Can dogs put 2 and 2 together? Eating question.

Let me start from the beggining and sorry for the long post.
Before we went on holiday to Ireland a month ago,I thought calming tablets would do Debo good. So got some from the vet. Debo is not a big fun of medicine so had to crash it and mix it with his food. He didn't want to eat it. Since then he was always funny about his food,never finished it. We put it down to stress he had on ferry ( had to leave him in the car for 4h ), new people,new place,raw meat my OH dad's offer him . So we put finally put it down to his food-he doesn't like it. Bought a small pack of new brand ,start mixing it with old. Same story,morning tiny bit,evening all( but by that time he's proper hungry). But if we use the old food as a treat he will eat it. Today funny thing happend. He didn't finished his evening meal so I was about put the bowl away when I spelt some on the floor and said to Debo to have a go. He ate all from the floor,so I put some more-ate it again. Took out different bowl and put the rest food from old bowl in it. He ate it all . So,my question is, can he really link that old bowl with the tablets I gave him a month ago and that's what putting him off?
Tomorrow I will give him his old food in new bowl and see what happens.

He may be associating the bowl with the taste of the tablets, yes try another bowl and see how it goes.

That would be great,cus it would mean that I don't have to change from f4ds

Depending on how it affected the dog the first time, associations can be formed very quickly. So, yes, I agree with Kathy - it sounds like he's formed a negative association with that food bowl!

Anything to make things difficult for his owner!

Some times I feel like he's smarter then me .

Yep they can. Lexi ran into a wall once and ever since that she doesn't run into walls anymore.

Could very well be the bowl

Could be. It's like if they get scared of something while in their cage, they might eventually develop a fear of going into the cage. Cool that you found out though, worth a try and hope it goes well

Hayley wrote:Yep they can. Lexi ran into a wall once and ever since that she doesn't run into walls anymore.

Wow Lexi must be smart Steff runs into walls constantly, she never stops in time

So,nope ,is not the bowl,he's just not very hungry in the morning.Goodbye f4ds.
I was really hopping it was the bowl:
a) I would be so clever to found out this
b) we could stay with f4ds