How to Keep Ants Out of Dog Food?

Ants are a problem in the summer when food is easy to find. During these months, ants seem to appear from nowhere searching for ways to get inside your home. Unfortunately for you, there are a few ways ants can travel into your home and get access to the kitchen and pet food. Ants can be a real pest.

Finding ants inside your house is enough to make you want to throw out all the food in your pantry and cabinet. This includes ants in your dog food. The vast majority of ants inside homes are from outdoor colonies, so killing the ants won’t hurt the colony. Instead, it will just encourage another queen to start a new colony inside your home. You need to get rid of the entire colony and prevent them from coming back.

Here, we’ll run down what’s attracting ants and show you how to keep ants out of dog food.

Why are ants attracted to dog food?

You’re very likely to find ants in and around your house, and this is because they love dog food. This is not a coincidence – it’s not why ants are attracted to dog food. It may seem strange at first, but there are reasons behind their interest. I’m sure you’re all wondering this, so I’ll just get down to it.

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An Easy Snack

Ants are attracted to dog food because they are searching for an easy snack. Dogs are carnivores, but their omnivorous diets include not only meat but also grains and fruits.

This difference in diet between dogs and ants is what attracts the ants to the food. The scent of the dog food is then spread throughout the ant colony, making it easy for subsequent ants to find their way to your pet’s bowl.

High Protein

There are several reasons why some ants are attracted to dog food, but the number one reason is that dog food has a lot of protein. Ants use protein as their building block for building mold or anthills. On the other hand, the second reason is that some ants feed on “seeds, nuts, and fruits.” Dog food contains all of these items.

Ants have a great sense of smell

Most likely, they are attracted by the dog food. Ants have a great sense of smell and can detect food from a long distance. The dog food attracts ants as it is sweet and sugary. Water mixed with sugar can be used as a substitute to feed some ants, but some will still come after the dog food. Also, you’ve probably left crumbs near the bowl, attracting ants straight to the source.

10 Ways To Keep Ants Away From Dog Food

1. Keeping the dog’s bowl clean

If you want to keep ants away from your dog food, then you should clean your dog’s bowl regularly. You might think that this is just a small thing, but if you keep the dog bowl clean then you would be surprised at how much it can help.

This DIY recipe is easy and cheap – simply clean the bowl with equal parts vinegar and water, and add a little dish soap. The smell will keep ants away from your dog’s food every time!

2. Using Cookie Cutter

Ants can be pesky pests, but they’re easy to get rid of if you know-how. Keep ants away from your dog food by using small cookie cutters in cookie sheets to cut out shapes of dog food. Place the shapes in several areas throughout the house. Ants are attracted to dog food and will likely follow the scent wherever the dog food shape is placed thus repelling them from getting near your actual dog food.

3. Using ant moat

A dog food container with an ant moat stops ants from accessing your dog’s food. The ant moat can be filled with water, which will stop the ants from crossing the water on their paths to your dog’s bowls.

4.  Store the food in tight containers

Ants are known for invading kitchens to steal crumbs of food, spread germs, and make other pests feel at home. If your dog’s food is kept in an open dish, this might be where ants first begin their raid. You should find a tight-sealing container that’s large enough to hold all of your dog’s food.

It should have a wide enough opening for you to fill the container with food. A sealable lid or tight-fitting plastic wrap can help keep ants out of your dog’s food.

5.  Mark a boundary around the dog’s bowl

• Use chalk to easily mark an ant-free zone, the perimeter around the location where you keep your pet food. Keep ants away from dog food with this chalking ant barrier. Ants walk along the line so they will not cross over your dog food.
• You can also use double-sided tape to make a borderline. As ants move towards your pet’s bowl they will stick on the tape.

6. Using the baking soda

Baking soda is a great ant killer. Why? It reacts with acidic secretions from ants to create carbon dioxide, which is poisonous to ants. This makes it a great choice if you want to make sugar ants go away from your dog food or other things in your home or yard. Also, for outdoor things, you can make a spray by mixing baking soda and water.

Putting the baking soda inside a saucer or bowl will attract them to it and they’ll spread it around feeding on the food. They’ll then walk back to the nest & other ants will eat them and take the poison back to their colony. The queen will be poisoned by other ants and die along with a large number of her workers.

7. Use of borax

Ants can be a nuisance when you’re trying to feed your dog, and borax is a natural and safe way to keep pesky ants away from their food. Ant killer for dog food is an effective way to prevent pests from coming in contact with your pet’s food.

Borax, a compound of boric acid, kills ants on contact by desiccating them–drying out their bodies. To keep ants off your dog food, pour borax around the perimeter of the bowl. The ants will get killed by the borax and this will keep them away.

The most effective way of using borax is to take one cup of borax and mix it with one cup of sugar and some water, add some cotton balls in it and place them around the areas where you think the ants come from. The ants get attracted by the sugary smell and try to eat that cotton ball soaked in borax.

8.  Use of vinegar

Vinegar is the perfect solution to keeping ants away from dog food. It’s easy and convenient. Just fill a spray bottle with vinegar and spritz each dog food bowl every morning and night. Repeat every three days per the instructions, and you should start to see an improvement in how many ants you see in your home.

9. Use of Vaseline

Vaseline is very thick and it is slippery when you put it anywhere. If you mark a boundary with Vaseline or put the Vaseline on the bottom of your dog’s bowl the ants cannot reach at the top of the bowl. And it is not dangerous if your dog eats Vaseline.

10. Using Natural Sprays

Spray to prevent ants from infesting dog food while it’s stored in a dog food bin or dog food bowl. Essential oils such as peppermint, citronella, and lemongrass naturally repel ants. Ants do not like cinnamon and peppermint smells. Peppermint smells like soap to the ants and the cinnamon smell attracts them. Their spray keeps ants away from dog food.

Wrapping Up

Our number one priority is to provide pet owners with a way to keep ants away from dog food. Our solution allows for different ways of delivery so all pet owners can have an available ant bait option that is easy and convenient.

From using a shop-vat to a simple water spray bottle, there are several options to choose from for pet owners who have a problem with ants in the house. Hope the above information will help you to manage to keep ants away from dog food.