Digging in dogs

[Jean in Newcastle]

Our girl springer is starting to dig. She has dug out of our yard and into the neighbors and then on to freedom. She has dug under our raised beds. Now she is digging a hole in the middle of the yard. It does look like there is a burrow of some animal down there. We have increased her interaction with us, are taking her for more walks, giving her toys to keep her entertained. She ignores us and the toys (she can't ignore the walks) and digs right in front of us. Her brother does not dig. Any suggestions on how to stop a digger?

[hornblower]

If there is something down there, it's pretty hard to deter a dog from going after it. Malamutes are well known for digging up gardens - owners call them enthusiastic but unskilled gardeners, favoring a lunar lanscape design.....

 

For escape mals, people dig a trench under the fence & pour concrete in.

 

For landscaping fans, unless you want to go for aversives, your options are limited to not letting the dog be there unattended. You can also temporarily cover it with chicken wire or a chain link fence panel.

 

My malamute X keeps her digging to one place & I just let her go crazy there.

 

Can you bike with her or jog with her to tire her out more? Raw bones might also be more interesting than digging (though my setter loves to bury his so it might not work LOL)

 

My dogs have an area of the garden which is mostly theirs to do with as they please, though I do keep trying to grown things there too. (like grass, a climbing rose - hah, try chewing that!, and I've got a new apple tree which has so far survived since April with just a small little fence around it)

[Jean in Newcastle]

If there is something down there, it's pretty hard to deter a dog from going after it. Malamutes are well known for digging up gardens - owners call them enthusiastic but unskilled gardeners, favoring a lunar lanscape design.....

 

 

 

 

For escape mals, people dig a trench under the fence & pour concrete in.

 

 

 

 

For landscaping fans, unless you want to go for aversives, your options are limited to not letting the dog be there unattended. You can also temporarily cover it with chicken wire or a chain link fence panel.

 

My malamute X keeps her digging to one place & I just let her go crazy there.

 

 

 

 

Can you bike with her or jog with her to tire her out more? Raw bones might also be more interesting than digging (though my setter loves to bury his so it might not work LOL)

 

 

 

 

My dogs have an area of the garden which is mostly theirs to do with as they please, though I do keep trying to grown things there too. (like grass, a climbing rose - hah, try chewing that!, and I've got a new apple tree which has so far survived since April with just a small little fence around it)

 

 

 

We are trying to tire her out more. She's out on a jog as we type!

 

Yes, I give them raw bones. Her brother loves to gnaw on them. She likes to grab them and hide them under the shed. . .:glare:

 

Yea, I need to reinforce the perimeter. If she would only dig in one place perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. . . have to think about that one.

[Heather in OK]

:lurk5:

 

We have a digger too.

 

Raw bones....she digs and buries them.

 

Make a border along the fence....she digs UNDER it and still gets out.

 

I do NOT want her turning our new yard into the lunarscape she had going on at our old house.

[hornblower]

Yanno, it would be a good clicker trick to train digging on command.

 

That's one good way of getting a handle on a bhvr, putting it on cue.

 

And you could also make a digging box area & reward digging in that place.

 

Then, when you catch them digging in the wrong area, you bring them over to the digging box, give your cue & reward digging there.

 

It's just a behavior - just like going pee, so train it the same way.

 

That's my thought at the moment, anyway - but it's awfully hot & it's possible I'm not making any sense. :D

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ok - Dh said he had to practically drag her on the run. She was not into it:tongue_smilie: As soon as they got home she practically ran to her hole and started in again.

 

So, if I fill it in and sprinkle cayenne pepper over the ground would that work? Is that an appropriate aversive?

[Tiberia]

My husband put down chain link fence flat on the grass in the digging areas. It's a pain if you have a big yard, but at least the grass might grow back. Chicken wire might work too. It was a pain to remove for mowing, etc. but it worked until our boys got out of their digging stage.

 

Hopefully it is a stage and not a personality trait! Good luck! Gotta love dogs...

[Jean in Newcastle]

My husband put down chain link fence flat on the grass in the digging areas. It's a pain if you have a big yard, but at least the grass might grow back. Chicken wire might work too. It was a pain to remove for mowing, etc. but it worked until our boys got out of their digging stage.

 

Hopefully it is a stage and not a personality trait! Good luck! Gotta love dogs...

 

I have chicken wire, I think this would work!

[weaver_67579]

Yep-we have had them. Now the dogs are just too old to bother.

 

I saw someone previously mention chicken wire. You can put wire down in your flower beds and put the dirt and mulch over it. Most plants have no problem growing through the holes. You can use bigger mesh than chicken wire like woven wire used for sheep if you have plants of bigger diameter. I have known people from our old kennel club that had such bad diggers they put wire in the whole fenced yard covered it with a few inches of dirt and planted the grass on top. I had put wire in my flower beds at our old house.

 

Just like hornblower mentioned-digging boxes can help a lot by giving a digger an appropriate place to dig. You can even plant a bush in front of it to screen it from view. Basically a digging box is a dog sand box. One of my favorite methods was someone that got a livestock stock tank. They burried it to ground level in a corner of the yard after drilling a number of holes in the bottom for drainage (you may be able to find a farmer that has one that has rusted out in the bottom and have the bottom cut out of it by a metal shop) Half fill it with sand. only filling half way may help keep more of it in the sandbox. You teach the dog to play in it by burying toys and treats out there and showing the dog to dig there. You may need to leave some things only half burried till the dog gets the hang. Every time you see dog digging elsewhere-take them to the box. This was especially good for the terriers I knew since they were bred to dig down in holes.

 

For dogs digging to get out you can dig and bury a fence strait down under the other fence or put wire horozontally and covered with grass, mulch.... up to and slighlty under the fence. It has to be far enough out (several feet) to discourage the dog from digging. When our German Shorthairs and Dalmatian were all young-they were quite the escape artists. We had an electric fence strung just a few inches off the ground at the bottom of our fence and one at the top to discourage digging and climbing. I have also heard of people burying underground fence right below regular fencing to discourage this too.

 

Digging to catch critters can be a problem-my one shorthair could find critters like gophers and grubs.....like you wouldn't believe. Keeping a healthy lawn is one of the biggest discouragers of digging (or so my friend's landscaep co told her-and it has been true) You may work at having to discourage whatever critters from living in your lawn.