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.

Brian Henderson composed these
thoughts and posted them :

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.


This time of year there are often grubs under the soil. Or perhaps he's
after moles whose livelihood depends on those grubs. Treat the lawn for
grubs and insects (keep the dog off of it, or he might develop renal
failure) until the bugs/grubs are gone.
If that fails.. Get him a sandpile that he can dig in.

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:10:41 GMT, Brian Henderson
, clicked their heels and said:

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.

stop leaving him outside.


--
Janet B
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bestfr...bedience/album

As Diddy said, that sounds an awful lot like he's digging after prey,
not at random - I'd be checking for moles and/or field mice. Akitas
usually have a fairly high prey drive, and IIRC that extends to vermin.


And as Janet said, if you don't leave him outside unattended, it won't
happen.

On 19 Jan 2006 14:03:54 -0800, "cimawr" , clicked
their heels and said:


And as Janet said, if you don't leave him outside unattended, it won't
happen.

sounds a bit flippant to some, I realize, but digging, without someone
there to correct, is just so self-rewarding. It FEELS good, even if
there isn't a clear reason what's triggering it. This dog may not be
the brightest bulb in the socket, but I bet he's smart enough to know
when nobody is there to correct him.


--
Janet B
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bestfr...bedience/album

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 14:17:04 -0600, diddy wrote:

This time of year there are often grubs under the soil. Or perhaps he's
after moles whose livelihood depends on those grubs. Treat the lawn for
grubs and insects (keep the dog off of it, or he might develop renal
failure) until the bugs/grubs are gone.

Nope, he isn't digging up anything and he isn't burying anything, he's
just digging because he wants to dig, so far as we can tell.

If that fails.. Get him a sandpile that he can dig in.

He's already got an area where he's allowed to dig, he's got a hole
there that he sleeps in during the day. He's just decided that
*EVERYWHERE* is his new digging spot.

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:18:07 -0500, Janet B
, clicked their heels and said:

without someone
there to correct,

as I look back, it seems there has been NO CORRECTION, just trying of
deterrents. Perhaps this dog needs to actually be told no, in
whatever fashion he responds to. And I kind of doubt the kids are out
there with him 24/7!


--
Janet B
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bestfr...bedience/album

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 15:37:02 -0500, Janet B
wrote:

stop leaving him outside.

If he's outside for 5 minutes, he digs and during the day, he's just
too big to be in the house unsupervised. He's never done this before,
that's not a reasonable option.

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 22:21:52 GMT, Brian Henderson
, clicked their heels and said:

If he's outside for 5 minutes, he digs and during the day, he's just
too big to be in the house unsupervised. He's never done this before,
that's not a reasonable option.

There's no such thing as too big to be in a house unsupervised. To
ill behaved possibly. What TRAINING have you done?



--
Janet B
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bestfr...bedience/album

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:18:07 -0500, Janet B
wrote:

sounds a bit flippant to some, I realize, but digging, without someone
there to correct, is just so self-rewarding. It FEELS good, even if
there isn't a clear reason what's triggering it. This dog may not be
the brightest bulb in the socket, but I bet he's smart enough to know
when nobody is there to correct him.

Which I could understand if he had done it all along, but he hasn't.
It's a new behavior with no known trigger. If we see him digging, he
gets corrected, but he'll literally wait until you turn your back,
then be back at it again. He's not digging for anything, so far as I
can tell he's never caught any gophers, we never see him chewing on
anything, etc.