How To STOP Dogs Digging

Everybody has this dream image of how their life with their new dog is going to be and it's going to be a wonderful, happy, joyous experience until they start doing amazingly annoying things like digging holes all over your garden. So when that does start to happen, how do we fix it? Welcome back to Fenway Canine Training and today we're going to be looking at another one of your questions so that we can help all of you guys become high-level canine leaders that have perfect canine companions so you can actually experience the dog that you've always dreamed of. So without further ado, let's get into today's question. Hi, so my question is about my dog's digging behaviour. Every time it's out in the garden it's digging a new hole and it now looks awful. What can I do to help stop this behaviour? Thank you so much for the question and this is one of those behaviours that is simply just incredibly frustrating but unfortunately it's also very natural for a dog and unpicking a natural behaviour can be very challenging but there's definitely some steps that we can take to help you overcome this problem and if anybody else is watching at home that's having the same situation we'll help you overcome it as well. So I've got three steps to help you get over this problem as quickly as possible. First and foremost, give your dog significantly more exercise and mental stimulation than they're currently getting and see if that helps fix the problem. One of the most common root causes of digging behaviour is pent-up energy and frustration. If you can get that energy out of your dog in a proactive, positive way you might find that that alone will stop any digging behaviours in its tracks. Secondly, it's really important that we control our dog's environment. If you know that there's a certain place in the garden maybe your flowerbeds or your vegetable patch that your dog absolutely loves to dig up, simply do not give them access to that area. You can fence it in, you can put your dog on a tether where it's not long enough for them to get to those environments but controlling your dog's environment is really important if you don't want them to get up to no good. And the third thing is to not give your dog too much freedom too soon especially when they're young puppies or adolescent dogs. Giving your dog a lot of freedom and then expecting them to choose positive ways to spend that freedom is going to allow you to set your dog up to fail and absolutely is not going to allow you to set your dog up for succeed. I guarantee in one way or another your dog will find a bad decision to make if you give them too much freedom. So when it comes to your digging up your garden simply do not allow them to have unsupervised access to your garden and you will have your problem solved. So there's my quick three tips to help this amazingly frustrating, difficult, challenging behaviour that can have you absolutely pulling your hair out but is one that you absolutely do not have to live with. So I hope it helped. If it did give the video a thumbs up, subscribe if you're new and I can't wait to see you on the next episode.