Good morning all. New to the forum, and new to owning a husky. We (wife and I) bought our little girl the day after Christmas. She is 12 weeks today and has been great. She is relatively housebroken minus the random accidents when we aren't paying close enough attention or if we have people come over and she is excited and had just drank. Training is going good as well. She has learned Sit, Paw, Down, and Stay pretty well and we are to the point where using hand signal and no treats can be successful. Our daily routine is as follows: Wake up at 6am, open the door to her crate that she spends the night in. It is located in our bedroom. I get dressed and she eventually makes her way out of the crate and greets both of us. I take her downstairs to go outside to take care of business. Bring her in for breakfast and play time. Then at 7am, I shower and my wife takes her out for a walk and more business. At approxamitly 730am, we put her in her crate, which is a different crate located downstairs on the main floor. Around 1030am, we have a family member come to let her out, walk, and play for 30 or so minutes. Then again around 1pm, one of us come home to do the same thing. After that, she is in her crate for about 4 hours until we get home from work. Once home, we take her out and walk and play, then eat and play and maybe another walk before she calms down and ends up napping and cuddling on the floor with us starting around 730pm. At 930pm we take her out for her final bathroom break then take her up to our bedroom. At which point she is usually tired and walks right into her crate and lays down for the night.

On with the problem. It started yesterday, and we've never seen this behavior before. Let me start this off by saying that she is scared of the stairs in the house. She hasn't walked up them by herself yet and won't. With that being said, we were in the basement with her and she had never really been down there. I carried her back up and we played a little. She then crawled under a chair that she could lay under but that's it. Any attempt to pet or touch resulted in growling and attempts to nip at our hands. I was able to get her out by laying a treat on the ground and tipping the chair. As soon as you pick her up she is calm and not angry. The same thing happened this morning when she knew it was time to go in her crate as we were leaving.

Any ideas or suggestions? Also, if you have any questions let me know.

Welcome to the forum.

For the stairs, you are training her to be scared of them and accepting her fear of the stairs by carrying her. It is very simple to overcome this.  

Make sure she is hungry,  so delay her meal a while. Whether it is up or down, go to the opposite end of the stairs with her food, and call her to you.   If she cries or screams , let her.  Wear headphones.   Be her role model. When she arrives to you,  no matter how long it takes just wait, calmly praise her and bring her to her food spot and let her eat.   This is the only way she eats for a few days. She will get it and her trust in you will deepen.

The chair thing is trickier.  She have been freaked out by the basement,  the big deal , if any, you made of the basement,  or the stairs, or the big deal you made of the stairs.     Or, she could have just been playing under the chair and testing you.  

Not all teeth on your skin is biting or aggression,  in fact, most is not at her age .

The stairs thing is something we will be working on this weekend for sure. Thanks for the tips on that. And while I know that there is not usually aggression at this age, I think it was more of a Fear/Backed in a corner feeling she was having. It was definitely not play biting or vocalization.

Also, now that you've brought up the food thing. She does not get very excited for food. We feed her once in the morning and once in the evening. We are feeding her Victor HiPro High Activity Puppy/Dog food. It has gotten great reviews from people on here/amazon/and the dog food review site. Thinking of starting to put Beef broth in it to see if that entices her to get excited for feedings more. If that doesn't improve her food drive, would you suggest changing food?

Jeff, you and I are going to diverge in our answers here a bit. While I'll agree that carrying the puppy upstairs (or down) should not be the practice when the puppy is expressing fear. As you say, they "are training her to be scared of them". There is ample proof though that too much stair climbing as a puppy can be harmful to their development as the growth plates aren't solid yet.

Her crawling under the chair, from what I read, was her simply saying "Okay, I'm done for a while." and then you tended to exacerbate the situation by making her come out. All she wanted was some of her own space ... she's still young and they get tired easily and when they do they want a space to chill out. That can be their crate, or as you found, under a chair or a coffee table or behind a couch. I'd suggest that when she does that, just let her be for a while and then she'll come out on her own.

So the "too many steps" thing wouldn't really be a problem as we never really spend a ton of time on other floors, we just want her to not be afraid of them.

While I agree that she may have gone under the chair for "alone time", she also went under there when we came home for lunch and took her out of her crate. Went outside for a bathroom break, came back in to play and she went under there. I am assuming in an effort to not have to go back in her crate.

madhatter wrote:

So the "too many steps" thing wouldn't really be a problem as we never really spend a ton of time on other floors, we just want her to not be afraid of them.

Very smart - we had a comedy of errors when we stay in a 2nd floor hotel room with no elevator...not knowing that my 63#, 24.5" dog did not go down long stairwells...

Any chance this is her trying to assert dominance at all? I realize that she is in fact trying to hide out of fear, but I don't like the fact that when we try to pet her while she is under there, she growls and nips at us

Here she is last Friday at 11 weeks.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f38/19/11/59/56/10896911.jpg

Noted, Al. There is a risk of injury for just about everything a puppy does.

madhatter wrote:

Any chance this is her trying to assert dominance at all? I realize that she is in fact trying to hide out of fear, but I don't like the fact that when we try to pet her while she is under there, she growls and nips at us

*I* wouldn't call it an attempt at dominance, I'd call it a fear reaction.  She's gone to what she hopes is a safe place and is still being bothered by you big guys.

From a comment you made earlier that I hoped someone else would pick up on.  Since she doesn't go to her crate as her safe place then she obviously doesn't equate "crate" with "safe". I'd suggest you take a look at the many threads here that go into crate training in detail (I don't crate so I won't offer any thoughts).  Well, one - her crate should be her space, when she goes in there (hopefully willingly) she should be allowed "her space" until she comes out.

For example, Avalanche has a spot in the corner between the end of my couch on one wall and a bookcase on the other wall.  If he's there and I call him he'll look over the arm of the couch to see what I want.  If I'm "just checking" he'll lay back down, if I want him for something then I'll call him again and he'll gladly come out to see what I've got in mind.  ( Actually, it's funny both of them use that space for the same reason - "break time" )

madhatter wrote:

Here she is last Friday at 11 weeks.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f38/19/11/59/56/10896911.jpg

Nice picture of a good looking dog.

I definitely agree with the idea that she doesn't treat her "day crate" as her safe place. I quoted "day crate" because she has two different crates. One that she sleeps in which is in our bedroom, and she gets in that one willingly. My guess is because it is only used for her to sleep in and we are always in the room when she is in it. However the one she goes in during the day, she definitely doesn't go in for casual resting or safety. Will look into some other methods of getting her to like the "day crate", I'm just worried that she'll never really LOVE it due to the fact that she is forced to stay in it while we're at work.

aljones wrote:

madhatter wrote:

Any chance this is her trying to assert dominance at all? I realize that she is in fact trying to hide out of fear, but I don't like the fact that when we try to pet her while she is under there, she growls and nips at us

*I* wouldn't call it an attempt at dominance, I'd call it a fear reaction.  She's gone to what she hopes is a safe place and is still being bothered by you big guys.

Exactly. You can replace "dominance" with "relief from fear or anxiety or nerves" and the rest falls into place just the same.

A dominant dog is not going to hide under something and then react to being approached. That's not how dominance works, setting aside the issue of whether or not dogs are in a perpetual fight for status with us all together.

madhatter wrote:

I definitely agree with the idea that she doesn't treat her "day crate" as her safe place. I quoted "day crate" because she has two different crates. One that she sleeps in which is in our bedroom, and she gets in that one willingly. My guess is because it is only used for her to sleep in and we are always in the room when she is in it. However the one she goes in during the day, she definitely doesn't go in for casual resting or safety. Will look into some other methods of getting her to like the "day crate", I'm just worried that she'll never really LOVE it due to the fact that she is forced to stay in it while we're at work.

Aha.

Do you feel bad about putting her in a crate? Guilty?

If you do, you lost the battle, right there. Your puppy will automatically have negative feelings towards things that you have negative feelings about. It's that simple.

Just got this message from my Wife who went home an hour ago to work from home the rest of the day with the dog.

-"Shes not being normal, I gave her a treat and she grabbed it and ran away from me. She wouldn't let me by her while eating. Then we walked for a long time and when we got back she raced right under the chair and stared at me."

Other than yesterday, we've not experienced ANY fear or distrust from her inside the house other than the stairs. Could this sudden "distrust" or "fear" of us be coming from the crate? If so, what makes that interesting is that early on in crate training (last 2 weeks), she would make messes in the crate, both fecal and just physical messes of blankets and what not. Since Monday, she has only had one day with an accident, and the crate has been in order almost every time we've come home. So it's almost as though she has been becoming more comfortable relaxing in the crate while we're gone, yet when we let her out, she has started to distrust us more? If that makes sense.

seattlesibe wrote:

Aha.  

Do you feel bad about putting her in a crate? Guilty?      

If you do, you lost the battle, right there.  Your puppy will automatically have negative feelings towards things that you have negative feelings about.   It's that simple.  

We definitely don't feel positive about having to crate her up for the day, but we try to make it positive when we put her in there. Kong, treats, toys, blanket. The crate has a divider set up to block off half as it is a big crate. Do you think I should open it up completely?

It's not about the size of the crate or the props in it, it is about your feeling towards it and her state of mind the second you walk away. Dogs only know our feelings. They don't perceive comfort or love or security through things we buy for them.

Dogs in shelters often had all the toys and hugs and kisses in the world.

You want her to be calm, and quiet, and relaxed when you walk away. If she is excited or alert or energetic then she will be fighting that state of mind all day.

Start with teaching her a Crate command where she voluntarily enters when prompted and an exit or Release command where she only exits when invited,  then you wait until she is calm and settled and quiet.

The primary key here, and really with dealing with separation anxiety generally,  is having the distinction between you being there and you being gone as absolutely minimal as possible.  You can not expect a dog to be calm and settled once you leave if the dog isn't calm and settled when you are there.

Practice, practice, practice.

Think of the moment you walk away and the moment you return to her as a snapshot of her mindset.

Make that snapshot as lovely and relaxing as possible. Crate training is about mental discipline, not distractions or confinement.

Do you see any problem with having two crates? One in the bedroom where she sleeps, and the other on the main floor for during the day?

I've already said that I don't crate - since I'm home almost all the time - but I'd like you to look at the way you're phrasing things.

"She gets into her night crate" but "you put her into her day crate" and you "force her into it" ... as Jeff has noted, your own thoughts define your feelings about her day crate.

Jeff, correct me on this if you want ... I'm thinking that it's time to make positive efforts on your part to fix your viewpoint about that crate.  First and foremost, whether she's in there for 10 minutes or 8 hours while you're not immediately there, you are providing her with a place that is physically safe.  She can't chew on electrical cords, she can't get into the garbage where there are  apt to be things that are bad for her, ad infinitum. This isn't a cage that you're putting her in, this is her safe place to go into ... safe for her and you.

Since she does have the opportunity to get into and out of during your normal day, I think I'd really make an effort to let her see it as her space.  Drop a treat in there and just go away ... let her get it when she's ready to brave the horrors; if you do that several times over the weekend, you might find her more agreeable to staying there; don't force the issue let her investigate the good things that can happen in the crate.  

Adding onto what Jeff has already said but with a bit different emphasis.  You have people in and out during the day ... but if the feeling she picks up is "hurry up and do your thing" then, I'd think, that she's worse off (she's getting bad messages) than if she wasn't let out at all.  If I were you, in this situation, I'd be doing as much as I could to put good emphasis on the crate, treats, toys, feeding her in the crate.  I would, for example, put her food in her crate (note, not "the crate" but "her crate"), leave the door open and let nature take its course.  She'll eventually go eat and if you don't make a big thing out of it then she's going to accept that as the norm.

And to answer the question you asked while I was writing, there are others here who use two crates for just that purpose so *I* wouldn't think it to be a problem.

Al, you've addressed the framing or projection issue very well.

I can't see any problems with two crates, so long as your protocol is exactly the same . You don't want her feeling like one crate is positive ( you are there), one is negative (you are not there). If anything it just makes your job tougher.

Thank you both for the information. Had a successful weekend getting through the "fear" of the indoor stairs. She still has some anxiety about it initially, but will go up and down with us now. As for the crate, we worked on getting her to see that it is HER spot, but I think it will take time. We periodically put treats and what not in there, and she went in and out a few times this weekend. Also, when she would lay down to nap outside of it, I would put her in. She didn't stay in for too long with the door open, but she also didn't like run out. I think maybe the idea of putting her food bowl in there will be the next step. This morning when we were preparing to leave, we tried to coax her in with treats and a Kong. She was interested, but still took a little guiding to get her to go all the way in.

As for the under the chair aggression, it seems to be a symptom or a reaction to fear or not wanting to do something as we've only seen it happen when she WAS (not anymore) afraid of the stairs, and when she knows she is going to be left in her crate. Again, thanks for the help and I will report back as we progress.