Dog is spooked while eating, gobbles food, dances, pacing

Hi,

My dog has been acting very unusuall while eating recently. She appears to be afraid of her dish, for as she eats she seems very disturbed. She gobbles her food quickly, keeping as far away from her bowl as possible. Occasionally she will back up from her dish very quickly proceed to do something simelar to dancing on the spot. After she finishes eating she runs from the kitchen and dances her feet all around. My father noticed this behavior yesterday, and then I noticed the same thing today. It happens every time she has eaten for roughly 3 days. She appeared to be constipated a couple of days ago, but that problem seems to be gone. I also cut her hair (she is a lasa-poo, lots of mats and rank smells), and she has been acting a little strange since that. Could the haircut have something to do with this? It has never caused this behaviour before. Mollie is almost 10 years old.

Any help is very appriciated,
I am afraid the dog has come completely mad.

I'd say try feeding her in something different and see how she reacts.:shrug:

Maybe it's her way of exercising...she's dancing off the calories :D
sorry....i had nothing constructive to say....

Maybe it's her food? What was 'rank' her fur? her skin? How matted was she? I don't think it had anything to do with her new haircut, unless you cut too close (maybe snipped her skin) around her lips and it hurts to eat? :shrug:

We had a dog that accidently knocked his bowl of food out of my hand one night while I was putting it down for him. Bowl went flying...food rolled all over...spectacular noise when the bowl hit the floor. After that, the dog was scared of the bowl. As I recall, we just used a different bowl (plastic this time, not metal) and he went back to eating fine.

Was Mollie by any chance in the room recently when her bowl dropped? Or did it get moved while she was eating? Even the bowl sliding across the floor when the dog is licking it out can be enough to put a dog out of sorts...

Dog tags banging in the dish can also spook some dogs, it could also be something in the vicinity of her bowl that is bother her, anything new in the kitchen, possibly even a coat hanging off a chair that was not there a few days ago, at 10 her vision may be starting to go, so some things may appear like shadows to her and therefore wil be scary since she does not know what it is.

It may be time for a vet check to take a look at her eyes to see if she is getting cataracts( an older dog that slowly loses there vision can still function quite normally as long as furniture and items around the house and yard stay in one place, also have the vet check her skin, it is possible with age she may have hypothyroidism(a blood test is needed to confirm which is causing seborrea) which can be quite odorous and the skin is greasy, a good idea is to get her shaved dematted and bathed as well. Mats can be quite painful if they get too big.