Many dogs habitually scratch the ground with their back feet after they eliminate, in a gesture that is similar to a cat covering its feces. Sometimes owners have to take care not to get hit by flung dirt – or even the feces! Photo by 179 LLC, Getty Images
It’s a familiar ritual. A dog urinates or defecates and then scuffs dirt, grass, or gravel into the air in what looks like a celebration or at least a mark of completion. Why do dogs do this? Here are some theories.
Dogs kick the ground to mark their territory (scent marking) in order to keep other dogs or animals away or to notify them of the kicking dog’s presence.
Kicking the ground stimulates scent glands in the dog’s feet, spreading pheromones (scent marking, continued).
This is an instinctive behavior, inherited rather than learned.
Kicking the ground is a form of visual messaging or a social display.
Kicking the ground is a way of hiding or burying waste.
Some studies have shown that males perform this ritual more often than females, and males do it significantly more when observed by other dogs.
In 2019, Psychology Today published “Ground Scratching by Dogs: Scent, Sight, and Ecstasy” by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. According to Dr. Bekoff, dogs kick the grass for many reasons, depending on who else is around and what they’re trying to communicate with visual, olfactory, and auditory signals. He says that dogs who do this behavior enjoy it, and it appears to be meaningful to them.
If your dog’s grass kicking damages your lawn or causes other problems, create interesting distractions and reward alternative behaviors until this one is under control. Otherwise, take Dr. Bekoff’s advice: “Let your dogs finish their message – give them time to scratch after they have peed or pooped – before continuing your walk.”
If you want to teach your dog a new behavior, you must first “show” the dog what to do and make sure the behavior is reliable before adding a cue. For example, if I’m attempting to teach a dog to sit, I would help to elicit the behavior by first luring, capturing, or shaping the movement. Our dogs know how to sit, right? They just don’t know how to sit when we say “sit.”
To lurethe dog into a sit, hold a piece of food in your hand, place it at the dog’s nose and move it up and back over the dog’s head. This causes the dog to look up, rock back a bit, and as she does so, her bottom goes down. When the dog’s bottom hits the floor, you’d mark the desired behavior with the click of a clicker (or a verbal marker, such as the word “Yes!”) and give the dog a yummy piece of food.
To capturea sit, merely wait patiently and observe the dog. When the dog happens to move into the sit position, click/treat.
To shapea sit, consider all the tiny parts of the entire sit position (looking up, rocking back, rear end begins to move closer to the floor), and reinforce each of those tiny parts toward the final behavior of sitting.
Once the dog is reliably (at least 80 to 90 percent of the time) performing the behavior, you can begin to incorporate whatever cue you wish by using your desired cue as the dog performs the behavior.
For some reason, dog owners often have difficulty distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate play. Some may think that perfectly acceptable play behavior is bullying because it involves growling, biting, and apparently pinning the playmate to the ground. Appropriate play can, in fact, look and sound quite ferocious.
The difference is in the response of the playmate. If both dogs appear to be having a good time and no one’s getting hurt, it’s usually fine to allow the play to continue. Thwarting your dog’s need to play by stopping him every time he engages another dog, even if it’s rough play, can sometimes lead to other behavior problems.
With a bully, the playmate clearly does not enjoy the interaction. The softer dog may offer multiple appeasement and deference signals that are largely or totally ignored by the canine bully. The harassment continues, or escalates.
Any time one play partner is obviously not having a good time, it’s wise to intervene. A traumatic play experience can damage the softer dog’s confidence and potentially induce a life-long fear-aggression or “Reactive Rover” response — definitely not a good thing!
Some bullies seem to spring from the box fullblown, meaning there could be a genetic element behind this type of personality. However, there can certainly be a learned component of any bullying behavior. As Jean Donaldson reminds us, the act of harassing a “non-consenting dog” is in and of itself reinforcing for bullies.
By definition, a behavior that’s reinforced continues or increases — hence the importance of intervening with a bully at the earliest possible moment, rather than letting the behavior become more and more ingrained through reinforcement. As with most behavior modification, prognosis is brightest if the dog is young, if he hasn’t had much chance to practice the unwanted behavior, and if he has not been repeatedly successful at it.
To prevent your dog from becoming the neighborhood bully, download Canine Aggression now.
Most dogs don’t want to bite or fight. The behaviors that signal pending aggression are intended first and foremost to warn away a threat. The dog who doesn’t want to bite or fight tries his hardest to make you go away. He may begin with subtle signs of discomfort that are often overlooked by many humans – tension in body movements, a stiffly wagging tail.
“Please,” he says gently, “I don’t want you to be here.”
If you continue to invade his comfort zone, his threats may intensify, with more tension, a hard stare, and a low growl. “I mean it,” he says more firmly, “I want you to leave.”
If those are ignored, he may become more insistent, with an air snap, a bump of the nose, or even open mouth contact that closes gently on an arm but doesn’t break skin. “Please,” he says, “don’t make me bite you.”
If that doesn’t succeed in convincing you to leave, the dog may feel compelled to bite hard enough to break skin in his efforts to protect self, territory, members of his social group, or other valuable resources.
In many cases, people with difficult dogs spend most of their time trying to get their dogs not to do something don’t jump, don’t bark, don’t pull, don’t lunge. Agility gives those dogs something easy and enjoyable to do, and do with enthusiasm!
Agility is a game that you play with your dog. Play is emotionally incompatible with the emotions linked to aggression. If your dog is playful she is less likely to bark or lunge at a person or other dog.
Just as “rope courses” build confidence in people, agility course training builds confidence in dogs. As dogs learn to leap over hurdles, run through tunnels, and balance over planks, their confidence increases. Since most aggression is based on fear, this increase in confidence is helpful. A more confident dog is usually a less fearful dog.
Every part of agility requires a certain amount of self-control – some parts require a lot – which is always a benefit for an aggressive dog. Once a dog has learned that agility is a fun game, she will be eager to start performing the obstacles. Before she is allowed to play, however, she has to wait at the start line until her handler releases her. This is just the kind of self-control game that is beneficial to a dog with aggression issues.
Dogs also have to exhibit extraordinary self-control at an obstacle called the table. At this obstacle, the dog is asked to leap onto the table top and sit or down, holding that position for five seconds. Most dogs consider it more fun to be moving. Learning to hold still earns her the reward (positive reinforcement) of getting to continue with more running and jumping.
Agility can even help canines who don’t enjoy the company of other dogs learn to ignore them. They may even learn that dogs near agility equipment signal impending fun a little classical conditioning.
So, your dog’s not a fan of your at-home spa day, but his coat requires regular brushing, and you want to keep his nails manageable for his own comfort. What can you do? Here are five tips to help make grooming a bit more pleasant for all involved:
Practice all the parts of a grooming session, without the grooming
Decide how you’ll both be most comfortable during grooming and practice this set-up without performing any grooming. Maybe it’s with your dog atop a grooming table or maybe it’s with your dog in your lap. Whatever the set-up, make sure your dog can access it on his own, so he has a choice to participate or not – but treats only happen during participation. (We all value the freedom to choose!) Practice the set-up without grooming daily to help build and maintain a positive association with the situation. Otherwise, your dog will see your set-up and immediately think, “Uh oh!”
Use high-value rewards
If I’m performing a task I find unpleasant, but my boss is providing a nice bonus for my participation, I still don’t love the task at hand, but I have a reason to feel a bit better about it. The same goes with our dogs. Don’t be afraid to pay generously and use your dog’s favorite treats while grooming. If you have a helper, they can feed treats as you groom. If you’re working alone, try stuffing high-value food into a Toppl or Kong, or blend it up and smear it onto a lick mat to keep your dog busy while you work. If your dog isn’t food motivated but is obsessed with a favorite toy, use that instead.
Try grooming a tired dog
For some dogs, it’s easier to tolerate grooming when they’re tired and content after a long day of enriching activity. Go out for a long walk in a new area and give your dog plenty of time to sniff his way around and take in all the new olfactory information. If the area is appropriate, you can even use a long line in place of your regular short leash to simulate some off-leash time where your dog can really enjoy the sights, sounds – and smells! Or schedule a play date with appropriate dog friends. Some dogs find it easier to go with the flow and accept light grooming when they’re tired. Other dogs might be edgy and irritable if disturbed when tired, so be aware of your dog’s body language and respect what she’s telling you.
Break it down
Accept that you may not be able to groom the entire dog in one sitting. If your dog struggles with grooming, try making sessions much shorter and end the session before it’s turned into a prolonged struggle and do a little more tomorrow. You’ll both be happier!
Be patient, respect your dog and train for the behavior you want
If your dog isn’t a fan of grooming, find a positive reinforcement trainer who can help you create a training program that’s right for your dog. Whether the issue is trimming nails or cooperating on the grooming table for a thorough brushing, a thoughtful training program can help improve the situation for both species! Just like humans, all dogs are different and what technique might work quickly for one dog can take longer – or need adjustment – with another. While it can be tempting to use force and “strong arm” a dog into compliance via restraint in order to get the job done this time, in the long run, that will make the issue worse. Taking the time to make grooming enjoyable for your dog – or least something they willingly tolerate – will benefit you and your dog for years to come.
There are many canine behaviors that parallel human behaviors. Yawning is one of these. Why does your dog yawn? There are lots of theories about why dogs (and humans) yawn, but there has been surprisingly little research into this behavior. Here are some theories about why we all yawn:
Boredom or drowsiness. There are some studies that indicate an increase in arousal levels and heart rates following a yawn, probably due to increased blood flow. This helps wake the yawner up!
A dog’s yawns are usually accompanied by other classic signs of canine stress: flattened ears, lowered body posture, avoidance of eye contact, lip-licking, and muscle tension. If your dog yawns when you pet her, she might be telling you that she finds petting at least a little stressful.
Empathy/Contagion. Cross-species contagion has been documented: Seeing your dog yawn can elicit a yawn from you, and vice versa. There is some science to support this theory that these are empathy yawns, although the science doesn’t explain why just hearing or reading the word “yawn” can elicit yawning. Yes, I’m betting you are yawning while reading this!
Communication: A dog yawning to another dog is not a sign of “submission” (as in, “Please don’t hurt me!”). Rather, the yawning dog is simply peace-making by deflecting tension with a “I don’t want any trouble” signal.
Look at the whole dog
Like so many other canine body language signals, yawning has multiple meanings. If you want to understand what your dog’s particular yawn means, you need to look at the whole dog, then draw your conclusion about what your dog’s yawn is telling you.
I walk with my dogs in a number of locations in my local “wildlife area,” which consists of thousands of acres of land surrounding the Feather River, which feeds and then comes out of the gigantic Oroville Dam, here in Oroville, California. Dogs are allowed off-leash, except in the spring when birds are nesting. This is absolutely the best time of year to go walking there, because it’s not hot, the snakes are mostly hibernating or very slow, the stickery dried grasses are giving way to soft green grass, and, of course, we can still walk off leash.
Depending on which part of the wildlife area I go to, the dogs may see deer; the woodsy parts of the wildlife area are loaded with deer (and hunting is allowed there within certain seasons,). And no matter what part of the area I visit, they will see rabbits. We always see rabbits. This gives us a good opportunity to practice our recalls and be richly, handsomely, wildly rewarded for not chasing the deer and/or rabbits.
Each of my dogs has had a phase where not chasing the wildlife was a big challenge. Otto got through his phase the quickest. Of course, he’s 15 years old now and maybe my memory is fading, but I remember him deciding against responding to my recall cue in favor of chasing a wild animal maybe once or twice. It must have been more but it’s been a long, long time.
Woody was far more tempted as a youth, and we had more than a handful of failures to resist the urge to chase. Today, at 7 years old, he will reliably recall to me if he spots a deer or jackrabbit at a distance, but he might take off after a rabbit – and fail to immediately “leave it” in response to my shouts – if one pops up from right under his paws in the tall grass. This exact scenario happened recently, and though he did launch a pursuit, he also stopped in response when I yelled “WOODY OFF!!” He got the entire contents of my treat pouch, and hours of praise and massage, after that response. He’s a good dog!
But nearly 1-year-old Boone is going to be my Waterloo. In the past two months, ever since the suicidal squirrel incident, he’s been on fire to find and chase animals. And damned if he has not detected and gone flying off into the woods after deer TWICE in recent weeks. He’s come back within a couple minutes each time, but harassing wildlife is an absolutely unacceptable behavior, a danger to himself, the deer (of course), and others. So I recently bought a 33-foot long line and vowed that Boone is not going to be allowed off leash on our trails for at least the next year or so, and maybe never! Using a long line allows the dog to still romp and sniff and (to a certain extent) run and play with the other dogs while on a walk, but prevents him from taking off in pursuit of animals or birds. And it can be a huge help in teaching him a solid recall in the face of these temptations.
Doubling Down: It’s Critical to Prevent the Dog From Practicing Unwanted Behavior
As I explained in the squirrel blog post, it almost doesn’t matter how much or how fabulously you reinforce the dog for coming to you when he’s called, if the reinforcement he receives for not coming to you when called is even greater. And what is greater than the thrill of chasing after wild animals? For some dogs, including Boone, apparently nothing rates as high on the “valuable reinforcement” scale. And he’s not likely to forget the thrill anytime soon, because it’s been randomly reinforced by these incidents of my inattention and lack of commitment to keeping him on leash. But that’s over!
Well, almost over. Just the other day, I took Boone and Woody for a walk in the wildlife area with my friend Jessie, who owns two dogs, both of which happen to be my former foster puppies. Nova is four years old now, and Nyx is about 18 months old. Jessie had Nyx on leash, because she wasn’t responding reliably each time we called our dogs back to us, and Boone was on his new long line. Managing a long line when you are walking with another person and several dogs is a challenge, and at one point I was looking down and trying to sort out a minor tangle as we walked, when off-leash Nova apparently flushed a jackrabbit and took off like a shot. Because I wasn’t looking, and wasn’t holding the end of the long line firmly, Boone, too, took off like a shot and the line flew out of my hands like a whip.
Nova, who is usually a very good dog, did not respond to calls to “leave it” or come back; she and Boone, who was trailing 33 feet of leash, flew out of sight down the dirt road. Woody, my very good dog – the best dog of the day – didn’t follow. Nyx would have been happy to join the hunt, but thank goodness she was on leash.
I once heard a trainer instruct a class on the proper use of a rolled-up newspaper for training, and I will customize that advice here for myself: “Roll it up and then hit yourself over the head while repeating, ‘I will pay attention and hold firmly to the end of the long line from now on!’”
Boone, I’m sorry for letting you down by letting you off-leash more times than you could handle, buddy. Now I’ll work on finding ways to make being on leash more fun for you, with tug toys and perhaps a toy on a “flirt pole” to chase as we walk. But no more hunting for you, my friend.
Diet and weight play an important role in managing diabetes in dogs.
On a big dog, one pound wouldn’t matter, but for Ella, that’s 10 percent of her body weight, and it’s noticeable on her small frame. But it’s her health, not her looks, that concerns me.
Lean dogs live longer, healthier lives than those who are overweight. A 14-year study showed that dogs fed 25 percent fewer calories than their freefed littermates lived nearly two years longer and showed fewer visible signs of aging. They also were a full three years older before they needed treatment for arthritis.
Health problems that are more common in overweight dogs include pancreatitis, diabetes, heart disease, disc disease, ruptured cruciate ligaments, hip dysplasia and other forms of joint disease, surgical complications, compromised immune system, and even many forms of cancer.
As many as half of all dogs in the U.S. are overweight, but the majority of their owners are in denial. A recent study found that veterinarians considered 47 percent of their patients to be overweight, yet only 17 percent of the owners agreed. If you can’t easily feel your dog’s ribs and shoulder blades, her waist is not discernable (a tuck behind the ribs), or there’s a roll of fat at the base of her tail, it’s time to face reality and put your dog on a diet.
Because we’re so used to seeing overweight dogs, many folks think a dog at his proper weight is too skinny. However, as long as the hips and spine are not protruding and no more than the last rib or two are slightly visible, he’s not too thin. If in doubt, ask your vet for an opinion, or go to an agility competition to see what fit dogs look like.
To learn more about how you can help your dog lose weight, or prevent him from getting too big in the first place, download the Weight & Fitness Handbook from Whole Dog Journal today.
Your dog can’t move around the way he used to. He might have trouble with stairs or his favorite window seat, and you feel his disappointment. Fortunately, a whole industry supports canine mobility with ramps and stairs that can help him feel younger again.
What are dog ramps and why use them?
Ramps are flat sloping boards that replace stairs with a gradual incline that’s easy to walk up or down. Most dog ramps are made of wood, plastic, or metal, and their surfaces include carpet, fabric, artificial grass, and nonskid materials.
When positioned between the floor and furniture or between the ground and your car’s door, a dog ramp can:
Reduce joint strain and arthritis pain.
Assist older dogs who can no longer jump into a car or onto a sofa or grooming table.
Prevent injury to you or whomever helps the dog climb up or down.
Reduce stress or anxiety associated with mobility tasks.
Help developing puppies stay safe by preventing hard landings.
Help dogs of all ages recover from illness, accidents, injuries, or surgery.
Dog ramps come in all kinds of materials, sizes, and price ranges. Here are some considerations.
If you plan to use the ramp indoors and out, look for durable materials that survive weather changes.
An adjustable ramp can be used in different situations or with different vehicles.
A folding or collapsible ramp will be easy to transport.
Be sure the ramp will fit in your vehicle if you plan to travel with it.
Nonskid surfaces, safety rails, and sturdy construction help prevent accidents.
The ramp should be an appropriate size for your dog and it should support her weight.
Be sure the ramp’s slope is comfortable for your dog. Small dogs and dogs with mobility problems often need a gentle or easy slope.
Check to be sure you can lift, extend, adjust, or move the ramp easily.
Look for a ramp that is easy to clean so it will stay fresh and look attractive.
What is the best dog ramp for my car?
Think about where you’re likely to go with your dog in the vehicle you’re most likely to use. Bi-fold and tri-fold collapsible ramps with skid- or slip-resistant surfaces are popular options, but check the size and weight of the ramp along with assembly instructions and slope to be sure it’s a good match for you and your car as well as your dog.
What is the best ramp for my bed?
Pet stairs and ramps make it easy for dogs to climb onto your bed or other furniture. Check the weight capacity for stairs, as different models support 20 pounds to more than 150. For convenience, look for a ramp or stairs that can be left in place, and for aesthetic appreciation, choose one that goes well with your furniture.
Ramps are unfamiliar to most dogs, so introduce your ramp in a quiet area free of distractions and practice with rewards and praise.
It’s not worth your time (or the risk of your dog escaping) to take such half-measures like this if your dog has begun digging under your fence. Either prevent your dog from having any unsupervised time in the yard, or get serious about a dig-proof barrier: deeply buried wire or tall paving stones, Dig Defence, or pouring a concrete path along the fence so no digging can happen at all. Photo by Nancy Kerns.
When it comes to natural dog behavior, for many dogs, digging is on the list of favorite pastimes. Unfortunately, for dogs who share their lives with humans, digging is often considered a “no go” activity.
Dogs dig holes in the dirt for a variety of reasons:
To explore the environment
To relieve boredom and/or stress
To escape an enclosed area
To create a cool spot to rest
In pursuit of ground-dwelling critters.
It’s fun!
Prevent digging in the first place
The best way to address digging is to prevent it altogether. Avoid leaving your dog outside unsupervised until you’re confident he can self-entertain without digging. Examine your yard to identify the areas with prime digging potential, such as spots with loose dirt or gopher mounds or damp areas that invite digging. Of course, some dogs will decide to dig anywhere, but reducing the temptation makes it easier to direct your dog’s attention to more desirable behaviors.
If you must leave your digging-prone dog unsupervised in the yard, employ management to help prevent the rehearsal of the unwanted behavior. Consider a safe enclosure like a dog run or use a sturdy exercise pen set up to restrict access to areas where your dog likes to dig. It won’t be forever – just while she’s learning!
Provide your dog with enrichment
It’s also wise to take an honest inventory of your dog’s overall enrichment. Does your dog leave the house and/or yard every day for a walk? Is it always the same route? Do you mix things up with some training while you walk? If your dog is confident in public, does he ever accompany you on errands to new (dog-friendly) places? Dogs often dig because they’re bored. Be honest about what else he has on his agenda in a typical week and see how you might spice things up a bit.
How to stop a dog’s established habit of digging holes
Here are some things to try if your dog has already made a habit of nuisance digging:
Make a Digging Pit – Fill a kid’s sandbox or plastic wading pool with sand or dirt. (Sand makes less of a mess than dirt.) Bury your dog’s favorite toys. Excitedly show him the pit and help him uncover the prizes. Remember to replenish the toys hidden within the pit and repeat the process of helping him uncover the treasures. As he gets better, the “hides” can become smaller and harder to find.
Digging random holes? Try replacing most of the dirt in the hole, collect some of your dog’s feces to add atop the replaced dirt, and top it off with the rest of the dirt. For some dogs, digging for fun – and finding feces – takes the fun right out of digging! You’ll probably need to do this a few times as your dog experiments with digging new holes, but for many dogs, the consistent experience of uncovering feces will help them rethink their backyard behavior – especially when paired with your efforts to give them better things to do.
Can’t bring yourself to rig your dog’s favorite holes with poop? Use the same technique but instead of poop, use a piece of chicken wire cut to fit the surface area of the mostly filled hole.
What to do if your dog digs under the fence
For fence diggers, we recommend digging a trough along the fence and lining it with heavy, upright stone pavers. You can also attach an 18-inch-tall trip of chicken wire to the bottom of a wooden fence and bury about it at least a foot deep.
We recently discovered a product called Dig Defence, a galvanized steel product resembling a giant comb, and is designed to be pounded into the ground next to and under a fence, providing an underground barrier for digging. It comes in 36-inch lengths with a range of “teeth” lengths and distances between teeth (smaller gaps for smaller dogs, and wider gaps for bigger dogs) and is effective at preventing a dog from escaping through a hole he’s dug next to a fence. It would be cost-prohibitive to line your entire fence with these panels, but if your dog keeps digging in just one area, this might be the solution. See digdefence.com.
Most importantly, remember that behavior doesn’t change overnight. You’ll need to be consistent in your efforts to reduce your dog’s digging via a combination of training and management, and you should expect it to take up to a few months of consistency before you see significant improvement. Don’t dig your own hole deeper by giving up too soon!
Watch what your dog or puppy tends to do, and then create enrichment to match his or her demonstrated needs. If she’s chewing the furniture, try giving her more “legal” chewing opportunities – preferably with toys that have a similar texture! Photo by Kathy Callahan.
You’ve likely been hearing that you should be providing “enrichment” for your dog. But if you’re just a little suspicious of all of the pricey things suddenly being marketed as dog enrichment toys and activities… you’re onto something!
True dog enrichment is indeed critical, but you can’t just whip out your credit card and cross “enrichment” off your to-do list. Even if your neighbor raves about a certain enrichment food puzzle or agility class, it may not provide any enrichment at all for your particular dog.
Here’s why: Canine enrichment is in the eye of the beholder, and not all dogs are the same. A little observation of your own furry friend will go a long way in helping you figure out great (and often free!) ways to provide effective enrichment.
Unmet Needs Create Behavior Problems in Dogs
Coming up with an enrichment plan for your dog starts with simple observation. That means that you should watch your dog first, then come up with a specific plan for enrichment activities. Is your dog digging in the yard? Chewing the furniture? Pulling on lead with his nose to the ground? Your dog’s behaviors can be the observational breadcrumbs that will lead you to effective enrichment – and a much happier dog.
Note what your dog tends to do, then experiment with objects, activities, or ways to rearrange the environment that might “scratch that itch.” Certain behaviors might suggest specific types of enrichment:
Dog enrichment ideas for dogs who pull on the leash
If your dog often pulls with her nose to the ground, she could have an unmet need for scenting. Experiment with enrichment activities such as:
Adding more “sniffari” walks where you go at the dog’s pace, perhaps using a long lead, and deliberately seek out places that will be gloriously full of things to sniff: wildlife, other dogs, city life. (Some of the best options are free, like this one!)
Signing up for a scent work class.
Creating your own scent work adventures at home. (I saw a demonstration of this at a wolf sanctuary this summer, where they put a tiny bit of pickle juice in the grass and the wolves spent 15 minutes finding it, sniffing it, rolling in it.)
Obviously, you also want to work toward more pleasant leash walks by finding the right harness and working on engagement – but if an unmet need for scenting has been a factor in the pulling, those efforts will be more successful after this targeted enrichment.
Dog enrichment ideas for dogs who counter-surf
If your dog is counter-surfing, he could have an unmet need for foraging. You could experiment with these enrichment activities:
Playing “find it” on walks, or while you’re watching TV.
Using different food puzzles. Emphasis on “different” – because it doesn’t feel like foraging if it’s exactly the same each time! Get creative. Hide that stuffed Toppl under the couch, then in the bathroom.
Using scatter feeding (both indoor and out) instead of bowls.
To address counter-surfing, it is also important to stop leaving delicious things unsupervised on the counter! But for a dog who’s craving foraging, providing “legal” outlets can make him much less obnoxious around food in general.
Digging is a natural behavior for dogs, and blocking your dog’s ability to meet that need can create other behavioral issues. Try encouraging digging only in a designated spot in the garden, or in a sandbox. Bury toys there to support this fun, stress-relieving energy outlet. Photo by Kathy Callahan.
Dog enrichment ideas for dogs who dig
If your dog is digging, there are different unmet needs it could signify: maybe she’s a terrier who needs to tunnel for rodents; maybe she’s a Beagle who needs to follow any scent to the game; maybe she’s a thick-coated Husky who’s just trying to reach cool dirt. You can experiment with these enrichment activities:
Providing a sandbox in a shady part of the yard, and hide toys in and under the sand.
Making sure there’s a cool surface in a non-sunny nap spot. Some dogs prefer tile, a raised cot with breathable fabric, or a bare crate floor to a cozy bed!
Enrichment and How It Can Solve Many Animal Behavior Issues
Contrary to popular understanding, canine enrichment is not simply about providing something extra. It’s also not about exercise or boredom-busting, although it will likely provide those things, too. It’s about meeting your dog’s unique needs by offering ways to engage in natural, species-typical behaviors – behaviors that our modern way of life often does not allow. Canine enrichment helps dogs be dogs, solving many of our problems with their behavior along the way.
The concept of animal enrichment started in the 1970s, as zoos were starting to focus on conservation. Breeding was a newly important goal – and it was proving elusive. Some began to theorize that the reason animals weren’t procreating was because their daily life in captivity was too far from their norm in the wild. They weren’t behaviorally, emotionally, or physically healthy enough to breed.
Some zoos experimented with ways to come closer to meeting each animal’s natural needs. Out went the standard, bare-bones enclosures, and in flooded the perching areas, climbing vines, prey scents, hidden food, soundtracks of the wild, and more. The change brought dramatic success to breeding programs, as well as an “ah-ha” moment. A new zoo focus was born: using behavior to assess health and enrichment to improve it.
The pet dog world paid attention. Like the non-breeding zoo animals, pet dogs also show through their behavior – barking, chewing, anxiety, and more – that something is off. Behaviorists began to theorize that enrichment could make dogs more behaviorally sound, too. Rather than attempting to train the unwanted behavior out of the animal, they started looking at whether the dog’s needs were being met.
“When you don’t meet needs, you get maladaptive behaviors,” says Emily Strong, CDBC, SBA, co-author of Canine Enrichment for the Real World with Allie Bender, CDBC, CPDT-KA, SBA. Both are experts in training and behavior, and their authoritative book combines a rich scientific foundation with client-tested ideas to improve dogs’ lives.
“Enrichment often solves behavior problems,” says Bender. “When they have an issue, people assume they need a trainer, but nobody learns well when their needs aren’t being met. If the first step in a training plan is focused on meeting needs, sometimes the issues – jumping, barking, mouthing, digging, or whatever – simply go away.
Dog Enrichment as an Interesting Puzzle
The final part of the experiment is assessment: Is it really enrichment? You can only tell by watching your dog. Does he love it? Is he super engaged? Has it decreased the problem behavior that led you to try this? If the answers are yes, yes, and yes – that’s enrichment. But if he leaves that Kong half filled, or hides under your legs during that agility class, it’s not functioning as enrichment. Back to the drawing board!
Allie Bender, CDBC, CPDT-KA, SBA, and Emily Strong, CDBC, SBA, are co-authors of Canine Enrichment for the Real World: Making It Part of Your Dog’s Daily Life. They encourage owners to think of this process – discovering what natural canine needs are going unmet in your dog’s life – as a rewarding puzzle. Not only does meeting those needs make him happier and easier to live with, but also, as Bender says, “It’s way more fun to address these behavioral issues using enrichment rather than trying through training alone.”
Strong adds, “Thinking about enrichment flips the traditional mindset around dog behavior. Instead of thinking ‘What do I want the dog to do?’ we think ‘What does this dog need to do?’ Oddly, when you do that, you often end up solving the first question.”
A couple of days ago, I received a text from a dog-training client, wondering about a video she had just watched—and which she linked in the text. “Is meat meal bad for dogs?” she asked. She followed that message with, “I get that she’s selling her own pet food, but is it (meat meal) that bad?”
