I went into my kitchen late last night, and noticed that my dog, as usual, has not finished eating his dinner from last night. He does this - he’s a grazer. He eats half of his dinner in the evening, and saves the rest for the following mid-morning.
But when I went to throw a piece of cheese on top of the bowl as a treat for him, I noticed that his bowl and the placemat under it were crawling with tiny ants! They were also crawling all around the edges of his water dish.
I pulled everything up, got rid of the food and and cleaned up the dishes and cleaned the placemat. Then I vacuumed the ants (and my entire kitchen) and found that they seemed to be coming in from the service hallway (where the trash cans are) so I went out, took the trash to the incinerator, vacuumed out there, and then cleaned the trash cans, floors and placemat with a strong solution of a disinfecting cleaner.
I put the clean placemat down on the clean floor, and refilled his water dish and put it down. I knew that he needed to have half a bowl of food but I didn’t want to take any chances. Sure enough, a few hours later, the ants were back, and this time a few dead ones were floating in his water dish. Yuck! Oddly enough, this time, there’s no trail, and I can’t see where these ants are coming from.
I’m in a quandry. The dog has to have his food and water, but I don’t know how to get rid of these ants. I don’t want to move the bowls into another room for fear that the ants will just follow.
Obviously, poisons are out of the question. I also don’t want to put down anything non-poisonous that could still harm the dog if he gets his curious little nose or mouth too close.
Why not try putting poison at the entry ways? That is probably where the ants are coming in. If you do that, they won’t make it far enough to find the food. However, if you don’t see a trail, is it possible they are in your house somewhere?
You could also try leaving the food and water up for a few hours and then put back the water only. Then put the food down at dinner time. Maybe they won’t find it.
A combination of the poison and the above would probably be best. Of course, poison near the water and food dishes are out of the question.
There are food dishes for dogs specifically made to keep out crawling insects ( for people who feed their pets outside) that have a bowl-within-a-bowl kind of design. The idea is you fill up the “outer ring” of the bowl with water, then the food is in an inner circle in the bowl, so that the food is surrounded by a type of moat, for lack of a better description. The ants can climb up the side but can’t get past the moat to the food. You can get these at most any pet store, I think. I have seen them around quite a few times.
Otherwise you could make one yourself just by putting his dish in a larger bowl of water, as long as his dish doesn’t float around, he might make a mess.
Talcum powder is something that ants won’t cross, and is non-toxic. After all, it’s used as a base in baby powder and flea powders. Might be a bit of a mess, though. One reference suggests drawing a chalk circle around the dogs dish, which would be less messy, and about the same theory - the talc is, IIRC, a physical barrier that the ants don’t like to cross because it sticks to them.
Are you sure pharoah ants are wood borers? I associate that more with carpenter ants, which are huge black ants. They don’t actually eat wood, like termites, but they excavate it to make nests.
I think I’ll try the talcum powder, and the bowl in a bowl thing. I’m not bringing in poisons, even the entryways, and it won’t hurt Spunky if he gets too curious.
As for wood boring ants, I don’t that they’ll get too far around here. Except for the cabinets, that is, and there’s no evidence that they’re in there. I live in a concrete and steel hi-rise.
I have unsuccessfully used these bowls before. The ants linked themselves together to form an “ant bridge” over the moat and into the food and water. Also, the dog would drink the water from the moat instead of the water in the bowl. Go figure. :rolleyes:
Now that you mention it pharaoh ants may not be wood borers, sorry. Through the years I have worked at several major pest control companies and I have found them to be the most persistent ant to get rid of. The method I described work for me. Baits work well too. The majority of home pesticides are much safer than most people realize. If it weren’t for epa registration we’d be able to use a pesticide with the active ingredient of citric acid. Which reminds me, my grandmother would use ground orange peels around window sills for an ant repellent.
BTW I would use my method around my two-year old. Worst case scenario is he gets a taste of soap.
Get a tray or large plate. Sprinkle a good helping of cinnamon on the tray and then put the dish with the food in it on top. No more ants. I don’t know why this works but it does.
Tlw, is your main problem that the dog food is attracting ants into your house? Or are you freaking out at the thought of your dog ingesting a few ants mixed in with his food or water? Does the dog have a problem with the ants? If not, continue trying to get rid of them, but don’t come down with a case of canio-vicarious hypochondria.*
I had the same problem with pharoah ants (they aren’t wood borers, BTW). I used a product called “ANT-KIL”, which is essentially a sticky solution of clear syrup with boric acid. Put some drops along the trail. They’ll lap up the drops, head back to the colony, and die. Other ants will eat the dead ants, and they’ll die, too. In a couple of weeks, the queen will get killed off, and at that point the colony is pretty much gone. I haven’t had an ant in my house in six months … and I live in FLORIDA.
Regular spray poisons will wither split the colony in two (making things worse) or just cause the queen to make more babies to replace the dead critters. Use a bait, and be patient.
Cinnamon. If your dog doesn’t lick it up that is. Put a ring of cinnamon around the food dish. It’s scent is so strong that it messes with the ant’s pheromones and they wont cross a line of the stuff.
Check the dogs food container as well. I buy 40 lb bags. I started noticing these flies around. Not a house fly. I saw one then two or three, then it was like a very bad movie. So I am freaking out trying to find out where they are coming from. I saw one near the bag of dog food, unrolled it and you wouldn’t believe how many flies were in there. I had just bought the bag a few hours before so I called the pet store, thinking they wouldn’ believe me. They were not shocked. I returned the food for another bag and yep…they were in there as well. UGH!!! So, I changed pet stores and dog food. Maybe this stuff sits on the shelf too long but I was very concerned about the dogs possibly ingesting fly eggs. I sometimes over react when it come to my dogs. Sorry…TMI, I know. Check the place where you store the food.
Both. I don’t want bugs in my house, and I don’t want my dog to have to deal with them when all he’s trying to do is eat and drink.
Yes, the dog won’t go near his food or water with the ants crawling around. And he won’t drink water that’s been befouled, so if there’s an ant in his bowl, he goes without hydration. I’m not sure why it would be hypochondria to not want that for him, or to want a home free of insects, especially in the kitchen where I also prepare the food that my husband and I eat, and bathe my baby. I want my home to be clean; insects tend to run counter to that.
Done. His food is stored in a sealed Rubbermaid-style bin on top of the refrigerator. The ants aren’t coming from in there. They aren’t showing up until a bowl has been on the floor for a while.
I went through the vacuuming and cleaning routine again, and put a good amount of talc at the threshhold between the kitchen and the service hall, and around the dog’s placemat. My husband just fed him about a half-hour ago. I’ll be going in the check on new ant developments shortly.
I keep my cat’s food in a shallow cookie sheet of SOAPY water. The soap ( I think ) breaks the surface tension of the water so the ants sink, can’t form the ant bridge. At any rate, it keeps the ants out of the food. Good luck.
I’m telling you, tlw, the cinnamon works. I had the exact same problem with those tiny ants and once I did the cinnamon thing, ants no more. Try it. It’s a lot better than putting poison around your house considering you have a dog who might eat it himself.
I don’t think it has anything to do with being clean or having an ant infestation. I have four food dishes for my cats and the ants only go in ONE of them. But I haven’t seen a one since I started with the cinnamon 2 weeks ago.