How to Stop a Labrador Retriever Digging
Even though your cute little puppy may not look like it now, it is going to grow up to be a dog that loves to dig. It is just in his nature. The problem is, you do not want your Labrador Retriever digging up your yard or your beautiful flower bed. The key is to prevent this problem from ever coming up but if it has already begun, there are ways you can eliminate the problem all together. It is going to take some hard work and a lot of understanding and patience on your end but you will be able to pull it off.
One thing that you might want to do is to pick a place in the yard where it is okay for your dog to dig. This way, you will not feel as though you are preventing him from doing what comes naturally to him but you also will not have to worry about having ten thousand holes in your front yard. You can purchase a sandbox, fill it up with sand or dirt, and allow your puppy to dig there. Alternatively, you can just pick a back portion of your yard that no one really sees or cares about and allow the puppy to dig there.
At first, your dog will wander off to the areas in the yard where he is not allowed to dig. This is why it is important for you to keep a close eye on the dog. You want to be right there as soon as you see him start to dig somewhere that is off limited. Give him the “NO” command and redirect him back over to the area that you have designated as the dig area. When your puppy does begin to dig in the right area, you will want to make sure that you are giving him some positive reinforcement. This will encourage him to want to repeat the behavior by always going to that same spot to dig.
If you catch that your dog has dug in an off limits location after the act is done, it is too late to yell at the dog. This will only confuse him because he will not understand that the reason you are yelling is because of the hole he dug twenty minutes ago. Dogs simply do not have the ability to understand a sense of time like we can. You can only correct the puppy if you are catching him in the act.
Another way to ensure that your puppy digs where you want him to is for you to bury something fun. If you bury a bone, or something of that nature, he will get a whiff of it and dig for it. Dogs love to find buried treasure so you just want to make sure that there is going to be something for him to find.
This is not a hard task to handle but it will take a little bit of time. Every breed and every dog within a breed is different. It may just take one day for your puppy to catch on or it could take two weeks. Just be patient and everything will fall into place.