Dog has just started to master the art of digging. Sometimes I will leave my back door open for her to come and go as she pleases...but when I do that is when she starts digging. Is there any real remedy for the digging part in huskies? Definitely curious for any answers out there.

Thanks.

You can put her poop in the holes and she'll stop digging there but then she'll probably just pick another place to dig. I've heard of straw being used but I don't know how effective it is. You could give her one area where she is allowed to dig and redirect her to that area any time she wants to dig. I've heard of several people who use sandboxes to do this.

Digging is just one of those things we have learned to accept.

hahaha...if you find a solution to this..please feel free to tell me.

I've tried the poop thing and found out that didn't help. Now the dogs have a fenced area in the back where they have dug not 1 but 4 HUGE holes! I ask them all the time where the hell do they plan on digging to china??...lol.

Anyways as Roxy said...there's really not much to do about it but accept it.

The poop in the hole works for Lucian. His poop stinks horribly though, lol. I let him dig under the swing set in the back yard cause it's mostly sand anyway. I'll chase him away from anywhere else he digs though. Hopefully he'll catch on sooner or later he's only allowed to dog in the one area.

Set aside a special area in the yard where your dog is allowed to dig and teach them that digging there is acceptable and encouraged, while discouraging digging everywhere else. I set up a sand box for my sibe for him to unleash all his digging desires and he absolutely loves it and uses his sandbox regularly. On the off chance that he decides to dig elsewhere I fill the wanted hole with the dogs' feces and that generally stops the unwanted digging. I find it helpful to occasionally reinforce the digging in the sandbox with positive reinforcement, as I find that if I don't he tends to think he can start digging elsewhere.

You can't remove that desire to dig so the next best thing is to channel that energy appropriately. Plus, I find that digging tires him out pretty quickly compared to just running around in the yard.

Dang good advice with the sandboxes guys! I really like that idea. When I take Juno to the beach, she will dig trenches along the beach. She won't just dig a hole....she is digging a war style trench hahaha. It's really funny! I have a video of it on my phone but I don't know if I can upload on here. It's a riot.

We have started the feces in the unwanted holes and leave other appropriate are holes alone. So far at 9 mo he is letting this work 80% of the time. I am hoping that it works 100% when he is 100% off runner in our fenced yard as he should quickly learn he can dig his heart out in the woods but the lawn is a no no. But right now he does have two holes he is allowed in the lawn cause he is not 100% fence trained! Never thought of the sandbox that is a great idea but I have the woods so it is similar!
My previous husky used to have a "hiding" hole in the woods you could walk with in two feet of it and only see his nose and at night forget about it you could not find him in his hole!

mine would dig a hole next to the sandbox

Shaqua gets an area she is allowed to dig in and she will leave all the flower beds/garden alone....although when I am planting new bushes/flowers she will dig next to me. She is a master a mimicking behavior.

Since the beginning she was allowed to dig in the far back of the yard no matter where I lived. Now, no matter where I move, she just seems to know not to dig in landscaped areas, to only dig in the back where there is just grass.

madisonmenece wrote:

mine would dig a hole next to the sandbox

omg this made me laugh out loud hahaha.

Poop in the holes stopped digging in that particular spot. But then he would just pick the spot right next to it, In our new place i left them on hole and filled in the others and they seem to be happy to have the one hole so far.

oh gosh this thread cracks me up. this has recently become an issue for us as well. we have one patch of yard where grass doesnt grow because of the pine needles that cover it dont allow for grass to come up which is where kiba digs. At first i was like "oh look at her first wittle husky hole she dug" and now im like "GOOD GOSH YOU DUG A FRIGGIN CRATER IN 5 MINUTES FLAT". Im gonna try the poop thing now!

Sunday i gave her a bath and groomed her and made her look perfect. then it rains, i let her out in the backyard to do her business....5 minutes later i look out and she's covered in red mud digging. Needless to say, its not cute anymore

KibaHope wrote:

oh gosh this thread cracks me up. this has recently become an issue for us as well. we have one patch of yard where grass doesnt grow because of the pine needles that cover it dont allow for grass to come up which is where kiba digs. At first i was like "oh look at her first wittle husky hole she dug" and now im like "GOOD GOSH YOU DUG A FRIGGIN CRATER IN 5 MINUTES FLAT". Im gonna try the poop thing now!

Sunday i gave her a bath and groomed her and made her look perfect. then it rains, i let her out in the backyard to do her business....5 minutes later i look out and she's covered in red mud digging. Needless to say, its not cute anymore

hahahaha....nope not so darn cute! I watch her EVERYTIME she goes out now. At least for now....maybe I will do the sandbox thing sometime soon.

Did everyone on here build their own?

nolesooner wrote:

Did everyone on here build their own?

Here's mine built February 2011, I used a raised garden bed as the border for mine:
Dakota's new sandbox

We had a rather large tree stump in our back yard.

The day they removed it their stump grinder was broken. I was in a time crunch so I built the fence as fast as I could and never got the stump removed.

Last summer I "hide" the stump by building a sandbox around it using 6 foot fence pickets. both for my god son and the dogs.....


They still tend to tear up the back yard, though it honestly has more to do with the bunny who lives there than anything else I'm sure.

~Chris~

we have a mulch pile in a corner of the yard and he digs that up. It's no biggie cause the mulch is easy to push back into the same spot so he get's to start fresh every week or so lol.

My puppies eat mulch, lol.

Hee HEE Bourbon ate the mulch during the first several months but now at 9 mo he does not mess with the mulch.
He is learning that the deadwood in the woods is much better than mulch and digging out there is more fun! He digs to China out there (and catches mice/moles). He only digs or eats actually a small hole 3" wide and 2-4" deep in the yard now. YEAH improvements I could care less hole big the hole in the woods area or how many there are.

Huskyluv wrote:

nolesooner wrote:

Did everyone on here build their own?

Here's mine built February 2011, I used a raised garden bed as the border for mine:
Dakota's new sandbox

Where did you get that raised garden bed? How much was it and how deep can they go? Those were AWESOME videos of your dog digging around. This is exactly what I would like to do.

You can get similar raised beds anywhere really. The one in the video I bought at Costco that year, it was $100 and came with 2 separate raised beds. I used one for the sandbox and the other I used for growing vegetables and herbs.

There are a lot of varieties not quite as cheaper as two for 100 w cover but similar at Sams club and I saw a bunchat sears and tsc