How To Prevent Dog Digging
08 Sep 2009
I want to tell you about a great way I learned to prevent your dog from digging up your yard or garden. I went out shopping with a friend of mine the other day. Upon returning to his house, we couldn’t drive through the front gate. My friend”s nutty dogs dug a huge hole over five feet across and at least two feet deep. Since we live at the beach, his driveway is just sand, so it wasn’t difficult for the dogs to excavate a huge hole in front of the gate. His dogs have done this every so often for years. My friend didn’t have a clue how to prevent his dogs from digging up his yard.
There are various reason that may be causing the dog’s digging behavior. Perhaps your dog is digging because he wants to escape, or maybe just for something to do, or just trying to dig down to some cooler soil below . I will mention some ideas for stopping your dog from digging in your yard or garden. In my neighbor’s case the dogs dug right in front of the gate, so it was an obvious attempt to escape. However, on other occasions these same bored dogs have dug holes in the middle of the yard. It is also very hot at the beach, so the dogs will also dig up recently watered areas of the yard to get at the cooler soil underneath. It was obvious my friend need to learn how to stop his dogs from digging his whole place up.
Using the advice I found in my best dog obedience training book, we decided to build his dogs their own play area where they were welcome to dig all they wanted to. We enclosed the chosen area of the yard with some dog proof fencing, and because the ground is sand, we already had made the safe digging area for the dogs. It’s a good idea to make sure there is some shade above the enclosed area for protection form the summer sun. My neighbor’s dogs even get to enjoy a little wading pool that he put in for them. These dogs get a lot of love. Since the dogs only dug up the yard when he was away he has now learned how to prevent the dogs from digging up his yard using a win-win type of solution.
Although your yard may not be a natural sandbox like my friend’s, you can still easily make a special area and stop your dog digging up your yard. Inside the area that you have chosen to enclose just put in a sandbox with some loose soil mixed with sand. Pick an area to enclose that has some shade (or add some shade cloth) and in addition to putting in a sandbox for digging purposes, be sure to put in his water bowl and some chew toys to keep him busy.
Not only have you stopped your dog from digging up your yard in your absence, you now have given him a fun place to be while you are away. Some dogs will stop digging up the yard once they get used to just digging in their play area, and you might be able to once again let him out in your absence. However, if he was digging for the escape reason, you should keep him his play area while you are away. If you follow this tip, you’ll have stopped the yard from ever getting dug up again.
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