Confessions of a Food Addict

Well, as much as I have tried to deny it for the past six years, it is time for me to admit it.  Our Beagle has an eating disorder.  When I first brought her home from the pet store, she was the cutest little thing.  She would get so excited every time we fed her and I loved her exuberance.  Then it started to get a little out of hand.  She began knocking the bowl out of my hand when I fed her.  So we worked on sitting and waiting. 

The next thing I knew, she was getting into the kitchen garbage at every opportunity.  We fixed that by purchasing a taller garbage with a lid on it.  However, my kids are not always quick about taking the garbage out.  Sometimes they just take the bag out of the container and tie it up and put it in the garage.  We now know that Belle can smell through plastic.  A few years ago at Thanksgiving, a couple of pumpkin pies got a little over cooked.  We threw them in the trash.  She ate two full pies.

We went to a football game one Friday night when she was a few years old and came home to find her laying on her side in the kitchen, moaning.  On the floor next to her was a salt shaker that she had managed to unscrew.  She ate all the salt.  In their attempt to help her, a couple of the kids gave her water. That was when she bloated, badly!

We have to be very careful not to leave chairs out around the kitchen table, especially if there is any food on the table.  We have caught her two or three times standing on the table and helping herself to food.  I am sure she believed that she was only helping to clear the table and clean the dishes.  She is a good dog.  I caught her once, after she ate a little box of "Buckeyes" that I had given to "Doc".  We replaced them before he found out.  She panics when she is caught on the table and attempts to jump for her life.  There has been more than one midair rescue of Belle.

Her latest passion is bread.  Can't seem to convince her that those carbs will go straight to her hips and belly.  We have a drawer near the pantry where the bread is stored.  You have to make sure that it is completely closed.  If even a corner of a bread bag is sticking out, or if the drawer is open even a crack, she is able to get in it.  We have found empty bags in her cage and various other places around the house.  She knows how to get to the food, but she is not good at covering her crime.

A few weeks ago, I was forced to admit that my Beagle has a problem.  In our church, at the end of the service everyone is given a piece of bread that has been blessed during the service.  I usually take a couple of extra pieces to give to someone who has not been able to attend church.  I put them in my hard cover glasses case for safekeeping.  That Sunday, I came home from church and set my purse on the floor.  An hour or so later, I walked through the kitchen and noticed my glasses case in Belle's cage.  My first thought was "What is that doing in there?"  Immediately the light bulbs went off.  Belle had gone into my purse, taken my glasses case to her cage and proceeded to eat the pieces of bread that were in it. 

Anyone know of an overeaters anonymous group for Beagles?