Zeus loves to eat! I mean he LOVES to eat!! I realize that all dogs love to eat, but I've never seen a dog do what Zeus does.
When I first got Zeus, Steve (who has had a Great Dane for 11 years before I met him) told me that he should be trained to sit and wait for me to put his food bowl in front of him. Why? So that when Zeus is older and B-I-G-G-E-R, he won't knock me over to get to his food bowl. I didn't see it as being that big of a deal, but I trained him anyhow to honor Steve's request. Looking back on things, I'm so glad I did!
We keep Zeus' food in a sealed container in the basement so he can't get to it at his leasure. When I go to the basement, he starts getting excited and wimpers whether I'm going down with the intention of getting his food or just to do laundry. If he sees me carry his empty bowl down the basement stairs, he paces back and forth at the top of the landing just watching me. One time, I sent my daughter to get his food and when she came to the top of the stairs with his bowl, he was so excited he stuck his nose in the bowl and he ended up knocking the bowl out of her hand and the food spilled out all over the stairs. I was so proud of her for not getting angry. We calmly cleaned up the food together while Zeus laid down watching us... waiting to be fed. So now, when we get to the top of the stairs, we hold the bowl behind our backs so he can't get too close to it. This makes him back away from the stairs and he immediately goes over to his food stand and waits for us. When I take his food bowl towards his food stand (large dogs typically have their food bowls elevated so they don't have to bend down too far to get to their food and water), I stand in front of him and give him the hand command for 'sit'. He quickly sits and then I put the food bowl in the stand. Sometimes he is so ready for his food, he sits before I even give him the command. Then he watches me so closely... and stares at me. We look at each other eye-to-eye... and he will NOT move out of his sitting position until I give him a hand gesture that says he can go to his food bowl while at the same time I nod my head. In these few seconds that he's waiting for the 'ok' he drools! Literally drools. It's so strangely adorable to see. Usually his drool will just come out of one side of his mouth. This morning it came out of both sides of his mouth. It was so cute yet there's a part of me that feels sorry for him to know that he's so hungry and so anxious to eat every morsel of his food. And he DOES eat every morsel of food at every meal.
I just had to share this - it just tickles me to watch him drool for his food. If only I could get my kids to be as anxious about eating vegetables :)
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