Why does my dog dig holes in the garden, and how do I stop it?

You planted tulips in October. By November the dog had dug up every bulb, one at a time, so neatly you wondered whether he had counted them. Maybe yours is different: a fresh hole every morning along the fence, always in the same stretch. Or one deep hole in the shade of the walnut tree, where he lies flat out during a heatwave.

That is three kinds of digging with three different causes. Read the hole before you start fighting it, because you cannot get digging out of a dog. You can move it somewhere else.

Why does my dog dig holes in the garden?

Digging is normal dog behaviour, and some breeds were bred for exactly that. Terriers were selected over hundreds of years to go to ground after foxes and badgers, and so were dachshunds. Huskies dig into snow to sleep out of the wind. A terrier who digs simply has a talent and a garden to use it in.

Breed aside, the hole tells you why it was dug. You just have to look at it.

A wide, shallow hole in the shade, against a wall or under a shrub, with the dog lying in it, is for keeping cool. In July the soil 20 centimetres down is many degrees cooler than the air, and a dog without proper shade and cold water builds his own fridge. In winter the same hole, in a sunny or sheltered spot, is a bed.

Narrow, deep holes in what look like random places are hunting holes. He sniffs hard first and then shoves his nose in up to the ears. Under the lawn there are moles, voles, chafer grubs, worms. He can hear and smell them; you cannot. If the holes run in a line, there is a mole tunnel underneath.

A small hole in a tucked-away spot, with a bone or toy in it (or with something missing from the house), is caching. It is an old food-hiding habit, and it turns up more in dogs who get more chews than they can finish in one go.

Holes at the base of the fence or the gate, always along the fence line, sometimes with chew marks on the wood nearby, are escape attempts. The real issue there is whatever lies on the other side. We have a separate page on dogs who run off.

Holes everywhere with no pattern, in a young dog left alone in the garden for hours, come from boredom. Other signs usually come along: chewing the hose, barking at everything, running the fence line. Digging is the only thing he has to do, and a very good one from his point of view: it works his whole body and his nose, and he can see the result.

Then there is copying. On Saturday you were digging in the borders, the dog sat beside you and learned that turned earth is interesting. On Monday he digs in the same spot. Freshly planted bulb beds get dug up precisely because they are fresh.

The last group is different. Frantic digging by the door or in his bed when he is left alone, digging at blankets, the bed, the corner of the sofa, with circling and whining. The cause there is emotional or hormonal (a bitch with a false pregnancy builds a nest, see the medical section), and a sandpit will not fix it.

What does not work when your dog digs

Telling him off at a hole you found in the morning. He dug it at two in the morning, so he links the telling-off to nothing. All he learns is that you are unpredictable at breakfast time.

Pushing his nose into the hole, or filling the hole with water. Old advice from the same family as rubbing his nose in a puddle. It teaches him nothing about digging and a lot about your hands.

Putting his own poo in the hole. Some dogs avoid that spot and dig half a metre further along. Others, especially the ones who would eat poo anyway, are delighted.

Chicken wire under the whole lawn. It stops digging where it is, and it cuts his pads when he tries. On a small patch, with smooth mesh fixed down well, it is fine. Across the whole garden it is a trap.

Shouting from the window. He stops, you go back to what you were doing, he starts again. For a bored dog that is a brand new game.

Just filling the hole in. Loose earth is soft and easy to dig, which makes it an invitation. If you fill a hole, put something on top that changes the surface: big stones, a paving slab, a heavy pot with a plant in it.

"He'll grow out of it." At six months, maybe. At three years old and a terrier, no. And the dog who digs to keep cool grows out of it every autumn and grows back into it every June.

How to stop your dog digging everywhere, step by step

1. Read the holes

For one week, do nothing except write down where the holes are, what shape they are, when they appear (day, night, while you are out) and what you find in or near them. The table helps you sort them.

2. Deal with why he digs

• Cool: proper shade all day (a tree, not a parasol the sun moves round), cold water changed twice a day, a concrete or tile slab in the shade to stretch out on, or a plastic paddling pool with ten centimetres of water. In winter, an insulated bed raised off the ground, out of draughts.
• Hunting: get rid of moles and rodents without poison (traps, vibrating deterrents), because rodent bait reaches the dog either directly or through a poisoned mouse. Fence off the tunnel area until they have gone.
• Caching: fewer chews at once. He gets one, finishes it, then gets the next. Whatever he has not finished in an hour, pick up and give back the next day.
• Escape: mesh buried 30 centimetres deep and bent into an L facing inwards, or concrete slabs along the fence line. Read the page on dogs who run off as well, because the fence is only half of it.
• Boredom: he no longer spends hours alone in the garden with nothing to do. He goes out for a walk every day, on lead, beyond the garden, and he gets things to do in the garden too (step 4).
• Copying: garden while he is indoors, and cover freshly dug soil for a few weeks with mesh or coarse mulch (big bark, pine cones). Put wire mesh over newly planted bulbs, under the soil, until they root.

3. His own digging pit

For terriers, dachshunds and any dog who digs for the joy of it, the only fix that lasts is a place that belongs to him. You let him dig, in a corner you have chosen.

1. Pick a corner of the garden where a hole will not bother you. A metre by a metre and a half is plenty for a medium-sized dog. Edge it with timber or kerbstones.
2. Fill it with sand mixed with loose soil. Clean sand shakes off paws more easily than earth.
3. While he watches, bury two or three good things there: a chew, a toy, a few bits of food in a cardboard box. Encourage him to dig in a happy voice. When he finds them, celebrate together.
4. Every day for two weeks, bury something new in his pit, a bit deeper each time. He learns that this is the one place in the garden where the ground hides treasure.
5. If you catch him digging somewhere else, do not tell him off. Call him over, take him to his pit and start digging there yourself, with your hand. He will dive straight in. Then praise him.
6. Fill the holes outside his pit and cover them with stones or a slab, so there is no soft soil within easy reach.

After a month most dogs dig almost only in their own corner. Some still slip up when there is fresh soil elsewhere; when that happens, cover it.

4. Work for his nose and body, every day

• A 30-minute walk outside the garden on a long line, letting him sniff whatever he likes.
• No more food from a bowl. Scatter it in the grass (not near his pit, so you do not muddle him) and let him search for ten minutes.
• An object search: hide a toy in the garden and send him with "find it". Make it harder week by week.
• Once a week, somewhere new: woods, fields, a long walk in a different place.

The first week

When digging is a medical problem

Digging itself rarely has a medical cause. A few situations are the exception:

• a bitch who, 6 to 9 weeks after her season, digs, builds a nest out of blankets, gathers toys and guards them: that is a false pregnancy, not a serious illness, but worth a vet visit, especially if she has milk;
• a dog who regularly eats the soil he digs up (pica): it can mean anaemia, parasites or problems absorbing food;
• compulsive digging at the floor, the bed or in places that make no sense, for tens of minutes, which you cannot interrupt and during which he seems absent: a compulsive disorder, sometimes hidden pain or itching (he digs at his bed because he cannot get comfortable);
• cut pads, or broken or bleeding nails after digging: stop the digging until they heal and check what is in the soil (glass, wire);
• an old dog who digs at his bed or the carpet at night, circles and will not lie down: it may be the brain ageing (cognitive decline) or joint pain;
• digging that starts along with panting, restlessness and seeking out cool spots on days that are not warm: check his temperature, it could be fever or pain.

Tell your own vet where he digs, since when, and whether he eats soil. Photos of the holes help more than any description.

Why nose work helps a digging dog

A dog digging for moles is hunting with his nose, and you will not get that out of his head. What you can do is give him something else to hunt. At training we see terriers and dachshunds who have wrecked the garden at home and who, put on a person's trail, search with exactly the same intensity and are just as thrilled when they find. The difference is that the person at the end of the trail greets him with delight, praise and his favourite things, which no mole has ever done. And the trail ends when we decide.

For a digger, a nose sport once a week plus the search games in the garden covers the need the hole was covering. He will not give up digging. He will dig less, and where you have decided.

When to call in a professional

• He digs frantically at the door or in his bed when left alone, with whining, drooling or damage. That is separation anxiety, and it needs a different plan.
• The digging is compulsive and the vet has ruled out medical causes.
• He growls or stiffens when you try to move him away from a hole or from something he has buried.
• The holes are along the fence and he has already got out once.
• You have stuck with the digging pit and steps 2 to 4 for a month and the holes outside his corner have not dropped at all.

Where we can, we include a garden visit in the assessment. A hole reads better in person than from a description.