picky bitch

wombat has gotten picky in her "old" age (4). since christmas she hasn't just wolfed down her food like she always has (we just assumed that because she got so much people food and meat while we were away over christmas she had come to expect it and plain dog food just wasn't good enough any more). she also got picky about just dog food and rice (we often give her plain rice and occasionally bits of our left overs in her meals). the past couple weeks we've had to get really excited about her food to make her eat. sometimes she wants us to sit there and just hand it too her. she also wouldn't eat in the kitchen unless we were there with her (it wasn't even ok if we were just sitting in the lounge room and she knew weren't going anywhere). we thought maybe she was over her veganpet dog food so we bought her some regular dog food. she still didn't care for it (unless we handed each piece to her). we bought canned food. she liked that. (she also likes a "satay" sauce of peanut butter and warm water mixed but it's probably not really healthy to have peanut butter that much-- she already gets a little in her kong most days). she started refusing to eat out of her bowl. she'd eat from my hand, on the floor (which worked out well the night i spilled a 5L tub filled with dry food all over the kitchen) and off our plates:

(i wish i didn't have the flash setting too high on the above photo-- it was still set from the last time i used it, during a wedding reception the week before)

we had her bowl on the lounge room floor. she ate a couple pieces, then stopped. i hand fed her a bit but i got bored (it takes a long time to feed a large dog her entire meal one piece at a time). i put a bit on the floor but that kinda makes a wet mess. i poured it from her bowl to a plate and she ate (she did this on 2 separate occasions!). why won't she eat from her bowl???? (i have tried soaking and cleaning her bowl in case there was some weird smell or something that was throwing her off. it didn't work.)