My family and myself took our 3 year old male Husky to the dog park last night, a 3-4 nights a week routine for us. It's close to a college campus so there are a lot of young people with other dogs of all sizes and it's usually a great time. Our Husky, Jack, decided that him and a couple other dogs were going to go play with this golden retriever puppy that was there. I'm not sure what happened because it was all so fast but Jack started nipping the puppy and the puppy and the owner and about three other men started screaming for us to grab him. I was shocked at Jacks behavior as this has never happened before, not even with little dogs, puppies, or even other huskies! It looked like harmless play and the dogs were just trying to coax the other dog into a romp but we quickly left.

Has this happened to anyone else with their Husky? In the midst of the chaos one man screamed at us that Huskies are aggressive. I'm sad to think that we no longer have a dog park to go to anymore after this happened. Jack is so sweet and loving and this really hurts and is puzzling that this happened. Looking for a park and hoping it doesn't happen again.
Advice and thoughts are so appreciated!
-Christina & Jack

For starters, Huskies are not aggressive and do not let anyone else tell you otherwise. Many people think they are aggressive due to their 'wolfish' looks and rough play.

As for the puppy, he should have NOT been there. Most owners are supposed to wait until their puppies are 4-6 months old. There is a small dog park and a large dog park for a reason. When Juneau was a puppy, I brought her to the small side so the big dogs wouldn't harass her.

From the inference that you don't know what happened, I'm going to take a wild guess of what did happen. Jack was probably playing as usual - the scruff grab and wrestling. As long as there was no blood or puncture wounds on the puppy, I think you were just fine.

Whenever a puppy comes to the park, I usually a) leave b) keep Juneau away from puppy. It's always an accident waiting to happen.

Thank you for the reassurance. I had the same thoughts you do and just needed to be reminded that indeed everything is fine and the puppy needed to be in an area for smaller dogs. Now if only we didn't have to worry about him chasing the little dogs that look like rodents.  

was he just doing a "fake" grab/nip? and was he nipping the humans as well? our Jack does the nip and run move to get dogs to play, he runs up grabs them nicely around the neck then lets go and runs, it looks really bad like he is trying to chew the neck off but he does it so fast i don't even think he makes contact to skin when he does it, i have to assure the other dog owners that is normal play for him and their dog is fine, most of the time the other dogs gives chase and if not they just lay down at which point i tell Jack to find some other dog to bug. i hope you can go back to the park and educate other owners about how your husky plays and let them see its nothing, (unless he really is being rough) then you need to work on his park behavior. good luck!

He was fine with the humans that were panicking trying to get him away from the puppy. He was just so curious as to why the owner of the puppy was picking the puppy up and standing there. I feel like that only piqued his curiosity even more! He may have felt it was a game because one moment the puppy was on the ground and the next it was being scooped up and turned around away from him. In the meantime other dogs were jumping up trying to get at the puppy too. When he's running with the other dogs he'll nip them a little to egg them on and then they all play chase around and it's good fun to watch. Usually he does it around the hind leg/hip area. It looked harmless to me but perhaps to the young mom of the puppy watching a husky male play nip I guess it was scary for a few to see. Not sure.

Ugh, that would make me so mad if they were picking up the puppy and then getting mad if the other dogs were jumping on them. That is just an invitation in my opinion like you said to attract more curiosity on the dogs part. I'm sorry, they yelled at poor Jack, for something that it sounds like he didn't do wrong, you handled it better than I would of if people were yelling at either one of mine.

Sounds like normal play, and if I were you and happy at the park then I would continue to go back. If those people are there again and choose to yell at your dog for normal behavior, I would simply tell them this is normal play and he is not an aggressive dog, and if they don't like it then they can be the ones to leave. Don't let bullies make you feel bad about your dog!

Thank you! This makes me feel much better about the incident!

I have had this problem lately with my Husky, Hawk. He is just over 2 years old and we always took him to the dog park with no problems. Recently however he has been getting into fights. Mostly it is small dogs that shouldn't be in the big dog side that nip at him when he wants to play, and then he fights back. He used to just fight back a little,but now he won't stop. And yesterday he attacked a normal sized dog that did nothing but sniff his crotch, like any normal dog.

I'm really sad and upset that I don't know why this is suddenly happening and can no longer bring him to the dog park until I figure it out. He plays fine with our 11 month old Husky, they play all day long, but really upsetting that he has become aggressive with other dogs.