Dog help

[30ARules]

Does anyone know how to explain to a 100 pound lab that no one wants her precious "giant" rock collection, and therefore her over zealous attempt to burry it all over the yard is not required? Mowed the grass today and nearly broke my leg due to her need to secure her bounty!

Our last discussion about the "squirrel" incident did no good, so I am at wits end.. I just don?t speak lab. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Cil]

Does she spend a lot of unsupervised time outside?
If you want to let her dig, I would establish digging space, where you know (and can expect) holes will be.

 

[audie]

i got no pearls of wisdom on this one - our dog is and inside dog and too lazy to dig anyway...that would be too much like work ! my sis has a siberian husky who dug a gigantic hole in their yard, so they stuck a plastic kids pool in it.

 

[Jdarg]

I can't help you because there is no solution that I have found. I have never had digging dogs before these, and I'm teling ya now, there is no stopping them. It is the worst when the ground is damp and there are more "good smells". If they are outside, and especially if the conditions are "right", I watch them very closely. We are now in the process of fencing off the landscaped area in the back of the house so at least we have one unexcavated area!


Examples of "good smells" are acorns buried by squirrels, old limbs 6 inches under dirt, and a huge piece of foam rubber that was 1 foot under. How they knew these treasures were buried I will never know.

Good luck. There is a thread from last fall I think when we got these 2 diggers and I posed the same question!

 

[Cil]

Our dogs are inside dogs too. I imagine that if they spend any extended time out there, instinct would take over and they would dig--it just hasn't occurred to them. ;-)
During warm weather, some canines will dig themselves a nice cool den. Our neighbor's Akita had a beautiful dog house, but she preferred the dug-out she had made. She also had a bone cache.

 

[Jdarg]

I wish I could train them to dig on command and use them for gardening. I could even hire them out and make money!


Cil, if your dogs dug a cool spot, it would be a crater as big as a house!

 

[Smiling JOe]

When he was a young puppy, one of my dogs, a bird dog with a good tracking nose, dug holes in the yard. Sometimes he gets so excited when he picks up a scent that I think he is snorting cocaine. For his reward, he would find a small buried treasure at the bottom of each hole. Treasure being a small piece of construction debris, left from our home's construction, which was covered with final grading dirt. There were holes all over the yard. I learned long ago to set my dogs up for failure and to correct them when they began to fail, ie -digging the hole in this case. I would bury something and just sit in the yard waiting for him to dig. I waited, and waited, and waited. He would not dig. I would leave the house and later return to find a few more holes in the walkway to the house. I began using a shovel, not to beat the dog, but to fill in the holes. The only problem was that there was never enough dirt to fill the hole and compact it level with the rest of the yard.

Time passed and he no longer digs. I guess he grew out of it. Every time I see him look like he is going to start to dig, I correct him and mostly he listens.

 

[30A Skunkape]

Just let your yard "go". That solves two problems right there!

 

[30ARules]

When he was a young puppy, one of my dogs, a bird dog with a good tracking nose, dug holes in the yard. Sometimes he gets so excited when he picks up a scent that I think he is snorting cocaine. For his reward, he would find a small buried treasure at the bottom of each hole. Treasure being a small piece of construction debris, left from our home's construction, which was covered with final grading dirt. There were holes all over the yard. I learned long ago to set my dogs up for failure and to correct them when they began to fail, ie -digging the hole in this case. I would bury something and just sit in the yard waiting for him to dig. I waited, and waited, and waited. He would not dig. I would leave the house and later return to find a few more holes in the walkway to the house. I began using a shovel, not to beat the dog, but to fill in the holes. The only problem was that there was never enough dirt to fill the hole and compact it level with the rest of the yard.

Time passed and he no longer digs. I guess he grew out of it. Every time I see him look like he is going to start to dig, I correct him and mostly he listens.

What do they do with the dirt from the holes? I have holes, but no dirt I she eating it? It is very funn watching her run around the yard with big rocks in her mouth:funn:

 

[Smiling JOe]

What do they do with the dirt from the holes? I have holes, but no dirt I she eating it? It is very funn watching her run around the yard with big rocks in her mouth:funn:

I think they burry the dirt to dig up later.