How to Stop a Dog From Digging in the Yard

Find out why he is digging first, because there are five distinct causes and the fix for each is different. Boredom, heat, hunting, breed instinct, and escape all look like the same hole in the ground and none of them respond to the same solution. Once you have the cause right, most cases improve within two to three weeks.

Digging is also one of the behaviors I am most willing to redirect rather than eliminate. For some dogs, digging is not a problem to solve, it is a need to route somewhere acceptable.

Diagnose by location and pattern

Boredom digging. Random holes scattered around the yard. Happens when he is out alone for long stretches. Often paired with pacing, fence running, and general restlessness. The most common cause by a wide margin.

Cooling. Shallow, wide depressions in shade, under decks, next to the house foundation, or in flower beds where the soil is damp. Peaks in summer, and here in Florida it is common from May through September. He lies in them.

Hunting. Focused, determined digging in one specific spot. Nose down, sometimes pausing to listen. He is after moles, voles, gophers, or grubs. Often near tree roots or along irrigation lines where soil stays soft.

Breed instinct. Terriers, dachshunds, huskies, and beagles dig because that is what they were selected to do for hundreds of years. Patterned, enthusiastic, and not going away entirely.

Escape digging. At the base of the fence, usually at a corner or behind a shrub. This is a containment emergency, not a landscaping problem.

Walk the yard and look at where the holes are. The location tells you almost everything.

If it is boredom

A yard is not enrichment. A dog alone in a yard for three hours will invent a job, and digging is a very good job.

Cut the yard time. Most boredom digging stops when unsupervised yard time drops from hours to twenty minutes. The yard becomes a place to potty and hang out with you, not a place to be stored.

Feed meals through work. Snuffle mats, puzzle feeders, food scattered in the grass. A twenty minute meal instead of a ninety second one.

Give a daily chew. Twenty to forty minutes of hard chewing is calming at a physiological level and it competes directly with digging as an activity.

Ten minutes of training a day. Mentally expensive and most dogs sleep afterward.

Sniffing walks. Twenty minutes on a long line where he chooses the route. Does more than forty minutes of heel walking.

Two weeks of that resolves most boredom digging without addressing the digging directly.

If it is heat

Do not train this. Solve it.

Give him shade that actually works, meaning a shaded structure with airflow, not a dog house that turns into an oven. Provide a kiddie pool with a few inches of water, or a cooling mat. Bring him inside during the hottest part of the day.

A dog digging a cooling pit is telling you he is too hot. In this climate that is a welfare issue before it is a behavior one.

If it is hunting

You will not train a dog out of hunting a mole he can hear.

Deal with the pest problem, using methods that are safe for a dog who will eat whatever he digs up. Talk to a pest service and tell them there is a dog on the property. Avoid poisons entirely.

Until it is resolved, supervise yard time or fence off the active area.

If it is breed instinct, build a dig pit

This is my favorite solution in dog training because it works with the animal instead of against him.

Build it. A sandbox, a raised bed frame, a hard plastic kiddie pool, or a marked off corner. Four by four feet is plenty. Fill it with loose sand or a sand and soil mix, which is easier on nails than heavy clay.

Make it obviously better than the lawn. Bury three or four things he wants. Chews, a stuffed toy, a bully stick, food. Let him watch you bury one at first.

Take him to it and encourage him. Dig in it yourself with your hands. Most dogs join in within a minute. Mark and pay when he digs in the pit.

Twenty reps over the first week. Take him to the pit, let him find something, praise it.

Interrupt digging elsewhere and redirect. One neutral sound, walk him to the pit, help him find something buried there. Pay it.

Refresh it weekly. Bury something new. A pit with nothing in it stops being interesting.

Two to three weeks and most instinct diggers relocate. This is genuinely one of the higher success rate interventions I use.

If it is escape digging

Different priority entirely, because the failure mode is a dog in traffic.

Install an L footer. Wire mesh laid flat along the base of the fence on the inside, secured to the fence and covered with soil or mulch. Dogs dig at the base, hit wire, and stop. Cheap and very effective.

Or bury the fence twelve inches down, or lay pavers along the fence line.

Until it is fixed, he is on a long line with you in the yard or he is not in the yard. Every successful escape is heavily reinforced and teaches him new routes.

Also check the gate hardware and microchip registration today.

What does not work

Filling holes with his own feces. Old advice, does not work, and some dogs dig it right back up.

Chili powder or cayenne in the holes. Can genuinely hurt his eyes and nose. I would not.

Burying a balloon or chicken wire in the hole to scare him. Startles some dogs off one specific hole, then they dig a new one two feet over.

Punishing him after the fact. He cannot connect a correction to something he did forty minutes ago, and you will get a dog who avoids you in the yard.

Leaving him out longer to tire him out. Yard time is not exercise. It is unsupervised free time, which is exactly when digging happens.

What it looks like when it is working

New holes stop appearing while old ones stay. He goes to the pit on his own. He settles in the yard rather than patrolling and working. He comes and finds you instead of finding a project.

Timeline

Boredom digging, two to three weeks. Dig pit relocation, two to three weeks. Heat and pest causes, immediate once the underlying issue is fixed. Escape digging, immediate with an L footer.

One honest note: some terriers and huskies will always dig somewhere. The dig pit is not a compromise for these dogs, it is the actual answer.

My free Calmer Dog blueprint covers the enrichment and settle work that removes the motivation behind most yard digging. Download the Calmer Dog blueprint.

Ready to train your dog?

Every drill in this article comes from the WorldWide K9 Academy course library. If you want the full step by step system, start with the $5 intro course.