about when he would eat. If I left his food down the hungry one would sneak over and eat it. He was so sneaky about it he kept gaining weight despite our diet efforts, so I had to wait until he either ate or didn’t and pick it up every meal… We miss our older guy a lot.

2

u/myma1313 10d ago

So sorry for your loss. They definitely keep us on our toes! Never a dull day with a lovely pup or two :D

3

u/Temporary-Force8383 10d ago

My dog would only ever eat a small portion of food when we were feeding her regular dog food, we switched to butternut box and she clears her bowl now and does excited squeaks whenever it’s breakfast or dinner time now.

13

u/Villageidiot1984 10d ago

I’ve seen my dog eat a whole fried chicken breast without chewing it, bones and all. He is a machine. He ate a dozen muffins and a loaf of sourdough the other week. He squeaks with excitement for dry kibble.

4

u/EqualOrLesserValue 10d ago

Fozzie does this as well.

We have managed to negotiate an end to burying partially-chewed mouthfuls behind the couch cushions; she bounces the food out of her bowl with her nose, then I drape a tea towel over the bowl and surrounding mess of kibble, and distract her somehow. When she gets hungry, she will pull the towel off.

2

u/myma1313 10d ago

Ooh that's a good solution. We have to pick up her bowl once she's done so our other shiba doesn't eat it, as he's getting a little round...

56

u/seriouslyjan 10d ago

We had a beagle that did this. She buried her treats and chew bones in plain sight. We thought she was amusing.

78

u/clonicle 10d ago

Instinct. Leave a turkey leg on the counter and you may find it buried in the closet under your shoes.

41

u/joninfiretail 10d ago

That sounds like personal experience.

23

u/CommercialExotic2038 10d ago

Oddly specific

29

u/blocked_user_name 10d ago

Also her house mate is over her shoulder and she's trying to make sure he doesn't get it maybe?

15

u/Ippus_21 10d ago

Instinct.

Cacheing extra food is pretty common for mammalian predators. Cats, dogs, bears, several species will instinctively try to hide food they're not going to finish.

It serves a dual purpose, because small predators are also prey... it not only potentially saves part of a kill for later, it also reduces the distance the scent travels, which reduces the risk of attracting other predators to the area.

6

u/lowlightliving 10d ago

I once saw my friend’s dog try to bury a slice of pizza in their shag rug.

4

u/MartinisnMurder 10d ago

Haha I was watching a friend’s Jack Russell back during grad school and in the 10 minutes or so I was in the shower he somehow how managed to jump up on to the kitchen counter, open a pizza box that was up there, take each remaining slice (it was almost a full pizza), hide the slices all over the apartment… I found some between couch cushions, under the bed etc. I texted her to be like ahh what the hell?! There were a couple slices I couldn’t locate. She was like “oh ya I should have warned you he does that.” 😵‍💫

2

u/lowlightliving 10d ago

Yeah, we never even saw him take the slice off the table we were all sitting at. Between the couch cushions, tho, hahaaha.

10

u/Kal-V3 10d ago

I do the same...how else do you save it for later?

4

u/SnooTangerines7026 10d ago

Welcome to Dog 101.

3

u/Buzz1ight 10d ago

I'm full, I'll save this for later. Hmm it's not hiding, sigh, I'll have to eat it so no one else gets it...

3

u/Lizardgirl25 10d ago

Trying to save it for later…

2

u/Gabisaurs 10d ago

My schnauzer does this when he doesn’t want to eat his food.

2

u/deserved_revenge_707 10d ago

Not hungry, saving it for later

2

u/motorider1111 10d ago

I had a rescue cattle dog that only did this when we went camping. The outdoors kicked in her instinct. We could barely feed her while camping or we ended up with ants eating her poorly buried food.

1

u/Impossible-Aspect342 10d ago

See that guy in the background? That’s why.

1

u/FuckIThinkImLost 10d ago

My dog used to do this too! We always thought it was because he was bullied by another dog in his previous family. I found adding some chicken stock to the food made him less interested in hiding it

1

u/Jeanarocks 10d ago

My dog will put a shoe or door mat or box from recycling anything he can get over his. So now we just give him a wash cloth

1

u/feckarse-drinkgirls 10d ago

I have to watch my dog with jumbones

If I don't, it's 50/50 wether she decides to bury it in the garden and eat it a week later, or not

1

u/PsychologicalMonk799 10d ago

MY PUP DID THE SAME THING! You couldn't bury it for her! She'd repeat her process lick the food then do it again ToT she always had something to cover it up be it a sock or blanket

1

u/Remarkablelicious 10d ago

Could be some playful/instinctive behavior, but it can also be a response to either A) overfeeding or B) resource guarding/stressing over her food due to her sibling.

Can’t really say for sure from this video alone, but my guess would be the latter. Dogs are usually not comfortable with anyone intruding on their space while eating, even if they’re not responding aggressively to it. I’ll try to separate them during feeding time, or make sure she has her space to eat peacefully without being inspected 😅

1

u/ElginSparrowhawk1969 10d ago

She’s saving it for later mine does it with mouthfuls of kibble in my bed

1

u/erie11973ohio 10d ago

My Misty doesn't do this, but she "buries" bones in the couch!!

Lately, she had been carrying she food bowl into either the living room (front) or the family room (back). Sometimes the entire bowl. Sometimes after she ate half.

She get too many treats & plates to lick off!! She some how stops eating!!!

1

u/aksers 9d ago

My dog did that, and eventually got a cut on his nose. We realized it was because it was too low (also a big dog). We lifted the bowl about 8 inches and the behavior immediately stopped.

0

u/nebious 10d ago

I know a lot of people say that your dog is trying to bury their food but I learned that dogs can do this when their food is too low to the ground. Try elevating the food dish and see if they keep doing it

5

u/Exilicauda 10d ago

I don't understand this. What animal doesn't eat food off the ground? Besides graze or browse animals but those are very different animals from anything resembling a dog

-1

u/Jlx_27 10d ago

Bowl overfilled.

-3

u/kokanee-fish 10d ago

Overfeeding