We adopted a stray dog (who we named Cricket) a few months ago. I do not know anything about her history except: (1) given her condition, it is believed she was on the streets for a long time and (2) she gave birth to a litter of puppies the day after she was picked up by animal control. Cricket has adjusted beautifully to our home, with one exception. Her eating habits are erratic. She will go days without eating and cover her food. This behavior seems to come and go in waves. She received a clean bill of health from the vet, so it appears her problem is behavioral. She is sweet, happy, playful and energetic, but I still worry about her eating habits. I was hoping that one of you dog lovers might be familiar with this problem and have some ideas on how to resolve it. Thanks.

Her erratic eating is probably the result of having been on her own for a long time, and she's not used to eating every day. Which is sort of how most feral dogs eat. They hunt, they make a kill, they eat, then cover the carcass, they go back to it every day or two until it's consumed. Then the process starts again, and it can be several days until they make another kill.

If you want to get her on a regular schedule, put her food down, and if she doesn't eat it in 10 minutes, pick it up and put it away until the next meal time. It usually doesn't take too long before they figure out "If you snooze, you lose" and start eating when food is provided.