eating neighbour's dogfood

I need a good way to stop my dog from trying to eat the other dog's food in the yard. (I live in a basement suite, outside dog belongs to the folks upstairs. and forget about asking them to take the food away and feed only at meal time, that's not an option)

The food is total crap (first ingredient is corn...) but he figures it's a great treat and every time I put him out, Ky'll try to sneak up and snitch some food from the bowl. I can't take the food away 'cause I've done that lots and I always seem to forget about putting it back. That pisses off the people upstairs.

Ky is only out there for maybe 10 minutes at a time to play with the outside dog, with me supervising, but if I let myself daydream for a moment, he's got his head in that darn bowl.

All I've been doing up to this point is warning him off when he gets too close, but still means I have to watch him carefully, since he won't warn himself off :rolleyes:

I take him inside once I notice him chowing down, but since he's not outside much, he doesn't consider that much of a deterent.

I'm thinking of going out before I've fed him so he's hungry and and soon as he tries, I'll use some sort of deterent. Any ideas on that?

Spraying water won't work. I've never used a shaker can so I don't know if he'd be scared of one. And I can't actually do anything to the food bowl itself (or the doghouse it's in) since it's not mine.

And keeping him full won't work either since he has a bottomless stomach and is always hungry.

We had the same problem when a dog was visiting here temporarily. Although it was quite bad because my dog is allergic to most foods and ended up biting her foot pads off with the itching and at first we didn't know why. Anyway the only solution for us was to either watch her, keep her inside, or tie her on so she couldn't reach it. I have my doubts about a deterrent working unless you can somehow do it without the dog knowing you're watching.

I think you are just going to have to keep your dog out of reach of the other dog's food. I expect most of your time outside will be spent with your dog doing his best to reach said food - few dogs would pass up the opportunity - mine sure wouldn't. Plan B would be to walk your dog somewhere else.