I have a three year old Jack Russell, West Highland (Westie) mix. Ever since he was 6 months old he began staring at his food and whining at it. He generally pushes at the dry food with his nose, not to move it, but to push it into the ground or something. He pushes it, whines, pushes it then whines, etc. He will not eat out of a bowl, I have to put his food on the ground for him to even think about eating it. He also tries to cover his food with whatever is near by to use his nose to push it over his food, but I'm not certain that that is even related to the problem. Why is my dog scared of his food? It doesn't matter if we are near him or not, he just has problems. It isn't a problem with the food, because he does it to every brand. He will usually eat much better when we hand feed him, but he still even starts that by trying to push it into our hands with his nose. Weird little freak.