Hello, My name is Kay. I have three pet Labradors (mother and father dogs with their child). Before shifting to city, we lived in a village where we had large yard and there was enough space to play. At that time, we fed the dogs on a routine basis, and the digging factor wasn’t a huge issue. (Those were the days!)
However, now we are in city with very small piece of land, which we like to use to grow vegetables. My wife and I both like gardening and we both vegetarian. Therefore, we try to make our small land productive with vegetables and other produce. However, our beloved dogs destroy our efforts every time, although we still adore them and can’t really blame them. Interestingly, the male dogs dig much less than the female dogs. And as I mention earlier we have only very small garden now, and we cannot give them all of the unused land to do their activities freely so they use our flower and vegetable garden for digging holes and it makes me crazy sometimes! I did learn from this article that the dogs may be digging up the garden because they see us doing it, and because the ground is freshly dug over. I wonder if that’s part of the cause behind their behavior?
We have had the two dogs for awhile, but two months ago we had the new puppy to add to the mix. The puppy is very cute and we love to keep him with us all the time. We love all 3 dogs and we cannot think what it would be like to part with them!
But the digging issue is a real pain. I do not know what to do. As we are not a young couple any more, we cannot give them much in the way of running around to tire them out. We cannot move to village to give them unused space to dig. God knows what I can do to stop their digging behavior.
I have searched on the internet to know why dogs dig and most of the sources tell that it’s a natural habit for some dogs. There are some specific reasons that I have found by surfing web about dogs digging behavior, here’s some of what I found:
– dog’s dig holes to eat minerals and other things they need to maintain their diet.
– Some dogs love to eating poops.
– They may hear some noise or smell something and want explore that by digging.
– If it’s too hot in summer or cold in winter they try to escape by digging holes (!?)
– Female dogs have natural digging behavior. I’m not sure if this is true but strangely it does match our experience.
I want to find out the real reasons about my dogs digging behavior but I have found no significant things. I have searched for a solution to stop the digging but ideas I’ve found on the web have not worked for me. We give our dogs enough food, we play with them, walk them, and try to keep them entertained. We really do love them. I think we just need to work on training them, distracting them, and giving them alternatives. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Kay's Dog 