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April 19, 2011

Our dog tears up my wife’s outside plants when we leave him alone in the yard. What can we do?

Full Question:

Hi Ed,

I have purchased several of your training tapes and everything is going well except for one problem. Our dog (a 6 month old brindle boxer with a wonderful temperament) loves to rip down and play with plants my wife has planted in our yard. He loves corn stalks, decorative ears of corn etc. We have big fenced in yard and let him run around by himself although we are always home when we do. This usually happens during the day when my kids are at school, although my wife is home. He may be bored and I'm sure some of the flowers seem like a wonderful salad to him, but is this just because he is a puppy and will grow out of it or is there something we can do other than being outside every minute of the day with him?

Thanks!

Mitch

Ed's Answer:

The only solution is to get a bunch of toys that the dog will find more interesting than your plants. We sell some that will work just fine. You can also toss out empty milk jugs with rocks in them – use your imagination and remember to pick items that will not hurt him if he chews them up. You can see out toys on our web site.

If this does not work – then build a outside dog run – use patio blocks for the base so he cannot dig – if I had only one dog it would be 10 feet by 10 feet. I had an article on my web site to show ours here – how we used vines and a trellis to hide the two we have. I accidentally deleted it but I just found the photos and need to redo it. But the point is you can make them good looking.

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