That breed can not tolerate boredom as well as some breeds can. If YOU don't give them some way to burn off BOTH their mental energy (tricks, cues, agility, finding things, games, etc)
if i don't assign him stuff to do instead.
Bonnie is 10 months old and Anzac is 13 months old.
With the digging thing - we had a border collie that was really into digging (bearing in mind she was a working dog and loved her work and got the exercise (mental & physical) she needed through her work), the digging was not simply destructive with her... she needed the outlay of digging when she wasn't working, partly to lie in it and stay cool (as tigerlily said) and partly just a realise after work - she would dig all our veggie patch and plants etc. We made her a sandpit and taught her this is where she would dig by laying tasty things to find in it as well as puzzles to work out that we had buried in it. She learnt that this was the only place to dig and release because she was rewarded for digging in the sandpit and did not get rewarded for digging anywhere else... this took time but was worth it as she was a dog that was not going to be 'cured' from digging just through more exercise or training - she just needed to have that outlay and the sandpit gave her that without any destruction to our garden,
YAY!! KUDOS!!
Sand does stick more compared to soil...Ripleygirl, that is great story, and a brilliant solution you came up with, and great tips on HOW to help your dog find his very own digging spot!
when my dog is in SAND, he comes in covered in with sand. He has sand all over him, mushed into his paws, and all over his sides, even after a shake off, he has sand down in his skin here and there, and his legs are full of sand.
but, oddly, when he is in his dirt hole, he walks out of it pretty clean. Odd. Now, sometimes, if he has recently maintained the hole, but re-digging it a bit, well, then his paws are dirty, but, his sides are still clean.
but it did save our garden at the time from a dog that didn't want to be destructive but did seem to need to dig... You just have to clean the floors a bit more if the dog then comes into the house!! The only other thing I've noticed with some dogs that dig, not through destructiveness but because they have a need to dig is the 'root smell' thing. Some dogs go mad for the smell of roots of plants that are buried. Dogs with this, need to be given an outlay for this. These dogs only dig when there is the smell of a fresh root just under the ground and they go mad for this ( like a cat smelling catnip for the first time). In my experience these dogs seem to need to have an outlay for this type of smell - taking the sandpit example, burying root veg in it (such as little slips of swede, carrot or parsnip) could save a vegitable patch from being destroyed.
