I have taken on the responsibility of raising a young puppy in conjunction with Guide Dog Association here in Australia. The puppy is adorable. A couple of questions if I may. Quite regularly she will place both paws in her water bowl and start a kind of digging motion. Water goes everywhere which is not a problem. We are in summer down this way and I understand dogs have their sweat glands in their feet so I guess my Lab is cooling off. However she only ever uses her front paws. Any others experience the same?
Welcome from another Guide Dog puppy raiser (UK). I looked after a pup for as couple of days, he was a water digger! I don't know the cure 'tho, sorry!
In my local off leash park there are several small buckets that people fill with water from a water fountain outside the fenced area for the dogs to drink from. It takes quite a while to fill the buckets because the fountain is slow and difficult to get the water from. I watched a man spend about 15 minutes filling three buckets for the dogs and when he placed them in the fenced area a young lab ran over and started digging in the buckets and tipped them all over, it was funny but not funny if you know what I mean.
Lots of pups are water paddlers. Some grow out of it, at least mine did, and most of my friends dogs have too.
Hello and welcome to the Forum.I can't give any insight into the water digging....could be as simple as she just likes it.Great to have another Guide Dog puppy raiser form a different part of the world . It would be nice to read about your progress and how your experiences compare to Mags' x
My boy is a water digger. I don't have a cure but lots of soggy towels! I don't fill his water bowel up too much to keep the flood to a minimum. He does it when he's hot, after walks, excited, or just for fun! He used to have a stainless steal bowel which tipped over easily, and clattered around the kitchen floor, after only three years I changed it for a heavy ceramic one with high sides which doesn't tip as much water out.
No, I haven't managed to find a good bowl that stops this. Betsy was awful for it, I did find it a bit exhausting when she was young. Everytime I'd leave her, I'd return to a pen swimming in water. I tried a travel bowl - supposedly non-spill but it was light plastic and Betsy cracked it by kicking it round her pen. I use big, heavy pots as water bowls because if I didn't, my older dog would pick them up. He picks everything up. These days, I often don't leave water in Betsy's pen if she is just in there for an hour or so while I walk Charlie, and I watch her around the big shared bowls. She often looks into the water and lifts a front paw, I just interrupt her. She does seem to be stopping it but because I interrupt her. She'd still do it if left alone with a water bowl. I think she is playing. It's not to cool down etc. (it's winter here). She just does it because it's fun.
My new puppy (nearly 10 weeks) does this. I'm home all day, so I can supervise her with water, meaning I can jump into the pen and interrupt her if needs be. I do this as soon as she starts digging. I can't say it's making any noticeable difference yet, but hopefully in time...
Stanley used to do this. It drove me mad!! We used to interrupt him everytime he did and one day it just seemed to stop. We bought him a bigger, heavier bowl. I'm not sure if that did it, or whether he grew out of it. My kitchen is still regularly covered in water from his slavver chops though - one drink and it's everywhere
