Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject: Puppy help - digging
Ella won't stop digging up the garden!! She has been digging in my parents gargen when she goes there and at home she is digging a hole near the fence!! - think shes tryingto escape
Is there any way of stopping her doing this?? I dont think its boredom as she is looked after all day, has plenty of toys and is walked???
Sadly some dogs and puppies do dig. Its a thing thsat is very common. You have the option to pave the garden, of course that is hardly practical usually... she will start to lose such frantic interest in it after a few months. I really wouldn't bother filling in the holes at the moment as its the challenege they like of soft 'easy to shift' earth. Filling them in is the worst thing you can do.
Just go with it and do lots of apologising. She will grow out of it over time. Of course you CAN lurk in the garden and the SECOND she goes to even start to dig, correct her vocally and remove her from the hole straight away, then have a little game, then lurk for a while again.... but to be honest noone with a nice garden ever had a labrador and no labrador ever had a nice garden.
Di
____________
The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
We had this problem with Bozo back in the depths of winter. We desperately tried to stop him but in the end we put a fence & gate around our patio area so he could only have access to the grass area when he was supervised. As it turns out, it was the best thing we could have done as he now only does his toilet business on the patio which is much easier to clean up and when the kids are running around in the garden they are not knocked over by a 26kg mad dog!
When Genie started to dig in the lawn I would say NO! and carry her to one of my flower beds which was at the back of the garden which had some old sand in it... Now I've managed to teach her (for the most part!) that her digging place is in the sand bed.
You need to be on hand for a bit and vigilent so you can catch her in the act and then put her somewhere you don't mind her digging (you could try a particular flower bed (with sand) or a sand pit??? and then she knows the place to do it in... or you could try to teach her that behaviour in total in not appropriate by saying 'Argh Argh' when she digs and reward her when she stops - she'll soon get it... I do think though that the frantic puppy stage does pass... Lula never digs anymore... all the best. Lisa
I never, ever found a way round this problem as it wasn't possible to catch my lab everytime or fence part off. He did grow out of it though.
Sorry, I'm not more help!
Oscar LOVES to dig! And as much as I'd love to leave him to get on with it and follow his natural urges, our house is starting to resemble a mud hut!
Anyway, I read somewhere on the internet a little tip to stop digging, and it has worked 100% with Oscar.
When he first starts to dig a hole we correct him. Sometimes this works, sometimes not - depends how naughty he's feeling. If he continues, we go and collect a little nugget of his poo, distract him for a few seconds and plop it into his hole.
The first time we did this, he'd literally spent 15 mins digging a crater. We ploppoed the poo in, he pounced at his hole ready for the next session, stopped dead, had a little sniff, and then proceeded to spend the next 15 mins filling his hole back in with his nose, pushing all the freshly dug earth back into it! I've never seen anything so funny in my life!
This clearly only works if you have a puppy who doesn't like dog poo, and particularly their own!
No, she's not trying to escape, she's just doing as all Labs do, which is go visit her cousins in Australia. The only cure is to confiscate her shovel! Most either eventually get to Australia or give up the attempt.
Brooke should not be so bad Jacque, it's beneath the dignity of a Flatcoat.
THE HONOURABLE LUCINDA
Lucy’s an uncommon dog,
She’d like it understood
That somewhere in her ancestry
There must be royal blood,
She has a way of peering down
Her rather regal nose
That says, “we have to tolerate
This riff-raff I suppose,
But really this is not the sort
Of service I expect,
These servants just don’t seem to know
The meaning of respect”.
One wouldn’t find Lucinda
Turning silly doggy tricks,
Or spoiling her coiffure
By chasing rabbits, cats or sticks,
She has much more important things
To sit and contemplate,
Matters more becoming
To her elevated state.
Quite frankly I feel honoured
That, with her fine pedigree
Lucinda still puts-up with
Such a mongrel cur as me!
PDB
Sadly Polly's Lucy died some years ago now, but she really was like her poem!
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
