Digging is normal dog behaviour, and dogs who dig are not being destructive for the sake of it. They are solving a problem — the trouble is that their solution and your lawn are incompatible.
Work out which kind it is
1. Boredom. The most common. Usually a dog left alone in a garden with nothing to do, often accompanied by chewing and barking. Holes are scattered and random.
2. Cooling. Digging into cool earth and lying in the hollow, typically in shade, under a bush, or against a wall. Happens in hot weather and stops when it cools.
3. Hunting. Following a scent — moles, voles, mice, insects. Very focused, usually one spot, nose down, often at a specific point along a border or under a shed.
4. Caching. Burying a chew or a toy, with the characteristic nose-pushing motion afterwards. Purposeful, and stops once the item is covered.
5. Escaping. Along fence lines, under gates. This is a safety issue and it needs solving immediately.
6. Breed. Terriers and dachshunds were bred to go underground after quarry, and northern breeds dig dens. For these dogs the behaviour is not a malfunction — it is the job description.
The fixes, by cause
Boredom
Do not leave a dog alone in a garden as a substitute for exercise. Gardens are where dogs practise barking and digging.
- More mental work: puzzle feeders, snuffle mats, scatter feeding, training
- More varied walks, with plenty of sniffing time
- A chew or stuffed food toy when they are outside
- Supervise garden time rather than using it as a holding pen
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Snuffle Mat for Dogs
Ten minutes of searching for kibble in fleece meets the same need digging does — nose work, problem solving, effort — and it can happen on a kitchen floor.
Cooling
Give them a better option: shade, a raised bed that allows airflow, a cool tiled floor indoors, a paddling pool, and access to the house.
A dog digging to cool down in July is telling you the garden is too hot.
Hunting
You will not train this out of a terrier. Deal with the wildlife problem if you can, fence off the worst areas, and supervise.
Caching
Give smaller chews that get finished in one sitting, take items away when the dog loses interest, and do not let them wander off with a bone.
Escaping
This one is urgent. Bury wire mesh or paving slabs along the fence line, check every gate latch, and supervise until it is solved. An escaping dog ends up on a road.
Also ask *why* they are leaving — boredom, an entire dog detecting a bitch in season, separation distress, or something frightening in the garden.
Give them a legal place to dig
The most successful approach with a committed digger, and the one people resist because it feels like surrender.
- Build a digging pit. A child’s sandpit, a raised bed, or a marked-off corner. Loose sand or soft soil
- Seed it. Bury toys, chews, and a few treats, with edges just visible at first
- Take your dog to it and get excited when they dig there. Praise, and let them find the buried things
- Re-seed it regularly so it stays worth visiting
- Interrupt digging elsewhere calmly and redirect to the pit
Most dogs take to this remarkably quickly, because the pit is genuinely better — soft, rewarding, and full of things.
Protecting specific areas
- Chicken wire laid flat just under the soil surface in beds
- Large stones or gravel over favourite spots
- Low decorative fencing around borders
- Raised beds
- Supervision during the establishment period of anything newly planted
Do not use the old advice of burying the dog’s own faeces in a hole, or filling holes with water and pushing the dog’s head in. Both are unpleasant, neither addresses the cause, and the second is frankly abusive.
What does not work
Punishment after the fact. A dog cannot connect a telling-off with a hole dug an hour ago. All they learn is that you are unpredictable when you come into the garden.
Filling holes in and hoping. Without addressing the cause, the dog digs a new one.
Leaving them out there longer to “get it out of their system”. More unsupervised garden time means more digging practice.
Garden safety while you are at it
Since you are out there anyway:
- Check the fence line for gaps at ground level and loose panels
- Toxic plants — foxglove, yew, laburnum, oleander, azalea, lily of the valley, daffodil bulbs, sago palm
- Cocoa bean mulch, which contains theobromine and should be avoided entirely
- Slug pellets — metaldehyde kills dogs. Use an iron-based product or none
- Compost heaps enclosed, since mouldy compost causes tremors and seizures
- Ponds fenced or covered
- Chemicals and fertilisers locked away
The realistic outcome
For most dogs, a combination of more mental work, supervised garden time and a digging pit ends the problem within a few weeks.
For a terrier who has found a mole run, expect to lose the occasional patch of lawn for the rest of their life. That is the deal you signed up for, and it is a small price.
