I have just taken on a re-homed 5 year old bitch, she is not yet spayed but is having the op next week. She is a brilliant dog, very affectionate and pretty well behaved but is absolutely obsessed with food. I was told before I took her about the obsession, but she will steal anything and everything, and when I feed her it is gone in seconds and she doesn't chew it, just swallows it whole despite the fact that it is large kibble for giant breeds. She is fed twice a day. She is also pretty obsessive about her drinking water and keeps on at the bowl until it is empty.
Should I keep topping up her water bowl or try to limit her a bit? At 5 years old she is probably set in her ways, but does anyone have any ideas on how to slow her down a bit at food time, and what to do about the obsession. I also have a castrated male of the same breed and  she will growl at him if she sees him feeding (I separate them at meal time) and last night growled at OH because he had a sandwich.
She has had a full check up at the vet today and is fine healthwise.
If I can't cure this food thing I can live with it but it would be good to have her slightly less frantic over food. I know little of her history by the way, but apart from this she is an absolute sweetheart.

is it likely she was starved at sometime in her life? extreme starvation for extended periods is the only reason I can think of, if this is it then hopefully it will reduce in time as she settles down to her new life.
What is her weight like? I was wondering if it would be possible to leave some kind of food always available for a while so she learns that it is always accessible, I have labs however and if I tried that they would be obese in a week! hope someone has a more useful idea for you.

as a practical solution I would suggest scattering her kibble out on the floor, or out on the lawn to slow her down. 
for water you might try a road refresher water bowl, I have one in the house to stop the water spill from over enthusiastic drinkers and it would probably help slow her down as they can only get a mouthful at time.

good luck, hope she improves!

EDIT: just thinking, I would make sure there is no competition when she is eating, completely out of sight and sound of your other dog and without you there too, i'd scatter her food down and leave the room, or at least walk right away and totally ignore her whilst she's eating. if she feels there is any chance someone else might try to take it she'll be more likely to gulp.

I feel that agilabs has a very valid point.  If dogs have been in a situation where they don't know when/if they will be fed, they will gulp food down before it is taken from them. Natural instinct.  So I feel that you are going to need heaps of patience, as it isn't going to be resolved quickly. 

Can you imagine though, if water bowls have been empty for lengthy periods, a dog would be eager to get as much down them as possible.  It does sound as if you'll never know the likely truth, but it is natural to assume that her habits have been dictated by whatever she has gone through.  Poor girl, can you imagine any of us withholding water in this weather?  My Beardie has a perforated mouth :-) and the water trails in the kitchen lately have been much in evidence!

I agree that scattering food is about the only likely way to slow her down, but she needs to have the fear taken away that someone can pinch her grub.

Is she fed on Royal Canin? When I tried that I found my dogs were constantly hungry so if fed normal amounts  they were starving, if fed extra they put on lots of weight -but were still hungry. Maybe try a different food.

I once had a rescue dog like this but she had worms and needed worming several times before she was clear.

Once worm free, the frantic food obsession disappeared.

If its not that you can try a food bowl with raised bumps in the base, specifically designed to 'slow down' fast eaters.  Or, as I once read what someone else did, teach her to chew her food.  Do this by offering a biscuit (gravy bone type), hold it between your fingers and only allow her to bite off a section.  As she bites and breaks the biscuit say a cue word eg 'chew'.  Do this several times to make the association between biting off a piece and crunching it up.

Then offer a few pieces of kibble and cue 'chew', if she eats slowly, breaking each piece up, add more, and more etc.

After a few times offer a complete meal but cue 'chew' before she starts to eat and she should crunch and break up each piece instead of gulping.

It may just resolve itself with time.  I've had a few rescue dogs who ate fast and once they realised they would be fed on a regular basis they became far less intense over mealtimes.

I have heard via rescue people, that starved underweight dogs are usually fed many tiny meals per day, and that helps them realise that food is abundant and freely given, so the obsession reduces.

Could you split up her meals into smaller ones throughout the day?

> I have heard via rescue people, that starved underweight dogs are usually fed many tiny meals per day, and that helps them realise that food is abundant and freely given, so the obsession reduces.
>

Makes total sense. 

However, not sure that the "chew" idea makes sense, as dogs are not made to chew.  They are more snatch (with the front teeth) and swallow.  Unless food is too large, such as raw fed, when they will tear the meat to suit. 

> when I feed her it is gone in seconds and she doesn't chew it, just swallows it whole despite the fact that it is large kibble for giant breeds.

Dogs don't chew like we do, they only need to make things small enough to swallow - which can be a suprisingly large size.

My dog is food obsessed, when he went through his stealing phase, he nicked a 500g block of cheese of the kitchen counter (barging me out of the way in the proccess), chomped it in half and swallowed the entire thing - no need for chewing!

If I hadn't started training him around food then, he would have got worse & worse. Dogs repeat rewarding behaviour, it's simple a dog steals food, gets rewarded by the food it steals so will put more effort into the next attempt. Not all dog are motivated by food to the same degree - a HIGHLY food motivated dog will be HIGHLY rewarded by the food.
I don't think your dog was previously starved, I think previous owners have not taught her how to behave around food, or not taught her alternative ways to get the food she so desires. Eg, you are prepping a cheese sandwich, she wants the cheese, you can keep her away from you/the cheese which teaches her NOTHING, or you can teach her that laying on the floor will result in you GIVING her cheese. This is basically how I trained my 14 stone food-aholic not to knock me out of the way to steal whatever I was prepping in the kitchen.
To start with, I would drop morsels often to keep him laying on the floor, as he began to understand that he would be GIVEN morsels (and was more relaxed, less like a wound up spring waiting to burst into action and up onto the counter) I would extend the time. I kept extending the time between morsels and now he will patiently wait, laying on the kitchen floor, sometimes he'll get a morsel whn I have completely finished, sometimes he wont, but he has not tried to steal anything off the side in 4 years now (he's 6yrs old).

As for the drinking water, keep it topped up, it may well be a competitive thing if she is not used to being with other dogs. She should realise, in time, that she will not loose out on the water.

Re. growling at your hubby with food, personally, untill she is more relaxed around food, I would keep her away form the rest of the family when they are eating. Work on her general attitude to food first (ie, help teach her that specific, wanted beahviours will result in her being GIVEN food and do all you can to ensure she gets no more chance to steal - keep food shut away)

I have to add, that previously to my dog going through a stealing phase, I put a lot of effort, from day 1, into him not developing any food-guarding issues, he is not a food guarder atall, but still demolishes his meal in seconds flat.
He does not worry about loosing out on any food he is given, but he still would like to eat all the food in the world. It's not fear-based, it's not hunger based it's pure greed-based!
Only a couple of days ago, I took him for a walk, while I left the rest of my family at home eating thier evening meal. We got no more that 30 yards down our street when he turned around and trotted home (on lead). Once in the house he didn't stand patienly inside the door like usual (for me to unclip his lead & harness), he barged straight down the hallway to peer over the stair-gate into the livingroom where the family was eating & was panting in an excited way. He had barged home as he wanted to wait for left-overs from everyones meal

She is a brilliant dog, very affectionate and pretty well behaved but is absolutely obsessed with food. I was told before I took her about the obsession, but she will steal anything and everything, and when I feed her it is gone in seconds and she doesn't chew it, just swallows it whole despite the fact that it is large kibble for giant breeds.

I've seen several rescue dogs who do this and you can literally see their tummies blow out as they eat.  They are clearly stressed and eating like this does not help them.

The word 'chew' as a cue to bite what they get instead of gulping it down in huge pieces does not necessarily mean 'chew' as we do - the word used could be 'bite' 'break' 'crunch' whatever you feel like using.

What it does encourage the dog to do is break  its food into smaller pieces just as it would with a bonio or other such large biscuit instead of gulping it down.  It's merely a means of slowing down the eating process and it DOES work whether in theory its supposed to or not.

just thinking, I would make sure there is no competition when she is eating,

Absolutely. I took on a rescue Beagle recently, she had been abandoned and was living rough. She must have come from a 'breeding programme' ( BYB or PF) as she was happier eating off the ground and would snatch a piece of food and run away to eat it and then run back and snatch a bit more. I fed her over the other side of the room where she couldn't see the other dogs eating, but could hear them. I put her food down and walked away and left her. I had to stand there because her food was gone in a few seconds and then she would try to barge into the others to eat theirs.
I started taking her into another room as soon as she had finished eating for a cuddle and a bonding moment while the others finished, this way she took her mind off the other dogs food and enjoyed the fuss.
Now she eats slower, she knows she is going to be fed when she hears the bowls being prepared so the panic for food has gone. As soon as she finishes now she runs straight into the other room as if it's 'cuddle time' and makes no attempt to get the other dogs food.
I still don't feed her next to the others as she is happier knowing that she has no need to fight for her food, the bowl is hers and all hers. It has taken around 2 months to get to this stage, but she is now settling down as she knows she will have regular feeds morning and evening and the panic of starvation has gone.

> despite the fact that it is large kibble for giant breeds

What breed is she, is she a giant breed? If so, I take it you are soaking her food prior to feeding it, which would result in more of a mush than crunchy kibble, so it would be more like her eating a bowl of porridge quickly than eating a bowl of dry kibble quickly?

Thank you all so much for all the tips, she is a very small Newfoundland weighing in yesterday at 45.8 kg. I keep the dogs apart when feeding, and am (today) able to fuss her while she is hoovering up her food without her growling which I think is good. She is on Arden Grange giant breed and I feed her twice a day. I've had a number of rescues of this breed before and much worse concerns than I have with her just never had this food obsession before. Last night she had a very large "accident" and was cowered down when I got up and discovered it, poor little thing seemed to expect to be hit!! I totally ignored the mess just said good morning to her, gave her a cuddle and let her out before I cleaned up but she was very subdued for a couple of hours. I must add that no animal is ever hit in this house and certainly not for "accidents" any of us can be caught short. I have put bowls of water everywhere and that seems to be helping a bit as she wanders round having a drink from each.
She isn't sure what to do with toys, but I have given her a kong today stuffed with biscuits etc, and she has played around with that for quite a while but got fed up as she couldn't figure out how to get all the food out. Basically all she wants in life is food, water, and cuddles all the time, all of which I am happy to supply, apart from that she is almost perfect, I just want her to be happy and feel that this anxiety over food must be very stressful for her.
My other Newfi is on Royal Canin but is the reverse of this one, he is not at all bothered with food!
I know it is early days yet so maybe as she learns to trust us the food thing may start to resolve itself, it must be so confusing to be given away at 5 years old.

> it must be so confusing to be given away at 5 years old.

Bless you for thinking like that.  :-)

Just to let you know that she is gaining confidence daily, still is (and I suspect always will be) a foodie but perfect in every other way. She had a bad stomach upset all weekend but boiled rice and chicken in small meals seems to have cured that, maybe she just needed to give her stomach a rest for a couple of days. Last night she was clean all night and very proud of herself this morning.

Thumbs up that she progresses further.  I think it's time and patience that will win the day.  :-)