Everybody wants to own and take care of a dog until they realize that one of the things a dog loves to do is dig in lawns to ease its boredom and anxiety. There are many reasons why dogs like to dig, from being bored to suffering from anxiety. While dogs see the activity as a satisfying stress reliever, their owners see it as a big headache and eyesore as the digging ruins the look of their beautiful lawns. In fact, homeowners often find themselves having to spend up to $100 per hour on lawn care to take care of the damage.
But the digging habit of a dog shouldn’t prevent anyone from taking care of one. The secret here is to divert their attention away from your lawn effectively. With this, we provide you a list of fun and creative ways on how to address your dog’s boredom and save your yard with ease!
10 Ways to Distract Your Dog From Destroying Your Landscaping
- Adding a routine to your dog’s daily activities is one of the most effective ways to prevent it from wreaking havoc on your lawn. One of the things you should start on is engaging them with active toys like frisbees or balls. In this way, they would find a fun alternative to their digging, helping divert their attention away from your lawn.
- Purchase exciting toys that can effectively catch your dog’s attention. By placing these interesting toys far from your lawn, your dog would be more convinced to leave its digging business to check out these shiny, cool toys.
- It’s already given that dogs are naturally intelligent; that is why it is necessary to start dog obedience training as early as possible. Commands such as avoiding your lawn would be more ingrained in them if they learn it at a young age. Also, starting early would certainly save you from a lot of headaches and mischievousness from your dog in the future.
- If you’re willing to spend some more just to prevent your dog from ruining your lawn, you may want to purchase a dog food-dispensing toy that encourages your dog to have fun while eating its treats. With all the fun that this special toy does, you would so immerse your dog that its half a minute meal would extend into a 15-minute one because of the pleasure involved in their eating.
- For a cheaper alternative, you may try making your own “toy” out of cardboard! All you have to do is get a clean cardboard box and smear its insides with gooey and yummy peanut butter! With this, your dog would certainly leave your lawn immediately and spend its next hours licking the tasty treat inside the box.
- If you have a taste for pricier solutions, then you may try installing sprinklers with motion sensors on your lawn, so you would force your dog to walk away every time it attempts to make some diggings.
- Going back to the more affordable solutions, you may try installing a fence to protect your lawn from your Digger Dog completely. It’s a cheap yet very effective solution to protect your property. Even though it may somehow ruin your house’s aesthetics a bit, having peace of mind that there won’t be any holes and soil mess on your lawn makes it worth it.
- If all else fails and you cannot prevent your dog from digging, then what you need to do is dedicate a space for your dog to satisfy its craving for digging. This place can be around your house or on a specific corner of your lawn. But the challenge here is to train your dog to stay in this place and not dig anywhere else. That is why if you want to have long-term peace of mind, you should be patient enough in training your dog not to trespass outside your chosen area. The training would be challenging at first, but your efforts would all be worth it once your dog reaches the obedience stage of staying inside its designated digging area.
- As a precautionary measure and to ensure that your dog would not make any attempts at making giant holes on your lawn, make this place a bit undesirable for your dog. One example is by putting rocks that would discourage it from satisfying its cravings for diggings.
- This one should be your last resort. If you find it challenging to prevent your dog from digging on your lawn, you may try using liquid or granular dog repellents and put them around the edges of your yard to drive them away. But don’t worry, animal repellent is not harmful to plants and animals. It is only formulated to drive them away without causing any health implications on them.
With the option listed above, you can try many ways to protect your lawn while providing your dog with new and exciting experiences. And who knows? Your dog might leave your yard for good and instead focus on your surprising activities every day.
