AAGGGGGGGRRRRHHHHHH i want to kill them!!

@nugget (77)
August 1, 2007 1:02am CST
hey guys i just woke up early to find my pond had drained. The cause of this you may be thinking? MY DOG decided to big a great big hole near my uv filter! it fell into the hole and all the water passing through it went into the ground instead of back into my pond! As you can tell i am not a happy bunny! Can anyone help me stop my dog digging? she usually does it at night before i go to bed so i find it in the morning! I know it is in the nature to dig but there must be something i can do?? She is a greyhound cross and i am trying to do up my garden but its 2steps forward three steps back becuase of her! thanks
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8 responses
@Seraphine (385)
• Finland
1 Aug 07
Does she sleep outside or how come she even has this opportunity? Dogs want to be with their family. If she sleeps outside, bring her inside the house. She might just be digging because she's bored. Make sure she gets plenty of exercise a few times a day as tired dogs are good dogs. You can get her a sand box and teach her to dig only in it. Every time she starts digging anywhere you don't want, take her to the sandbox and praise her when she digs there instead. This does of course mean you cannot ever let her out unsupervised, you need to be there with her so you can teach her what she is and isn't allowed to do.
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@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
hey thank you for the reply. She does not sleep outside i just leave my back door open all the time when i am in so she can go in and out as she pleases, I watch through the window usually but at night i can not see, i think she knows this and plays havoc! I also take her out for a walk for atleast 2hours if not more a day, as i take her to the beach. If i sit on the sand for a rest she continues to run around like mad and then decides to dig in the sand too!! lol. thanks again
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@smileonstar (4007)
• United States
1 Aug 07
hi there... well, i know how u feel about it. If you can keep her inside it might be better or get a cage??? my dogs do the same thing and i can't grown anything in my back yard. so now all empty and just them there.... digging all over. lolz... oh u can get her something to play with, such as born or toys... she might be busy with that and she wont digging again. just try to help
@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
hey i dont really belive in cages although they are pretty handy at times. she has a lot of toys and i bought her a bone which is, i think, a cow leg so it is very big she can hardly lift it lol
@shuz697 (1043)
• United States
1 Aug 07
sorry but I have to say ..lol... dont you just love dogs.!!!. :-) Ive been there done that with holes and although I never completly stopped my dog from digging I did find that spraying Citronella around EVERYWHERE on the ground worked.. He hated the smell .. If I sprayed a certain part of the yard or something I didnt want him to chew he wouldn't touch it.. The only problem was I had to do it about every 2 days cause once the smell would go he would dig again.. I think its worth a try it worked for me and its pretty cheap. You can just buy a bottle of Citronella Oil and put it in a spray bottle and your set. Good Luck..
@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
wow ive never heard of citronella oil before it sounds like a good idea though. I will have to try and find it out somewhere thank you very much for the advice
@procezx (76)
• India
1 Aug 07
Well its the nature to dig because they often chase before the smell of the food material or the stranger smells. They also dig to sharpen their nails. So you can do one thing decide one area in the garden or a big 4feet X 4feet X 1foot high box fill it with sand+Earth+ Pebbels and just hide a play-bone their. Just lead her to that sand box and train her to search the Bone as soon as she search the bone she will play with it. Next you can also hide some food bones that could well guide her whenever she feel to dig that digging in a particular place is rewarding. Alternatively get her some good running before sleep so that she can rest and leave her digging priority. And if you wish to stop her digging habit just put some trap like material that bounces but not hurts her when she get near your water tank once or twice she will examine that place and after that bouncy finally she will leave that place as such. But also put that alternative box for her digging. One of the solutions that I adopted for my dog was a very "fat felt piece" that I used to keep to release his habit of digging. As the "felt-pieces" are very hard and smooth so while digging action my dog really enjoyed it. The smoothness allowed my dog to perform his action of digging but "felt piece" was tough enough to get teared. So he did digging action five or six times then leave it and began to play with teething objects like woods play-bones etc.
@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
thank you for the advice She has a million and one toys to play with but for some reason she has more fun digging!! lol
@gyw2124 (41)
• Nigeria
1 Aug 07
its just a dog i think you caused it yourself if u had given your dog a proper training it wouldnt have happened
@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
i dont force my dog to dig its nature and also she is rescue. if i had her as a pup i would have been able to train her a lot better.
@wayhuck (55)
• Malaysia
1 Aug 07
Logically, in the long term you'll lose more money on your monthly water bills. How about moving the uv filter to somewhere else? You can tie your dog to limit her field of activity, but she won't be happy with it. uv filter can be move to somewhere else, an alternative route to your pond. The cost of moving the uv filter and reconnecting it to your pond is better than long term money losing on your water bills. (Just an opinion) Good Luck, and don't be mad on the dog. She doesn't think like a human cause she's a dog.
@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
hey thanx for the advice this is the first time she ever dug near my pond so my uv wasnt a great problem to me. I was intending on sorting it out when my garden was better as i cant move it anywhere else at the moment lol
• United States
2 Aug 07
She is lonesome or bored. She should be in the house with the family, as a member she is. If this is not what you are doing, than put up a fence near the uv filter. Do not scold her, or punish her please.
• United States
1 Aug 07
oh man that sucks. unfortunatly greyhounds are great diggers..and it sounds like your cross got a full share of that trait! you might try surrounding the pond with a layer of smaller grade gravel. just small enough to be of size to get stuck in between her toes. and probably a couple inches deep. hopefully the discomfort of painful small rocks will deter her from tearing into the area again. like the person above states...it sounds like she may not be getting enough exercise. a young greyhound tends to be full of energy.
@nugget (77)
1 Aug 07
hey I tries to put pebbles around my boarder and around my pond but she seemed to just dig anyway! she didnt really care that they were probably a little bit painful lol thanks for the advice though
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