Hi all,

Noelle was a year last week and up till then was a very well behaved Husky who seemed to sleep a lot of the day.... My fiance and I both work but Noelle is only home alone tuesday to thursday and I always come home at lunchtime. In the past week, she has started to get destructive, destroying 3 cushions and today I got home and she has chewed an armchair to bits.... We used to crate train her but stopped at about 7 months as she seemed to be ok without it..... I have a few questions -

1) We give her about an hour excercise in the morning (walking and jogging). Would it benefit her if we started more strenuous excercises like pulling a scooter as well?
2) We really want to get another and might have a good opportunity in a couple of months - perhaps another Husky would help relieve some boredom quite a lot? I know how much of a pack animal they are...
3) Should we crate during the day again?

Also, she has just developed a fear of cars driving alongside the path when walking with just me... Weird as she has not had any issues before or near misses with cars and enjoys going in our car. She seems a lot more relaxed when both my fiance and I take her out as well....

Any help would be totally appreciated!!!

Cheers,
Dave:affraid:

I would go back to crating her during the day and up her exercise to at least an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening with a short walk at noon. Since she is a year now you can start working on things like biking and scootering with her to help wear her out as well. Even getting a backpack and gradually working her up to carrying some weight will help you wear her out as well. Just remember to gradually work her up to anything since, while her energy is good for it, her muscles and joints will take some time to train just as much as training her to understand the new things she will be doing or wearing.

As for suddenly being freaked out by cars, it is normal and others on the forum have had dogs go through phases where it seems out of the blue something that never bothered them before suddenly bothers them. Today it might be cars, tomorrow it might be the ceiling fan. Just keep desensitizing her to things as you did to get her used to the cars in the first place.

This is great - thanks for this. Would getting another Husky also help in terms of boredom and being alone? I have always wanted two anyway and it seems like quite a few people have 2 or more Huskies....

Cheers,

I would get her exercise needs figured out to get the destructiveness under control, and shore up her training in both obedience and teach her any joring that you want to do first. A second will help wear her out, but it will also be twice the work when it comes to training. When I started bikejoring with Kenzi it was a task teaching her the voice commands but having her already know the voice commands has saved me a lot of work now that I'm teaching my second since she teaches him what to do almost as much as I do.

As far as being bored or lonely during the day while we are away, neither of our dogs are alone loose together while we are away. They can talk to each other through the crate if they want but there's no playing in the house while I'm not home. Our new dog is a nervous destroyer so he isn't allowed out. I haven't noticed Kenzi being any less or more lonely having a second to sit around with during the day than she was before when all she had for company was the radio. Basically we have two that sleep while I'm at work now rather than just one. It will depend on Noelle whether it makes a difference in your case. If she is okay with being alone and her separation anxiety isn't bad, I don't imagine having another around will make a difference.