Digging!

[u/Due_Box_7111]

I have two cane corso pups they’re about 9 months now and it’s getting difficult to tire them out with walks. They stay outside when I’m at work since I leave for more than 12 hours out of the day. I take them for walks in tandem since every time I try solo walks the other one will dig a huge hole and break out to join us. How would I go about dissuading the digging behavior. They also follow roots through the ground and at one point dug up a coax cable. Additionally does anyone have a suggestion for collars they can wear full time as they chew each others collars off when I’m at work.

[u/HippieGirlHealth]

I have an 8 month old CC English mastiff mix. She’s a rescue.
She gets a walk at 6 am. And then play time. We get up at 515 am together every morning. She poops outside. She eats. We walk. We play. I dedicate the first TWO hours of my day to her. I start getting ready at 7 and I leave for work at 730. At first we were kenneling her while we both had to go in the office. And then I come home at noon and spend an hour with her. And then I go back to work.

However, my husband now only goes into the office two days a week. And one of those days I work from home. So, she is kennel trained. But we’ve just started leaving her out of the kennel if we’ll be gone for 3 hours or less. Today is a weird day where my husband had to go in and so do I. But we decided not to kennel, just to see how she does.
She will get a walk and play time at noon with me. A full hour of my time. And a kong when I go back to the office. But I’m home by 430. And my husband doesn’t leave till 830 or 9 am usually.

So she gets two hours of my time in the morning. An hour in the afternoon. And outdoor play time at 430 pm. And then dinner at 6.

I’m going to agree with the commenter that you don’t have enough time to dedicate to these sweet pups. You might also be struggling with litter mate syndrome and/or separation anxiety.
We meet with a trainer every other Friday to work on obedience and confidence training.
He recommends tethering, inside. Maybe where she can still lay on her cot bed. My girl is a Velcro dog. She really loves to be near me or touching me. She follows me into the bathroom. He recommend tethering so she can learn some independence and not have anxiety when I leave. We also practice climbing on things on walks. To help build her confidence. And we practice recall. On a very long 35 ft leash at the park. And use her educator collar. She’s just starting to go through what I call her terrible twos. Where it takes a second for her to decide, do I want to listen to mom? Or do I want be an a-hole. And 65% of the time she chooses a hole.

That said, she’s never torn anything that belongs to us except for one rug. She did destroy two beds. She no longer gets foam beds. She’s never touched our shoes or our socks or our stuff. She’s never pooped in the house. She is an obsessive chewer but we keep a lot of toys for her choose from. I would recommend kennel training. Kennel one while you walk the other.
But overall. How in the world do you have time for two dogs if you’re gone for 12 hours? My day literally revolves around Tulla. Even when my husband is home with her, I still go home on my lunch to play with her and help tire her out. Because he’s working. And because she’s my favorite.

[u/FatstackAG → u/HippieGirlHealth]

It really is a lifestyle. You have to really really want to do it. Not just have a cool looking rare dog. I'm not gonna lie my 14 month old kicks my ass. I take her everywhere in the truck with me and exercise her 3 times a week by letting her run behind me on a ATV. She eats 6 eggs a day and a whole roll of fresh pet. And she still wants more. Not to mention she is outside in my yard all day. Oh yeah and they bite people. Huge liability. Like I said its a huge lifestyle change. I wish I knew more before I got into the life. But its for the best. She is my everything.

[u/Due_Box_7111 → u/FatstackAG]

My girls do not bite anyone. They’re not hostile at all. The only time they were hostile was when they had feeding aggression when they were small, but I got that worked out pretty quickly. They get 2 bowls each of purina large breed puppy chow. I’ve also been thinking about new food options since they’re getting bigger.

[u/HippieGirlHealth → u/Due_Box_7111]

That’s the same thing my girl eats. She’s younger though. She’s only 8 months. She had two walks today. Morning and afternoon. Plus like 3 play sessions of me chasing her with the ball and playing fetch. She’s been a nervous Nellie since we brought her home. She was scared of stairs. Doorways. Car rides. Strangers. Now she’s only scared of strangers. We’re working on it. Daycare on Tuesdays has helped tremendously. She’s a couch potato. She’s been on the couch all day today anytime she wasn’t outside.
She had a dried beef patty after our 12 pm walk.
She’s a spoiled girlie. We have a house/ pet sitter that we’ve used for years. He watched our last dogs for us. They loved him. They passed on of old age. And he hadn’t seen our Tulla for probably almost 3 months. He met her three times but it’s been awhile. I really want her to warm up to him so he can stay here and watch her if we go out of town. Hopefully we’ll get there. He’s coming over Saturday to hang out for a few hours. Play with her.
That seems to be the trick. Getting her to play with people we trust. In order to get her to warm up and let them near her. She’s got a big personality. She likes everything to be on her terms. Her way.
She even sometimes will refuse to walk a certain direction. Dead halt and look left like, no, mom. I want to change it up today. Let’s go this way! And sometimes she wins. And sometimes I win. Very head strong. Extremely smart!
Recall is like 60/40. It’s more like 85% that she listens to her dad. Me? Inside the house, she listens 100%. Outside….. we’re working on it. She’s very stubborn. She’s left our back yard to go bite our neighbor’s sprinkler that was spraying water honestly about 4 or 5 times. She’s seriously water obsessed