I'm currently looking for a husky puppy and I came across this one which my family fell in love with. I've never had any experience with the long haired huskies though, and from the internet research I did (which sucks), I get differing answers.

My questions:

1) Is long/wooly hair a recessive gene? Is there anyway to tell if this puppy is a long or short hair husky? (Picture of puppy and parents below).

2) I live in Southern California and from what I understand, while huskies don't love the heat, they manage, and keeping them in an a/c house helps. Is the heat tougher on a long hair husky compared to a short hair one?

3) Any other differences between the two I should know?

Here are the pictures of the puppy and the mom and dad:

It does look like that puppy could be a wooly.

Yes, woolies have a harder time regulating their body temperature than standard coated huskies.

Anything else you should know...huskies are already a huge grooming commitment and a wooly is even more than that.

I would not buy a wooly puppy. A breeder that is purposely breeding a wooly dog is not what we would consider a "responsible" breeder. It means that they are breeding dogs out of standard. To me, if they are willing to breed a dog out of standard, what else are they overlooking? Health histories? Behavioral issues?

Wooly is a recessive gene and any dog produced that is a wooly should not be bred.

It's hard to tell from the photo if the grey/black one is wooly but they do have the "feathering" that is associated with a wooly coat. And I'm not sure there really is a way to tell if a puppy is going to be wooly. I've seen some really fluffy puppies have the normal coat or even smooth coats.

Since their fur is longer it does not allow for ample air flow as the weight of the hair pushes down on the undercoat a bit more. Now that's not to say they won't do well in the heat, they just may not be able to handle as much activity in the heat as other dogs and they can be more prone to overheating as well.

There is no other differences between a wooly and a normal coated husky. It is just a recessive gene that makes the fur longer. The dog itself is still husky in every other way.

Ah Sara said that better. lol.

And yes, wooly coats can be very difficult to manage compared to normal coated huskies. I have a friend who has a wooly with an undercoat so thick she gets mats very easily and cannot get wet at all unless it's for a bath or if my friend wants to spend several hours brushing the coat out to make sure she doesn't get any mats.

I have a wooly boy - not by choice, by chance.  He was a shelter dog and had loss most of his coat due to neglect and did not look wooly when we adopted him at 1 year.

The good news is he is beautiful, his coat his wonderfully soft and abundant - we can't go anywhere without people, especially little kids, wanting to pet him.  It undulates and ripples in the wind and when he moves.

The bad news?  Lots.  The very first is he mats incredibly easily - especially behind the ears.  And he HATES grooming so if I don't catch a mat at it's beginning, I end up chopping it out with scissors - getting yours as a puppy, you should be able to train him for grooming better.

When he gets wet - it takes days, not hours, for him to thoroughly dry - and I believe het gets wet quicker than a standard coat siberian - the soft, wooly undercoat predominates and it absorbs water like a wool sweater - the guard hairs are neither long enough or abundant enough for water (rain, dew, puddles, hoses) to just run off.  He likes to be outside at night - we frequently have heavy dew.  He ends up wet, like a sponge in a sink - I worry that being wet all the time is bad for his skin so I end up bringing him inside when he really wants to be out "surveying his domain" from his "spot" on the front lawn.

Winter?  His fur collects ice and snow balls - EVERYWHERE  His paws regularly collect so much that it hurts him to walk - the only time he willingly and gratefully allows me to handle his feet is when we are walking, the ice has built up and he lays down on the ground - I warm his paws with my bare hands to melt the ice.

Summer?  Even in upstate New York, with lots of trees for shade, this boy is stressed.  He is a rug from about 8  until the sun goes down in the evening.  Even a 2 mile walk requires that I carry water for him.  Really, he is happiest when the temp is below 40° - even in winter he is much livelier below 20° than 40-ish.  I have a picture of him from this winter, stretched out on his back, fully "sunny-sibe up" laying in the sun, in the snow - the temperature was somewhere around 9° - a temp usually calling for a husky curl.

And coat blow?  Last year it lasted from March until late August.  Though this year, for some reason, hasn't really started  And his coat is so dense and long that the only tool I've found to brush him adequately was my own plastic-bristled goody hairbrush - the kind with the little balls on the end.

That little guy is cute, though.  As Sara and Ashleigh have said - I would be more worried about what health problems the breeders may be overlooking since they may not be concerned with the Siberian Husky standard in their breeding practices.

Good Luck.

As far as whether that's a wooley or not - at puppy stage way too many things can change.  However since dad<?> appears to be a wooley you stand a better than even chance that the one you're looking at is.

As others have said it is a recessive gene so (I'm assuming in the picture of the parents that mom is on the left and dad on the right??) if dad's a full on wooly and mom carries the gene then you've got a good shot at a wooly.

I have one here who's not a full blown wooly (not as shaggy as Ami for example) but has longer hair than normal for a Husky.  I live in the desert in Texas and, at the moment, it's in the high 90's (98 last time I looked) and both my dogs are crashed until the sun heads down.  It's odd but my shaggy Sibe handles the heat better than my slick (short coat, like a lab) Alaskan does - though he's been know to sunbathe when the temp over 100!

Whether it's a wooly or not be prepared for fur to become a part of your life, if it's a wooly just expect more of it - lots more!!

Turned out that the puppy was sold :/ But we found another beautiful and amazing puppy that we put a deposit down for, a short haired one too. Thank you all for the info, and it's good to have the knowledge