Question:
What do your dogs enjoy? When we get home form work, Spencer wants to spend most of the evening in the back yard. Obviously having a new house, I don't have time to spend my whole night out there. We will go out and play catch and go for a walk but he is out there alone sometimes (Totally fenced in).

He has started into the digging, either with his paws or he is ripping up the grass with his mouth and eating the roots and dirt. I know that he is only doing this because he is bored so I can't get upset about it. I am just looking for something that will keep him occupied when he wants to be outside when I can't be out there. The bug zapper works real great but that's not until dark.

Any suggestions?

I have tried bones and kongs but he is just not interested in them when he is outside.

Answer:
Can you take him to the dog park a few times a week? Let him run his energy out? Maybe give him a job... dogs love having jobs. Most things would include you! So if you are really busy maybe get him a friend but that would include training and caring for another dog... what kind of dog is he?

Answer:
Sorry, Spencer is a 7 month old beagle so a dog park would be out of the question. I am not going to risk letting him off leash in the chance that he will catch a scent and run away. I am trying to find him a friend in the neighbourhood (not a live-in one) but I don't know too many people yet.

Answer:
what keeps him occupied in the house?
You said he won't touch the kong outside ...
some things i could think of would involve you ... leaving a sprinkler on for him to play in, provided he enjoys that, but you have to make sure you are there..
Not sure what to suggest.

Answer:
Originally Posted by Grover4
Sorry, Spencer is a 7 month old beagle so a dog park would be out of the question. I am not going to risk letting him off leash in the chance that he will catch a scent and run away. I am trying to find him a friend in the neighbourhood (not a live-in one) but I don't know too many people yet.


Does he come to you when called? I started bringing my APBT when he was 3 months. It is the best time to bring them and have them adjust to that sort of environment. Also, socialization with other dogs is very important at a young age.

I'm sure they have a gate enclosed dog park somewhere in your area. If not, thats a shame because it is very nice to have... you can always start a petition to have them build one.

But back to your question, it usually takes interaction to keep a dog busy since they are very social animals. Unless you want to give him a big new bone to play with everyday... but that won't exercise him much at all.

Answer:
That's funny that Spencer rips up the grass with his teeth because Dodger does that too! He LOVES to rip it up and then shake it until he "kills it"!! It's hilarious!
I don't really let Dodger out unsupervised, mostly because he could get out of the backyard if he wanted too and because unless I'm out there he gets bored and guess what - rips up the grass!!! Right now, we have a family of groundhogs living under the shed so that keeps him occupied - it's also his job to stop them from eating the grass!
But what to suggest for little Spencer!? Let's see...Dodger loves to chew on sticks when outside. Maybe you can get a neat/different toy that Spencer doesn't already know about or have and ONLY let him have it when he goes outside? Sometimes the strangest things can be toys - my old dog, who wasn't an aggressive chewer, loved to play with old bike tires because she could make them roll around. Maybe you could get a box or tunnel that he could run through and play in/around - providing that he doesn't chew it of course! Other than that, I'm not sure...I guess you could buy a bottle of scent stuff, spray it on a cloth and drag it around the back yard before letting him out - maybe Spencer would like that???
Sorry, I'm really reaching - I don't know what to suggest!

Answer:
Make a sand box for him outside to dig in and hide some of his toys in it for him to find. In the house hide toys, bones the kids if you have any and get him to find them, he should love this game.

Answer:
He digs and he rips up grass with his teeth. However I never let him out unsupervised. A couple of unsupervised plays have resulted in 2 big holes in my backyard (another lesson here is to never trust anyone else to supervise your dog unless they understand perfectly what need to be done).

Do you know that giving your puppy a 15 minutes training session is just as good as giving him a 30 minutes walk? When puppies use their brain to learn something, they actually use more energy than physical exercise.

Lately we discovered another fun game with Diego: make him chase water coming out of garden hose. He loves that game! 20 minutes of this game, he crashes on the floor. Besides, my lawn and garden are so dry these days, it's like killing 2 birds with one rock.

Both my husband and I work full time during the day, so we have to be quite creative in giving our puppy enough excercise.

Answer:
Surria (my dog) likes to chase tennis balls and swim...

Answer:
Originally Posted by doggy lover
Make a sand box for him outside to dig in and hide some of his toys in it for him to find. In the house hide toys, bones the kids if you have any and get him to find them, he should love this game.

I was going to suggest this same thing. Hazel loves to be in the back yard and since we have a dog door, she can go outside when she wants. I try to spend as much time as possible with her outside but I haven't figured out who the housekeeping fairy assigned to me is so I am still doing my own housework...sighhhhhhhh. One of Hazel's games is to take all her toys, one by one - outside. I go outside and bring them all back in and we start all over. She also thinks its great fun to attack any plants that happen to be blowing in the breeze and she watches the squirrels and the birds. She also digs holes, but so far only in one spot. Hubby buries it back in - she spends the next hour digging it back out.

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If I was to make a sandbox, how deep should it be? And with what, regular sand. Is it ok if they eat that? I guess it wouldn't be any worse than the dirt he is already eating right?

Answer:
If you decide to go with the sandbox for Spencer, make sure that you teach him that the box is where is digs and nowhere else. Otherwise you could end up with a pup that will dig anything and everything. You can't just expect him to know where the "right" place to dig is! I only mention this because my friend's dog wasn't trained and ruined the neighbours flower bed !! I think her sandbox was approx. a meter long and a meter wide and about 3-4 feet deep; her dog loved it at first and buried everything in it - quite entertaining!! The only problem was that her cat used it as a litter box !

Answer:
How can you teach a dog that this is the only place to dig? Also, where we live, we are built on rock. It would be impossible for me to dig out 3 feet of rock so that Spencer can dig. I would be afraid of just letting him dig incase he was to cut his paw on some of the rocks.

Answer:
Most dogs don't generalize well, so teaching a dog that it is only okay to dig in one spot isn't always succesful! Some people might think its a bit unfair to discipline/scold your dog if he were to dig outside of his sandbox because you have basically told them its okay one minute and not the next.

But I have a lot of "rules" like this for Dodger, where it's okay to do something one way at a particular time but not in different circumstances and he learned quite well.
Dodger learned that it was okay to dig under the trees but only in the backyard while we were getting rid of grubs. He tried to dig after we had finished, I said "Ahhh, that's enough" and he hasn't tried again since but I still let him have fun digging under the trees and on walks.

So if you make a sandbox, you would have to supervise Spencer (for a while) and if he moved his digging outside the box then you can say "no" and redirect him. If he doesn't stop, then he comes inside (or whatever you decide is suitable). But hopefully if you were to bury toys that would keep him busy.

Answer:
Originally Posted by Grover4
I would be afraid of just letting him dig incase he was to cut his paw on some of the rocks.

Isn't Spencer digging now, without a sandbox? I think that if Spencer could possibly hurt himself digging/ripping up grass he shouldn't be outside alone.

Answer:
I don't think that it would be all that tough to teach a dog where its ok to dig and where its not. You teach them where its okay to potty and where its not....you teach them that they can't sleep on the couch, and direct them back to their own bed, etc. I would be more worried about any neighborhood kitties using it than whether the dog could learn to confine his digging to one spot. Good Luck!

Answer:
Originally Posted by Lissa
Isn't Spencer digging now, without a sandbox? I think that if Spencer could possibly hurt himself digging/ripping up grass he shouldn't be outside alone.

Right now there is about 6 inches of top soil on top of the rocks. He has never gone deeper than that, he just likes to tear up the grass which leaves a hole there. It seems that once the grass is up he is astidsfied and doesn't keep digging. I was just more worried when you were talking about the 3 feet. There is no way that I could even attempt to dig down that deep and fill it with sand.

This morning I sent him outside with a 2L pop bottle and he had a grand time with it. He plays with those in the house all the time, I never thought that he would use it outside.

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