WHY DOES MY DOG DIG A HOLE IN THE BACK YARD?

Why does my dog dig a hole in the back yard?  I would ask him but he probably wouldn’t tell me.  I doubt he actually knows the answer.  I suspect he just knows he feels better after he does it.  He doesn’t try to create an eighteen hole golf course, but is contented with one or two. He doesn’t hold a grudge and complain when I fill them in, and isn’t vindictive and dig them out again when I’m not looking, but he may dig a new one.  Then for long periods of time, sometimes a year or more, he will simply stop digging holes.  Why does my dog dig a hole in the back yard?

When he was younger, he persisted in digging one special hole out by the shed.  I watched him stare into his hole for long periods of time.  I joined him in this endeavor and to my surprise a fury body interrupted the view, disappearing as quickly as it appeared.  Later that afternoon, I looked out in the back yard and my dog held a lifeless gopher between his teeth.  On another occasion I gave my dog a “T-bone.”  In the morning I noticed that the grass was interrupted by what looked like a small earthen grave.  I always know when he enters the house in the winter, his fur saturated with loosened earth, that he has dug a hole in the back yard just for the satisfaction of a winter’s nap.  Why does my dog dig holes in the back yard?  I don’t think he knows, but he does know the fulfillment of satisfying that urge that wells up from inside his secret place.

We also have a secret place and feel the tug of the wilderness.  Why?  We may never know.  What we can know is whether we are satisfied.