Recent digging dog driving us nuts!

About 5 years ago, we rescued an abandoned Akita that wandered into
our yard, completely emaciacted and loaded with ticks. He's been a
very good dog, very loving and reasonably well-behaved, if not the
sharpest tool in the shed, until the last 6-8 months or so.

He's taken up digging at random in the back yard. He isn't bored,
he's got two kids who play with him constantly, and another dog to
play with all the time. He's just decided that making holes in the
ground is fun and nothing we've been able to do has slowed him down.
He's not digging to sleep in the holes, most of them are pretty much
straight down, 2-3 feet, no wider than the width of his paws. We've
tried filling them in with rocks or feces, he just moves over a foot
and starts a new hole. We tried putting down chicken wire under one
section and he dug it up. We built a grid out of rebar in one planter
and found it dragged out of the hole a couple days later.

We replanted our back lawn last fall, and now we're going to have to
replant about a quarter of it again in the spring because he's dug
everything up. It's getting so bad that last Saturday, I went out and
filled in about a dozen holes he had dug, came into the house for
about a half hour, and when I went back out, there were another 3-4
holes already!

Any ideas? We have a friend who is a professional dog trainer and
most of the above are her suggestions and they haven't worked.

rw...

Get some mittens (or "booties") for his front feet. Cross-country skiers
often use them for certain breeds, to keep the snow from balling up in
their dogs' pads, so you can probably find them at a well-equipped
cross-country skiing shop. I've used them on my Golden (he hates them).
You can make them yourself if you're handy.

Your dog won't be able to dig effectively with them. It might be
somewhat amusing to see him try. He might get so frustrated that he
forges all about the digging, but I doubt it.

Kathleen...

Oh, please. An unsupervised, unrestrained dog will have the boots off
in a New York second. ANY boots. Especially a bored dog. They don't

rw...

Not leather boots coated with hot chile peppers. :-)

Kathleen...

So you personally have utilized this method, and can vouch for its
effectiveness and safety?

rw...

No, I haven't, because I haven't had to. If I'd had to, I would have,
and I'm pretty sure it would've worked. I've used bad tastes and scents
for other corrections.

shelly...

many dogs actually *like* hot chilies. harriet says, "the hotter, the
better."

Kathleen...

So basically, you're talking out your arse. I've had to try to keep a
boot on an injured dog. Picking at his wound could have cost him his
foot. He tore off leather. He tore off cordura. He could do it so
fast you'd swear you never looked away. He *had* to wear an e-collar to
keep the boot and the bandages on the foot.

And as to the pepper sauce... "Other bad tasts and scents" aren't the
same thing at all. This is not Bitter Apple. You're talking about

Paula...

Sammie thinks that "drop it" means stop whatever you are doing, drop
what is in your mouth on the ground and go trotting over to the person
who said to drop it looking so cute that you might get extra treats.
Stay means freeze everything except your head which you use to look as
cute as possible at the person who said stay to see if you can get
extra treats. He is being trained by a seven year old. He was being

diannes...

Good dog, Sammie! Yes, I'd say he's close to getting it, or at
least a whole lot closer than rw's dog is.

naughty by blowing her off when she called him in the mornings because
he figured he was going to be put in his kennel while the people went
off to work and school while he thinks he should be free to wrestle
with the big dogs and see what he can find to chew on. So I gave Mimi
a container of really good treats and had her call him at least 20
times every morning from somewhere in the house just to give him a
little bit of treat and a "good dog!" He can't count to 21, so he
comes gleefully when it is kennel time. I figure if a seven year old
can do it, albeit without a whole lot of finesse (I'm pretty sure
Sammie thinks drop it actually means something more like stop that and
he doesn't know any intricate commands or distinguish between similar
sounding words), anybody should be able to teach their dog more than

diannes...

Yep. Thanks for illustrating my point.

one command.

applying a powerful chemical irritant where an unsupervised dog is
highly likely to not only lick it but rub it into his face and eyes.
Brilliant.

have thumbs, but a creature that's well-adapted to stripping meat and
tendons off of bones will make short work of any kind of boot or
bandage. If you're lucky he'll just tear them off. If he's really
ticked he'll chew them to pieces, maybe swallowing some or part of the
remains in the process. Just don't.

The OP's question boils down to this: How can I make my dog do
something different without changing anything I'm doing? And basically
the answer is, you can't. You have to train and/or supervise. Or maybe
just get used to a yard that looks like a minefield. There are worse
things, and you may want to weigh the evident pleasure the dog takes in
his excavations, and the fact that he obviously needs more stimulation
than he's getting, before you declare a total moratorium. My own rule
is, no digging against the foundation, the fence or the patio.

rw...

Well, Kathleen, MY OWN RULE is no digging in my (our) yard whatsoever.
None. Ever. Never-ever. NO DIGGING!!! NONE!!!!! If they want to dig for
ground squirrels in the sage brush, I say go for it. My Golden used to
wear himself out that way, before he got too old. He'd never even think
of digging in our yard. The consequences would be too awful.

Kathleen...

And what would that entail? Specifically? And how often did you teach
this lesson to your dog?

Just wondering.

rw...

I appreciate the question, Kathleen. My dogs (an old Golden and a young
Border Collie) know the boundaries of "our" property. They know it
precisely. The Border Collie, especially, but the Golden also. They know
that different rules apply on "our" property as opposed to "other"
property. In fact, I believe they know the similarity between my
property and my neighbors' property -- where they also aren't allowed to
dig -- and they understand the difference between those private
properties and the public or generally unoccupied sage brush where they
are allowed to dig to their hearts' content.

Dogs are just as sensitive to who owns what as we are. They just have to
be taught the boundaries and distinctions. It requires communication.

shelly...

i'm sorry, but equating a dog's sense of territoriality with a human's
is bound to end in tears. my dog's value system just isn't the same as
mine. my dog is perfectly happy to hare off after a critter, without
even a first thought as to whose property she's on. she couldn't care
less. now, if i call her off, and she actually hears me, she will
respect the command and return to me, but it's got FA to do with
honoring arbitrary human boundaries and everything to do with having a
good recall.

i just do not trust "boundary training" of the sort you have described.
at least, not with the sorts of dogs i choose to live with.

Kathleen...

You didn't answer my question. What exactly are the "consequences to
awful to contemplate"?

shore...

You seem like a lovely person.

rw...

Thank you. I think I am a rather lovely person. I can send you
references if you like.

My dogs do not dig in my yard, while living very happy, comfortable,
loving lives. They have learned that it is not acceptable.

The "awful" consequence is simply a remonstrance. Goldens tend to be
more sensitive than Akitas, I think. In any case, my particular Golden
is more sensitive than any Akita I've ever seen. But even an Akita can
get the message with enough persistence.

Mr. Henderson might also try setups. Let the dog out when you're pretty
sure he's going to dig, and spy on him in secret. When he starts digging
go after him IMMEDIATELY with a MAJOR attitude. Keep doing it, over and
over. Dogs are impressed when they're surprised in their bad acts, and
they never seem to catch on to the fact that you can spy on them.

You have to take whatever steps are necessary to stop the bad behavior.

Otherwise, until the crater is big enough to swallow the lawnmower, I
don't care.

The digging mania seems to be cyclical, if not seasonal. The three of
them will do a lot of digging for a few days or weeks at a time, then
they lose interest in it all together. Which makes me wonder if there's
some sort of grub or something that's hatching every so often which
catches their attention.