Food Refusal for a Food Shark

From the time he was very, small, Novel has been known as quite the food shark. Needless to say, he does NOT generally take food gently. He is capable of it if you insist, but if you do not insist, the food shark becomes more and more "Jaws"-like in his eating habits, putting food-bearing digits in grave danger.

Novel's food fetish only increases during meal times. As he sits politely waiting for his food two times each day, huge streams of drool descend from his lips and rest in ever increasing puddles on the linoleum on either side of him. When Novel was young, I quickly discovered that I needed a larger bowl so that the kibble would spread out across the bottom, thus making it impossible for him to try to swallow too much with one scoop of his mouth. Thankfully, as he got older, he seemed to realize that slowing down with his meals ever so slightly does not automatically result in their removal.

Anyway, all this to say that teaching Novel food refusal - that is, teaching him to resist the urge to eat anything and everything he sees - has been just a bit of a challenge. However, Novel has recently had some very successful encounters with this particular challenge, and so I have to brag just a little.

The first example occurred in Anatomy and Physiology class. Just before my professor began his lecture, I dropped a piece of kibble. It just rolled over the edge of my desk and hopped to the floor right in front of Novel's nose. It stopped only about 2 feet from my foot, but because of the way the horrid, uncomfortable desks are designed and set up in rows, I could not reach it for the life of me, either by leaning over and reaching my with my hand, or by twisting and stretching my foot in an attempt to pull it a little closer. By this time, my professor was already talking, so getting up and walking all the way around to the next row to pick up a piece of dog food wasn't exactly an option. Novel, on the other hand, who was doing an "under" beneath my desk, could have reached it with perfect ease. He did, in fact scoot himself forward to smell it. Now, I would be exaggerating here if I said he chose to leave it on his own. When I saw him scooting forward, I gave a small leash correction and told him "don't." He promptly laid his head on his paws and fell asleep for the rest of the class. And I was thrilled.

Another example happened the other day at breakfast. As I began to set his bowl full of food down in front of him, I somehow dropped it, and food went flying everywhere, the metal bowl clattering to the ground with quite a commotion. Surprised by the crash, and upon being pelted with so many Kibble-missiles, Novel broke his sit and jumped to his feet. Before I could respond with a "no" or "don't," Novel checked himself and looking bewilderingly at the food surrounding him, he sat back down. I am quite sure that the angels in heaven rejoiced with me in heavenly song at that moment. After cleaning up the mess by simply scooping the food on the floor back into his bowl, Novel enjoyed his meal without further incident.