Hi Sunny. My pet beagle 7 months old is constantly trying to eat things from ground when we go for walk. Beagle by nature walk with their nose down sniffing. But here she also picks up stuff from floor and swallows them as well. We try to remove things from her mouth but doesn't work all the time. I now think she may be swallowing them faster assuming we are going to pull it out. How do we stop this behaviour. This happens even if she goes out right after a meal. So I belive this is not associated with hunger.

Hi,

You are right that this behaviour is not associated with hunger but saying that beagles by nature walk with their nose down sniffing is not right.

Puppies naturally are of curious nature and they use their mouth as well to figure things out.

When you take them swimming they will start bitting the water which makes no sense for people but what they are doing is figuring the water out using their jaws.

I recommend people to take their dogs on a structured walk which fulfils their primal need of walking, a structured walk is the one in which a dog is walking beside you or behind you and a human is leading the walk.

Now Let’s talk about the issue:

Your dog is of curious nature and we just need to channelize his curiosity.
We don’t want him to pick anything from the floor and we definitely don’t want her to swallow them.

Here is the strategy for that:
-> While walking keep the leash short but relaxed.
-> Be attentive about the behaviour of your dog from the beginning of the walk.
-> As soon as he put his nose down, pull up and then relax. (relaxing is the key because you want your dog to not put his nose down and relax as well)

Do this from a training point of view, be patient while doing this.

Also, your puppy requires exposure to nature where he can run on different terrain and sniff but before that master the structured walk.