Pets Month '08: Tips to Keep the ants out of your dog's food!

If you keep your dog outside (becuase your parents are dead set on never letting you bring it inside at all) and you've been faced with the ant-eating-my-dog's-food problem then here are some suggestions for keeping those pesky critters out, and your dog happy!

I own a Jindokae (i'm not sure how to spell it). She's a Korean dog and is a mighty great guard-dog. She barks at every suspicious character she sees.

If you like this instructable, please rate and vote for it! thanks.
<3 alvincredible.

Step 1: Using water to be rid of ants

Requires:
1. A bowl
2. A bowl of larger size.

How to do it:
This one's easy and quite obvious. you can fill the bottom bowl with water, probably not too much so that the inner bowl can touch the bottom, then put the smaller bowl inside.

Fill the bowl with water! This keeps ants out because ants can't swim and carry food at the same time.

Comments

[suayres]

Another effective ant deterrent is oil of pennyroyal. If you paint it on the door- and window-sills, they won't cross it. I don't know if it messes with their sense of smell or what, but it does work. It smells like strong peppermint, so I'm not sure how a dog would react to it, if you were to paint a ring of it around food bowls. Oh, and you can buy it online.

[georion]

Hi ! i use 2 bowls--one for the food --the second bowl has water with a few drops dishwashing liquid---- need a 'heavy bowl for the food--center food bowl in the other bowl---Viola !!!! ant proof food bowl !!!!

[grundisimo]

there is a problem on this step. the ants can still climb down the ropes into the bowl.

[jasonrogers]

cayenne pepper also works. It's probably not the best way but it is fun to watch. Once you find the ant beds surround it with the pepper. They won't go anywhere near it.

[Dr.Paj]

Electrocute them! I can't remember where, but I have seen plans to keep ants off of picnic blankets with two lines of charged metal (aluminum) and when an ant steps on both of them it connected the circuit and zapped them. Just an idea that I remember from somewhere (can't recall where though). It looked a little like this (drew this up in 2 min on paint, I don't know what voltage it would take to kill them)

[jeffconnelly]

Kind of like a bug zapper.

[Donna M]

This is great! All 4 of my dogs eat inside but I have a cat that prefers to eat outside, and his bowl is ALWAYS full of ants since cats don't tend to lick a bowl clean like a dog will. I will try this, I hate to try to get those ants out before I bring in his bowls to clean them.

[Cheesecake]

if you don't destroy the entire colony of ants--usually you don't, there are just too many--make sure to clean where they were coming from with hot soapy water. ants can follow their own scent, so if you wash away their trail, they'll have to find you all over again...and this time, you'll be ready. ;)

[Sunny124613]

oh,once when i was in Kindergarten,a whole trail of ants cam rite under the door,my mom took some chalk(regular kind) and told us to draw a big oval around ANY of the ants,the ants did not like it one bit and sorta followed the way they came in to get out.Then I used the soap method to make them STAY OUT, right under the door and right where you would walk in, I drew with a line of the thick kind of soap and our ant problems were all gone... but then there were mosquitoes....

[shop dweller]

Good ideas

[cooltoni]

good instructible. great idea to keep the ants out. inside on counters I have used a line of liquid dish soap to keep ants off the dishes that I had not washed yet. That works but it's better to just wash the dishes haha. Your dog looks like a Japanese dog called a Shiba Inu, I don't have one but apparently they are very strong willed and hard to train.

[skimboarder33]

i know how you feel. one time i went into a room that i was going to sleep in and my floor and bed was literaly moving as one with disgusting looking ants. i used so much spray that the following year i could still smell the insectiside. bla!

[mcdonn123]

The ants don't like to cross the soap line because they float on the surface and are stuck there for awhile (also good if you need to collect ants for an ant farm). Also when you make a line of chalk ants will soon pass over it, especially if they are trying to get to food.

[rimar2000]

Good job, thanks. At home there are ants, but are pacific. We (my wife, I and the ants) sign an armistice and we live together without mutual aggressions.

[alvincredible]

haha! You are quite lucky. There are times when i'd fix myself breakfast in the mornings before school only to find the countertop black with ants(now we have granite countertops so the ants are much more camoflauged). It was absolutely disgusting...it made me not want to eat ahah! We hired terminators several times but they failed. But i don't know, i think they're gone becuase we haven't had an invasion in quite a while! it may just be that it's the winter and fall seasons...but still... thanks for the input!

[xenobiologista]

You must not live in the tropics =)

[mondaymonkey]

When I lived in the Caribbean we used to have Fire Ants.  Horrific little guys.  You had to be super careful to kill the colonies early. 

[rimar2000]

I realize we are very lucky. Ants live at home for years (we bought the house and they are already in the inventory) below the base of the drying of clothes. They are peaceful and not very destructive. Occasionally they rowdy and bit, especially after rains, but seldom in the year. Then I pour a little poison to quench them for a while. 

[rimar2000]

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The ants here are not a problem, as they are more toward the north. Only occasionally they invade the houses or the food. They are dedicated to their matters.

[foxrosiebenny]

Hey, nice ideas, I have tried the water around the bowl trick, and it works great for ants, however, here in the south, there are lots of other critters that can fly and still get into the food. But avoiding ants is a BIG plus. Just wondering where you got your dog. Did you specifically look for that breed? My dog looks incredibly like yours, and I found him at a shelter 6 years ago. The shelter said he was a "shepherd mix" -NOT! Just curious.

[alvincredible]

Hello! Yes i know what you mean...sometimes other bugs get in. This is a good point, so now i'll try to think of something to combat this! Thanks for the idea! anyway, my parents got the dog (my dad's obsessed with korean jindokae's and whatnot so naturally, he got one)from a friend who had one that had puppies. i've actually seen a lot of dogs that look like mine, but aren't the same breed! oh genetics, how i will never understand thee...

[xenobiologista]

You can also take a bar of soap and draw a circle on the ground around the dog bowl. The ants don't like to walk on the soap...go over it a few times so it's thick.

[GorillazMiko]

Nice job! Unfortunately... my puppy passed away when I was in 7th grade. (In 8th grade now). But, this is a good Instructable. Usually we ants never got in, but if we did, this could have helped! Nice job, if I ever get a dog again, I will need to do this.

[laurita501]

Aww your dog is so cute!! ^. I wanted to share a storage solution we've used for years: plastic, handled cat litter tubs keep our dogs' food fresh and are easy to store in the corner of the sun room of our house. Ironically, we have never had a cat - we're all allergic!

[Goodhart]

I thought you might like to know Jindo Kae

[Goodhart]

BTW, very nice. I can offer this as it worked for me: Roach Pruf is not JUST for roaches. Any insect with an exoskeleton that is in the least bit sociable among its own members; this will work on. All it is, is Boric acid in a fine powder. Boric acid is so mild it is used as an EYE wash. It is non-toxic to mammals. What happens though, is that the roaches (or ants in this case) either carry it back to the nest in their mouths or just by walking through it, electrostatically. Being social animals it spreads among them and slowly dissolves their exoskeleton.

[tradergordo]

The "moat" idea works great, you can also use vegetable oil instead of water, to avoid the problem of the water evaporating, but assuming you need to give you dog water all the time anyway, it shouldn't really be a big deal to keep the "food moat" full. Also, with any sort of "hanging" solution, IF you still have a problem with ants climbing down whatever you are hanging from, you can coat the wire/strings with petroleum jelly - the ants will not walk across petroleum jelly. If you put it on thick it lasts for a long time and can even survive light rain. Eventually enough dust and dirt will stick to it that it will become ineffective though.

[killerjackalope]

i do have to admit that the dog looks quite happy...