How to Stop a Dog From Digging

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Nancy Frensley, I'm the training manager at the Berkeley East Bay Human Society in Berkeley, California. And I'm frequently asked by my clients and students how to stop a dog from digging. Well what you need to understand about digging is that it's a completely normal dog behavior. They dig for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they dig to bury things, sometimes they dig cooling holes especially in the summer. Dogs know that if they dig down a little bit they can lie down on some nice cool mud instead of hard hot ground. Dogs dig to make burrows. They dig for a whole lot of different reasons. So the best way to stop your dog from digging is to never let them go there in the first place. So from the first day you get your dog, supervise your dog when your dog is outdoors. If your dog is left outdoors all day on his own. He's going to do normal dog behaviors, those are anything from barking to chasing squirrels to chasing cats that come into your yard, to digging big holes. So your dog needs to be in a confined area in an indoor space when you are gone, especially from the very beginning. So that your dog never learns to dig in your yard. If your dog is supervised digging won't happen. However, what about the dog that's already digging. There aren't any real magic formulas for dealing with this. What you need to do is work with your dog outdoors to prevent your dog from digging and give them something else to do. However, you could also create a digging pit for that, excuse me, you can create a digging pit for the persistently digging dog so that they have one special place in your yard that they are allowed to dig. That's a really good strategy for dealing with digging because you don't get digging in all your flower beds and other places in your yard, you just get digging in your pit"