Read the holes before you fill them
Where and when she digs tells you why. Holes along the fence line, deepening at the base, usually mean something outside the garden matters more than inside it: another dog, wildlife, or simply the world beyond the gate. Holes in shady, cool spots on warm days are often a dog excavating a comfortable pit to lie in, because freshly turned soil is cooler than the surface. Scattered craters in the middle of the lawn suggest hunting or boredom, especially in terriers and other breeds built to go to earth after prey. A dog who digs to bury chews and then re-digs them is running a storage programme, not vandalism. Punishing any of these without answering the underlying need just moves the digging to wherever you are not watching.
Build a digging place she is allowed to love
The most reliable fix is not forbidding digging but relocating it. Choose a corner of the garden, loosen the soil or fill a shallow pit or large planter with soil or sand, and bury toys and a few treats just under the surface where she can watch you hide them at first. Take her there when the digging mood strikes, encourage her to dig in, and celebrate finds enthusiastically so the pit becomes the most rewarding excavation site available. Refresh it regularly with new buried items, because a stale pit loses to a flowerbed full of interesting roots and smells. Most dogs take to a sanctioned spot quickly when it is introduced as a game rather than presented as a consolation prize.
Remove the payoff from everywhere else
While the new habit forms, supervise garden time so you can redirect the first paw-scrape in a forbidden spot to the pit instead of discovering a crater later. Fill old holes and make them uninteresting; some owners place the dog's own droppings in a persistent hole before covering it, which many dogs then avoid, though this only works alongside the positive alternative. If she digs to cool down, provide shade, a raised bed off the hot ground and fresh water outdoors so the pit is not her only relief. If she digs at the fence, address security and frustration together: reinforce the base of the fence, and reduce fence-line excitement by limiting unsupervised staring time at passing dogs.
When digging is a warning sign
Frantic digging at doors, carpets and bedding indoors, especially when she is left alone, can be part of separation distress rather than garden behaviour. Digging that suddenly escalates in an older dog, or comes with restlessness, appetite change or attempts to escape a previously secure garden, is worth raising with your veterinarian, since pain, cognitive change and anxiety can all sit behind it. Also check what she might be digging toward or eating in the soil: bulbs, fertilisers and slug treatments can be harmful, and a dog who has dug up and eaten garden chemicals or a large quantity of bulbs should be discussed with a veterinarian the same day. Escape digging that has already put her on a road needs physical security fixed first, training second.
Keep the garden rules consistent
Digging returns when one person plays the pit game and another lets her excavate the vegetable patch in peace because it is easier. Agree the household approach: supervise, redirect to the pit, refresh the buried surprises, and keep the fence line boring and secure. In KinsLe, Care Teams lets you set the pit refresh and garden supervision as shared duties with completions marked off, so she meets the same allowed-digging rule whoever lets her out.