help needed.dog digging on furniture

Discussion of useful training and pet care tools.

Moderators: emmabeth, BoardHost

Post Reply
Bella1950
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:21 pm

help needed.dog digging on furniture

Post by Bella1950 »

for several months Bella has been digging on my entertainment center stand;end table small trash can.even when no one is sitting in the living room. she is over weight and gets very little exercise she is four years old and has not been trained any of the basic commands.
JudyN
Posts: 7018
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 1:20 pm
Location: Dorset, UK
Contact:

Re: help needed.dog digging on furniture

Post by JudyN »

Bella1950 wrote:she is over weight and gets very little exercise she is four years old and has not been trained any of the basic commands.
There's your answer then :wink: She is probably bored stiff, needs an outlet for he energies, and as she hasn't been given any alternatives, she has found one for herself.

Start exercising her properly, give her some mental work to do (training, fun games, treat balls, 'destruction' boxes with bits of kibble wrapped in twists of paper, maybe bones), and teach her what would like her to do instead, such as play a game of tug or settle down on her bed with a chew toy. Take the food for her training & activities out of her daily allowance, you don't want to give her extra if she's overweight. You could even give her her entire allowance via training and food-dispensing balls. You might need to reduce her overall intake, but possibly the extra exercise will help her shed her extra pounds.

The digging will have become a habit, a default activity, so for the time being you will need to prevent her from having access to the furniture when you're not around to supervise. When she does it when you're there, distract or redirect her to a different activity.
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
Post Reply