That a dog digs in the ground is completely normal, a behavior that they instinctively exercise for various reasons. From filing your nails to looking for an object whose smell appeals to you, not forgetting to dig a good hole to hide some of your most precious objects, such as a bone or a toy.
However, what for them is a very normal and sometimes necessary conduct, for us it can be a torture. Those of us who have a garden know how hard it is to keep it nice and well cared for, but if the dog fills it with holes it will seem that we have moles.
We will explain what are the reasons why dogs make holes in the ground and how to fix it. With some very simple tricks and without the need to spend hours of training, we will be able to prevent our dog from destroying the garden.
Why do dogs dig in the ground?
Dogs make holes in the ground on their own instinct, it is not necessary that they have seen other dogs do it, they instinctively dig in our garden in the same way that they eat grass when their stomach hurts and they want to vomit, pure primary instinct.
The reasons why they dig the earth are several, they do not always do it for the same reason but there are several reasons why they may want or even need to make a good hole.
Digging in the ground out of boredom
Although it seems ridiculous this is the main reason why a dog is dedicated to mining our garden with dozens of holes everywhere. Dogs, mainly puppies and youngsters, have a lot of energy that they need to expend on a daily basis.
It is a great mistake to think that since the dog has ample space in the garden, it is not necessary to take it for a walk or exercise with it. The excess energy ends up leading to a mixture of excitement and boredom that often leads to the dog repeatedly making holes in the garden.
Not only excess energy influences, a bored dog will find a way to entertain himself either by eating the pots and plants or digging in the ground. This is normal since sometimes they spend many hours alone.
Digging in the garden to hide something
Another great reason our dog makes holes is to hide things. Totally instinctively dogs tend to hide food or toys for the future, in a place where no one can take them away, that is … underground.
When a dog wants to hide a bone to eat later, another day, another week or even another month … what he does is dig a good hole and bury it. In this way he will know where he is thanks to his excellent nose, but not us.
The same happens with toys, when they want to keep them to enjoy later, they hide them. Even if nothing is buried but they detect some interesting odor, they will dig to locate the source of the odor, thinking that there must be something buried.
Make holes to file your nails
It may seem strange but it is so, dogs are filing their nails with the walks and races they take on tracks, sidewalks or asphalt. However, when the nails are not sanded naturally and the dog bothers them when walking, they look for a way to file them.
Drilling holes in the ground is not only fun for them, but also helps them keep their nails well filed. If you are convinced that the reason why your dog digs holes is this, this info may be interesting: How to cut a dog’s nails.
Homemade tricks to prevent my dog from digging holes in the garden
That our dog digs in the ground should never be a problem, as long as he does it in the park or in the bush, that is, outside the home. If you do it indoors, in our garden, it will not only spoil it, but it may bury food that ends up rotting and attracting other animals or insects.
We are going to explain a couple of super simple tricks that we can do to make our dog stop digging in the garden. In just a couple of days we will have solved the problem definitively.
- Use Vips Vaporub by smearing a little on the edges of the planters where your dog usually climbs and digs. The smell of Vips Vaporub is very unpleasant for dogs so they will avoid being in areas where it smells like that.
- Inflate small balloons and bury them in their holes, this way when he digs those holes again he will prick the balloon with his nails and he will get a little scare. It is a very simple and effective way to correct this behavior in dogs.
Complicated? Sure not. They are very simple tricks of the old school, where teaching a dog to correct unwanted behavior, how to make holes in the soil of our garden, was solved simply and quickly.