Hi Everyone! I have a few questions and would love some feedback!

1 - my husky is 6 months old and we thought she was FINALLY house broken... BIG FAT NOPE! She pooped in the house and then popped a squat and peed right in front of me as we were playing. I hear that this breed may never full potty train. She has never been one to go to the door, we just happen to always take her out every 45min to an hour. Any tips?

2 - Karma is really rough with my kids still. yes I know she is a puppy be she doesn't nip at myself or my husband. When she sees my kids she gets down in that "attack" mode where it's like she's about to pounce on them and she takes off and jumps on them and nips at them. I think she is playing but how do I get her to stop? My kids are 4 and 2 and we are trying to teach them to yell at her to get down and push her down but she's getting bigger then them. We also crate train her so when she is doing things she shouldn't we put her in her crate for a few minutes.

Thanks all!

I don't have any kids, but for potty training we got Shadow a bell for the door. It took him awhile to figure it out. At night time he would just sit and stare at himself in the sliding glass door for minutes without making a noise, then would go potty and we never noticed him sitting there until it was too late. He already knew shake, so we taught him shake bell and he knows that bell ringing means door will open. He is 5 months now and will only go potty inside about once a week during the night if we don't hear the bell or if he has diarrhea and just can't hold it. (We've had problems with crate training, so he just sleeps in our doorway.)

Do your kids play rough with your pup or get her riled up?

It sounds like the way she is playing is perfectly normal for a Husky puppy. The trick of course is controlling when and how.  

Sounds like it is important that you (and your kids) understand that getting her riled up or playing rough, wrestling, chasing....etc. is going to automatically trigger a certain response from the pup.  Part of training the puppy is training the kids too on how to properly and safely interact with the puppy.  

I said this in another thread about the same thing: when they are this age, if you play with fire you're gonna get burned.  So to avoid the burnt, avoid the fire.  

Keeping them calm at this age and appropriately channeling their need to bite and chew (it is a legitimate need after all that is common in the breed, you can't train it away) is a monumental life lesson that takes a long time with a lot of patience and discipline on your part.  

Good luck!

Also, it is very untrue that this breed can't be potty trained. Karli was potty trained by 7 months old and we crate trained her so she never had any accidents at night. The hardest part is figuring out what her signal is. Also too, she's getting close to her teenage years and during that time they test the rules and limits to see if they can get away with stuff. Keep it consistent and if you have to start from scratch again, do so. I have heard the bell method works really well.

As for the playing, putting her in her crate to stop her isn't the way to go about it. The crate should only be associated with good things, not for punishment. If she gets too rough with your kids, teach them to get up and walk away from her. The fun ends when she gets too rough. Also teach them to yelp when she's rough, like another puppy would. And put her in timeout, usually a bathroom for a couple minutes is perfect for this. To keep her from chewing on them, having them put a toy in her mouth instead of their hands would work well too. Jeff is right, you have to teach the kids how to properly play with the puppy as well.

thanks so much for your responses

My girl is 6.5 month and has been potty train for over 2 months now. She too would not make a noise when she was younger, she is a quiet one so she'd just sit outside the glass door and sometimes I wouldn't notice, especially at night of course. The solution was putting a doggy door in. It took her a few days to get used to it but she's been independent ever since and has not had an accident since. I think the doggy door is amazing and I am hoping that our second puppy (which will come home with us in 3 weeks) will learn quickly from her.

I agree that figuring out the signal is the hardest part. Dizzy would get really mouthy, then because of the mouthing, I'd put him in timeout, then, he'd have an accident. Once I figured out the signal, it was pretty easy for us. What did you do when she peed in front of you? With my puppy, I'd interrupt him, pick him up and immediately take him outside. If he went, he got huge praise and tons of treats.

As for the nipping, chasing, Jeff is right, try to avoid winding her up into that state. I realized that in an effort to 'wear out the puppy' I was just hyping him up and making everything worse. When he did get to that hyped up nipping state, he would go in time out to calm down. I had to use the crate, because we have a studio apartment, and I didn't really have any other option. It hasn't adversely affected his crate training, so that's good. For him, it was more of a cooling off, or coming down period, not necessarily a punishment. I would just pick him up and put him in there without a word and leave him in for 5-15 minutes until he came down a few levels. Also the yelping works for some, but didn't work with Dizzy, it just made him more excited because he thought it was a really fun game.