"Digging" of Our Feet

Hi Anissa,

Have you tried a water pistol, or spray bottle?

First arm yourself with a water pistol and stand still.
When Belle comes to you and just about to start digging, shoot him with the water pistol right in her face with a firm "No".

Make her sit and down. Praise and treat her.

You are not afraid of Belle's digging now that you are armed!

Repeat this as often as needed. Hope you will get your point across this way.

Good luck

p.s. This method won't work for labs and other water dogs, they love to be sprayed!

Hi Anissa, and thanks for your post.
First of all I wanted to ask if you practice basic alpha training with your dog? I too have a blue heeler and I know as a breed they can be both highly intelligent and quite dominant if you do not practice alpha training, which can be a tricky combination. Blue heelers and Kelpies do very well very quickly with alpha training as a rule and many problems can be reduced or resolved very quickly once this training is introduced.

Secondly these are very high energy animals and need heaps of physical and mental stimulation. Increasing time spent exercising and thinking (such as while working out how to get food out of a treat ball), will help reduce behavioral problems.

Also blue heelers/kelpies tend to be very enthusiastic and excitable at times and this leads to such problems as the feet digging and the jumping. This is usually when they are trying to get you to throw a toy and therefore are trying to get your attention. Alpha training will help reduce the attention seeking but also use the ignoring method as maxholly described. When your dog is miss behaving and jumping turn away so your dog does not have facial contact with you and completely ignore your dog until it is sitting or standing calmly, then immediately give praise and a treat or throw the toy. In cases where this may not be effective or possible such as in the case of the foot digging where you can;t really ignore the behavior till it stops because you'd have no foot left, the best idea is to remove yourself from the dog for 2 minutes or so by either moving inside or to another room or moving the dog calmly somewhere such as to its run or bed. This sends the message that as soon as you dg my feet the game and the attention will end. Therefore it becomes no longer in the interest of your dog to dig at your feet.

I hope this helps, blue heelers and kelpies make amazing pets once you work out all the little tricks. If you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask.

All the best,