Puppy freaks out at mealtime

My puppy freaks out when he sees another dog while out walking - like wake the neighbourhood stuff.  And the owner of the other dog thinks my Scooby must be a ferocious beast, in actual fact he just wants to meet the other puppy, after he says hi he's good.

Anyway my puppy school guy said carry a water pistol.  Works a treat.

In the dog park last night a lady was with two black labs, seeing eye/guide dogs.  their playtime.  One had a colour with a spray attached.  She had a remote control because the dog eats poop, so unsuspecting she gets a spray on her neck from the remote - awesome!

I had a friend with a Rottweiler like that.  Went absolutely bonkers at dinnertime.

Do you currently feed once a day?  Have you tried switching to 2x a day?

The guides on the back of the bags of food are just guides.  They don't really take into account energy, etc.  Kinda like the dose of medications (ibuprofen, Tylenol) for people is based on someone about 120lbs-ish. 

How old is your puppy?  Are you feeding a growth/development formula?  What is his 'body condition' like?  Can you see his individual ribs?  Feel them?  If you can see them, he likely needs more food, but you should be able to feel them relatively easily.  You could also feed him more meals per day (if he is in good condition, not necessarily increase the amount of food, but just divide it into more meals).

I would try and nip the behaviour in the bud.  As someone else mentioned, he needs to be calm before he is fed.  It may take some serious patience on your part to 'de-train' this, but you don't want it to continue.

This ΛΛΛΛ.  I work/volunteer with lab puppies that go on to become service dogs. At 4- 8+ months they are very excitable, especially at meal time. We put them in sit/stay for at least 15-30 secs before letting them eat. We only, however, use verbal commands once...then hold them if necessary.  With a puppy it takes lots of consistency. Also, you can put a hard toy/ball (kong type) in their bowl to slow down the eating. 

Yes, 2 x a day. I was feeding 3 times when he was a tiny puppy but vet said to go to 2 to help with house training.

Ok - he is almost 6 months old. We do what you all described with the sit, stay and wait. He manages that really well. We can set the bowl right in front of him and he sits there with his bottom end shaking looking at me like when, when, when. It is during the time I am preparing the food that he has the freak out. Today I just left him in his kennel and he looked like he might have a total meltdown, shaking from head to toe and crying.

I know labs are very food driven but he is extreme. We can't even have him in the house anymore because he just runs around with his nose on the ground looking for crumbs the kids have dropped, or he howls/cries/barks/makes any ear piercing sound that a dog can make while we are eating.  Then he is constantly after the cat food in the garage. We put it up high, he can now leap and climb. Finally I locked it in a smaller kennel and I only open that kennel if he is out and the cats are in.

We like to take him to visit at my in-laws. They have 2 dogs and when he get there he bolts out the van running straight to their food bowls to gobble up everything he can before I'm even out of the van. Next time we go I am going to have him on leash in the van so I can try to teach him no to their food.

My husband likes to grill. He left the chicken on the side of the grill the other night while he came inside to grab something. He came back out - chicken was gone . That was kinda funny actually.

I wonder how much he would eat, if he would ever be satisfied or like I said, maybe he just needs more food!

I freak out at meal time also so I think its normal. 

I have had 4 lab puppys and they acted very similar. They see it as a positive reward for acting crazy. If your puppy acts crazy and then gets fed, well why not act crazy when I'm hungry because I get rewarded.

What I did was instead of 2 cups in the morning and 2 cups later in the afternoon (this is for an ault lab 85 lbs, just for an example) fed the dog three times a day so they wasn't such a long gap between meals. The dog used to get fed at 6am and then not again until around 4pm but now we feed her a mid day meal thats just 1 cup and now she doesn't act like a freak at dinner time.

 I like this idea. Right now he eats so fast he gags it back up.

Thanks for the tips everyone. As far as feeding him more often or putting food out all day - our vet says no. He recommended 2 feedings a day because we had a hard time house breaking AND my last lab was way overweight.

Tonight I put him on the leash while my husband got the food ready. When he started getting anxious I made him work - sit, stay, heel etc. before he could eat anything. That worked much better but I still like the kong idea to slow him down once he gets started!

I saw this and thought of your post. How cute is this? Fell asleep in its food dish.

I love it! That is too cute .

The vet warned us when we first brought our puppy home that he may be upset and not eat much for the first few days. Ummm, not a chance. He licked his bowl clean at the very first feeding!