Stop Your Dog’s Digging Problem
I am going to share a tip I learned about how to prevent your dog’s digging up the yard. A few days ago I ran into town with my friend. When we got back, we were unable to drive through the front gate. That’s because his pack of dogs had dug an enormous hole over 5 feet wide and a couple feet down. 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. This was not the first time this has happened either. Obviously my buddy needed to learn how to stop his dogs from destroying his yard and driveway.
There are more than one reason why a dog may be digging in the yard or garden. Some of the reasons for digging are boredom, an attempt to escape the yard, trying to dig down to cooler soil in times of hot weather, or because your breed of dog may have a predisposition for digging . I’ll discuss some possible solutions so you can prevent your dog from digging up your lawn and garden. My friend’s dogs dug up the area right in front of the front gate, so it seemed like an escape attempt. However, on other occasions these same bored dogs have dug holes in the middle of the yard. His dogs would also dig up any recently watered areas of the yard because it is so hot at the beach. The need to prevent these dogs from digging up the whole place at my friend’s house was long overdue.
We used a tip from my favorite dog training book to build his dogs a separate play area, where they could hang out and dig to their heart’s content, without messing up the rest of the yard. Because my neighbor’s lot is sandy, he didn’t need to do anything beyond enclosing a nice sized area with fencing to create the enclosure. We made sure the enclosure had some shade so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable for the dogs on hot days. My neighbor’s dogs even get to enjoy a little wading pool that he put in for them. He obviously loves those dogs. He keeps his dogs in their enclosure while away, and they are having a pretty good time, and no longer digging up the yard while he’s gone.
Even if you don’t live at the beach, you can make the same kind of area in your own yard to prevent your dog from digging. Inside the area that you have chosen to enclose just put in a sandbox with some loose soil mixed with sand. Try to make sure the chosen area has some shade and that you can enclose it to keep your digging dog where you want him to be, with water and some chew toys to keep him occupied and not bored.
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. You might even be able to let your dog out of his enclosure while you are away without him return to digging up the yard-since he now is used to digging in the special area. This probably won’t hold true for the dogs that dig for escape purposes. Give this method a try and you should have solved the problem of your dog digging up the yard problem.
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Originally posted 2009-09-10 07:34:25. Republished by Old Post Promoter
