Cali loves to dig. She loves to dig deep holes at the dog beach, sending sand flying. She loves to dig through the snow, sometimes over-zealously sending clods of partially frozen grass and dirt flying.

Most of all, she loves to dig in the yard. The first time we planted tomatoes in our raised garden beds, Cali immediately dug them right back up. She’s since learned that the raised beds are off-limits but … that leaves the whole rest of the yard for her, right?!

I now have two or three large pits in my back yard. Any attempt to refill them is met with more digging.

But! I have a possible solution. A couple of weekends ago, I built Cali a digging pit. It’s a kiddie pool with sand. I considered other fill materials — wood chips? Pea gravel? I didn’t want something that would get too hot for paws or would harm the grass or the lawnmower if / when some got scattered on the grass.  I thought about getting those plastic balls used in kids’ ball pits but they’re pretty expensive and they squash or puncture easily (not to mention blowing / rolling around the yard!). So I settled on sand. I cover it at night and I don’t get many cats in the yard anyhow with the dogs around.

I bury things — tennis balls, bones.

Koala does not seem to see the point, though she will pull a bone out every so often and gnaw on it.  But Cali seems to like it! She’ll dig something out, chew on it for a while, then wander back to dig for a new treat. As the days grow longer and warmer, we’ll all spend more time outside, so the pit will be uncovered more often. Time will tell whether this diverts Cali from her yard excavations … or simply adds to her digging pleasure.