Hi everyone,
I am working with a 2 yr old female beagle who has a big problem.
She is constantly jumping up on the kitchen food services looking for food. When the owner opens the fridge she tries to jump up to pull the food out.
If you have a piece of food in your hand she will jump high as neccessary to try and get it. She seems to be obsessed with food. She is well fed and is well looked after. Has anyone got some ideas on how to stop it please?

Hi dont think this will be much help but i have same problem with my 11mth old beagle, she will have a good nosey to see if there is anything worth taking from work tops and can get all four feet off the floor to just spring up and grab something from your hand! i am working on "down" and then good girl and treat if i have some to hand when she puts 4 on the floor. i tried indoor training lead but didnt think it did anygood as if i am close enough to jank her down she is usually down by then because she knows shes being bold! good luck and il be reading the replies you get with great interest!!!

I don't think this will help either but I thought I'd share. We've had beagles that can open the kitchen door, open the fridge, that raided the bins, that jumped up on kitchen surfaces (Fred ate my birthday cake when I was younger by doing this!). If you walking with something in your hand Fred would run up and take it out your hand. If you were eating if front of the tv and you looked away you would look back and have an empty plate No place was safe and Fred was the worst by a country mile, but all beagles are food monsters from my experience.

Advice
- Buy a lock for the kitchen door
- Put your bin in a cupboard
- Make sure your freezer is on the bottom (they soon lose interest)
- Never ever leave food unattended
- When you are eating always be on high alert

But saying all that I really really miss all my beagles and love reading everyones threads about beagles so keep them coming

Again this wont help but it's a funny story to share.

So far we have been really lucky with our beagle in that he doesn't beg for food and he hasn't worked out how to open the fridge (lol, cannot believe that Staffx, I hope Zeus never works it out!!). He will have a stretch up to the kitchen counter but he's quite good with the OFF command, however the other week I dropped my guard slightly and came in and left two belgian buns on the kitchen counter, I must not have pushed them far enough back because when I returned to the kitchen there was only one belgian bun there and Zeus had not only eaten the bun but the paper bag aswell!!! I did find this quite funny but have made sure kitchen counters are always clear from now on! I also gave him an extra long walk and a run to burn off those extra calories

The beagle that could do that came from rescue, he was taken from a previous owner who had 14 dogs in the house and she lived in a caravan, he had to learn how to open it I suppose. When he moved in with us we had our freezer on the bottom, he only did it a couple of times!!

Fred was the most trouble, if he got on the kitchen counter and nothing was on it he would clear out the compost bin, orange peel, tea bags, everything!

Crumbs I am lucky lol I can sit and eat tea on the sofa with bell on my lap!!

Can u put a gate across the kitchen doorway? Is she good with the leave command? Maybe if you could teach her to leave food until told to take it would help only saying as with bell she's great with leave and I let her come on sofa but if she went near my food it was uh ah leave, she backed off and got a treat (not from my plate btw!) she then learnt sitting but not paying the food attention = treats and praise and now just ignores my food OR maybe my cooking doesn't look appealing

Just to show you a photo of our beagle Alf,who is food orientated,but does do a solid leave it command.There is light at the end of the tunnel,he would never have done this 6 months agoHe is now 17 months old.Keep up the hard work and you will get there in the end Sorry about the crap photo,they are having a take away but wanted to show how Alf is at mealtimes now.

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Thanks all for your input and I am training him the off command.
Thanks again, and I will post how he gets on

This is very good advice. In that kind of cases prevention is a cure. If a dog isn't allowed in the kitchen he cannot steal from kitchen. You can do some training with leave command but do it having a dog on lead, to avoid any unwanted stealing because this is a self reward for a dog. So more he is successful with stealing more often he will do it.