How to train a Dog Lesson 8

Digging is an activity that the majority of dogs do at some point during their lives. As with chewing, this may be for a number of reasons. One of the most obvious reasons is that digging is part of their natural instinct. In the summer, wolves will kill and eat the majority of their food, unsure of when they will be eating again. The wolves then bury the food that they do not eat, ready for winter when food becomes less available. Coming from the same family, dogs and wolves act in similar ways. Just as wolves bury their food, dogs also like to bury their bone ready to have at a later time.

Digging is a good form of exercise for your dog and the amount of digging your dog is doing could be linked to a lack of other exercise. Digging helps your dog release the extra energy he may have (next time your dog digs a hole, watch how much energy he uses and how tired he is afterwards!) This extra energy could be because your dog is not being taken on enough walks or being played with.

An important point to remember is no matter how annoyed you get at your dog for digging holes, DO NOT shout or yell. By giving your dog attention, albeit negative, this may encourage your dog to continue digging in order to receive more attention from you and then the problem may become even worse!

One suggestion that could work for some of you lucky owners is to tell you dog ‘no’ in a calm, but stern voice, if you see your dog digging. Although this may work for some, dogs dig the majority of their holes while their owners are not there. This is especially true if your dog has a short attention span and digs out of boredom.

A way of stopping this behavior is to put a wooden stick in the middle of one of the holes that he has dug and using a lead or piece of string tie him to the stake and leave him for around 20 minutes. Although your dog may dig a couple more holes, your dog will soon learn that if he digs a hole, then he will be tied up and this discourages him from digging in the long run. By realizing the reason why your dog is digging, this enables you to help overcome the problem easily and in a fairly short amount of time.