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First off are your anti shock collar? If so I'd stop right here
If not, you have a few options - install one of the electronic perimeter fence things a little inside your fence and the collar will take care of business. However, they are quite pricey.
On the cheaper more labor intensive side of things, you can pick up a basic shock collar from Petsmart, petco or even off ebay. The basic idea is action=reaction; he starts digging=something not nice happens to him. you'd have to sit somewhere quietly where he does not know you are watching and when he starts digging you zap him. Now, this is not a torture instrument. Your aren't whaling into him for bad behavior. You are making him think that when he digs, it hurts. He should make the connection fairly quickly and, with any luck, once he learns that he won't try it again. The higher end collars have beepers and a vibe option which you can associate with the zap so that after the inital training just the beep will make him realize he is doing something that is a no no.
Some points though - if he knows you are one causing the reaction he will simply dig when he knows you aren't there. So the idea is for him to connect the zap to what he is doing and not have any idea of your connection to it.
Other options do include gravel around the fence, some kind of mesh that makes it unpleasant for his nails to dig there or you could walk around behind him and yell whenever he starts doing it
Depending on the size of your yard, an invisible fence of one brand or another can be very effective. If the fence isn't large, the best and cheapest way is either
run an electric fence wire right at the ground level so the mutt gets a little shock when digging,
or, my favorite, lay 8x16x1" concrete blocks end to end right up to the fence. I like this solution because it also keeps the weeds down next to the fence. You could just as well substitute bricks if that what you want.
Digging is great fun for the mutt, so a barrier or immediate correction is what is needed to stop him.
My dog used to try to dig under the fence so I bought some tent stakes and hooked them on the bottom of the fence and drove them into the ground. That made it difficult enough to get the bottom of the fencing up so that she lost interest in trying.
If your dog is a Labrador, you're in for a difficult task. I paid huge for a new chain-link fence, only to watch my "contained" lab escape and follow the fence crew out of the driveway. The best I found was placing railroad ties along the perimeter inside the fence. They were too heavy for him to move, and too big to dig under.
One thing you can do is to purchase chicken wire but a heavey gage wire fencing. Dig a trench around the inside of your fence and staple the wiring to your existing fence and put it down into the trench and put the dirt back, plant your plants so the roots will brace the wiring in place. When your dog digs down (don't bury it too deeply) and it hits the wire, it will stop digging. Apparently they hate hitting the wire.
I had to use the chicken wire as lindsey suggested above, but I also had to put down 2 rows of the concrete block. That did the trick. In Florida the ground is soft, so it's easy for them to dig, but by stretching the length they had to dig, I stopped it.
If your dog starts to dig a hole put his poop in the hole and cover it. He will stop digging. Learned this from a dog trainer and it really works. I would give it a try.
I've used the concrete paver method and it works well.
The cost can add up - those pavers aren't cheap when you start to need 50, 100, etc.
The ones I used were generally 2 feet x 2 feet square and about an inch or so thick. I make a pathway with them around the perimeter of the yard, just a few inches in from the fence (I don't put the concrete in contact with the wood so there's no rot acceleration).
So now you have a pathway for your dog to run around the perimeter (dogs love to patrol this way) and the pavers are too heavy for the dog to push them out of the way to dig.
When you move, you can bring them with you (I just did this).
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