[Marcella]

I have a Yorkie. Yorkies were bred in Yorkshire, England, to be very small dogs to catch rats in their small tunnels so digging is in her DNA. I got her when she was five weeks old. When she was not much older, she started digging holes in a sheet of sheetrock wall just inside the front door. I tried everything to stop her from doing that, even the bitter spray to keep dogs away from what was sprayed, but I couldn't watch her every single minute of the day and she managed to dig two holes completely through it. She is very smart. I watched her one day and she licked the spot to soften up the sheetrock, then dug like a drill hammer getting through it. She digs so fast, her paws are a blur when she digs. She is so small, but can dig like an electric drill.

I picked out a sheet of material like you see in showers that is slick and strong. Had a workman install that wall and she never approached that wall again. She knew she couldn't get through it. I gave her cardboard boxes to dig in the sides of the boxes and she put holes in those boxes.

She never found a mouse or a rat in the holes she dug but I could have told her she wouldn't find any.

[SunkenCiv]

If I were to have a dog, I’d probably want some big galoot (I live in the country), but I’ve sometimes found little dogs somewhat beguiling, such as the all-black dachshunds I’ve seen , or the dachshund-chihuahua crosses (they don’t have a stable hybrid outcome last I knew, so they are all over the map for size and other characteristics, going from small enough for the vest pocket to a kind of Jack Russell-plus size).