Well we seen somebody on Facebook that could no longer care for thier Husky baby and we decided to go and meet her. Well we took Loki along and met her and we decided that adopting her was the right decision. She is almost 2 years old and her name is Sasha. Yes, we are crazy.

She is not a rescue per say but she did not have a yard to play in and we wanted to give her a better life. So I guess I will have to update this as time passes but for now meet Sasha!

I need to jump on my laptop to get the BBcode but for now here's a direct link to my imgur.

https://m.imgur.com/a/b6hEy

Aww...she's beautiful.

She is beautiful...congratulations! They will be awesome together!

Congratulations on the new addition. I bet loki is happy to have a partner in crime now

Hey back again with some more time and photos. She is about he same height as Loki but weighs 54lbs, and the dog food the previous owner gave us was Performatrin large breed, and said she had tried using the more expensive dog food but she would not eat it. She had a lot of undercoat in her coat, so after picking her up the very next day we went out and got her a new harness, leash and collar, booked her an appointment for a spa day next weekend at Petsmart, then ran over to our other local dog store to use the dog wash. With Loki, he is shedding a little bit, but since he has the puppy coat, its not too bad. I had already spend an hour brushing the undercoat out in the morning and then gave her a good bath and used the blower and undercoat rake to get the bulk of her undercoat out. It was pretty much snowing fur in the store. We also bought her a smaller bag of TOTW Pacific stream, as we want her moved over to quality food asap and the large breed food is likely why she is a bit thick. Theres a good layer of fat and feeling her ribs is a bit difficult.

 The previous owner gave us her last vets name so we can get some records. However, there is something wrong with her left eye that we need to get checked out. Both eyes are blue, but allegedly as a puppy she had some damage done to that eye and in the pictures you can see that it appears to be brown, but she is actually cross eyed. If you look from the top it is like pressure is pushing her eye upwards and rolling it back. We talked about what our plan is and if we can correct it we will no matter the cost.

 We were told she is 2 and I tried to find out who the breeder is and have a good idea. She is spayed and she is very affectionate. She gets along good with Loki, and we have some issues to work on but we both knew she was not getting the love she deserved and while another couple may have came along after and took her, we felt it would be better to just take her there and then and start getting her the love she deserves. So here is Sasha.













 Are we crazy?

She is adorable and they look like they are having so much fun together. I'm happy that she's in a good home and will be loved.

Ok, we hit a bit of a snag. As some of you know we have 2 cats. We had asked Sashas previous owner if she got along with cats and they have a cat and said yes. At first everything was fine, one cat would be on a ledge that she could reach and she pretty much left him alone once he hissed at her.

However yesterday and today one of the cats was on the cat tree in our living room and she went over and started barking at him. She then jumped up and started climbing up onto the cat tree to get to the cat. We tried squirting her with a water bottle and telling her no but it did little to break off her interest. Normally i would have grabbed some treats to re-direct her and wait for her to calm down but Loki was adding to the problem and so Jen picked up the cat and walked away. But she persisted and was circling Jen and jumping ect. We put the cat upstairs and let the dogs out. They were outside for 20-25 minutes but once she got back in she b-lined straight for the baby gate separating the upstairs from the main level and was scratching at it and crying.

I fear now that she is starting to settle in she is more comfortable and in my opinion, it seemed like it was prey drive. Because we got Loki as a puppy he does some of the same things but just in general is much better behaved, and he is curious of the cats but will break off if we tell him to or even he just loses interest. She may have been ok with the last cats she was with but these new cats are not her pack members and getting that established will not be easy, if its even possible at all.

The cats have came up to the room the crates are in and we didn't notice her getting excited or anything. For now we have the cats separated to the basement just for now. More or less we just want to know if this behavior sounds like a prey drive or exuberant dog that is excited to play.

Update on Sasha and the situation regarding the cats. Her behavior was enough to worry me and because I was concerned Jenn was REALLY concerned. She started talking about bringing her back to her original owners but I really wanted to work at it. She felt like the cats were at too high of a risk and it was too dangerous to work with Sasha and the cats in case she got a hold of one of them. So my solution was to A-have Sasha on a tether when we are gauging and working with her and the cats, and B-muzzling her so in the worst case scenario she can't hurt the cats. We tried a few times with her but the squirt bottle does not seem like much of a deterrent for her. Her tail is wagging when she is barking and paying attention to the cat but her laser focus screams prey drive to me. She did live with a cat before, but was likely raised with it so it was seen as a pack member.

There really is no easy or quick solution, but we have our dog trainer coming to help. The other concern i have is her behavior towards the cats will get picked up on by Loki, seeing as how they are pack animals, and start undoing some of the work we did with him. We will need to be very careful for the next few weeks when she is inside the house, and it gets more complicated with Loki around. And unfortunately the cats will jump over the baby gates we set up, and while they have a small animal door in them its still big enough for either dog to also fit through, so we have to leave this closed. One cat is smart enough to just jump right over the gate, but i was putting the cats downstairs and the other one being a very nervous cat was running away from me, I got to the gate and he was trying to go through the door. If i have enough time to reach down and pick him up, he stands no chance against a Husky.

I am thinking about hole sawing a 5" hole in the floor of one of the bedrooms under the bed (the dogs can still fit under the bed but barely fit) and then putting some shelving or building a literal catwalk in the basement they can drop onto or jump back up upstairs. It gives them a second escape route that is a bit harder for the dogs to pursue them, being under the bed.

I had a German Shepherd (Gadget) that wouldn't leave our cats alone. She would bark at them incessantly whenever the cats came out of the bedroom, and Gadget would chase them until they took refuge under the computer desk. Sometimes they would lay down on top of it to get away from her, and she would pace at the bottom and whine, trying to figure out how to reach them. Our cats pretty much lived in the bedroom for their own safety. We didn't have Gadget long. I wound up giving her to my parents for their farm. They had horses and needed a large dog to protect them from predators, and Gadget was ideal. I don't know what I would've done if my parents hadn't taken her. Either she or the cats would've had to go to a new home because Gadget couldn't be trained to leave them alone.

In your Husky's case, if she got along with a cat before, I don't see why she couldn't again. I would use the umbilical method of training. This basically means she's attached to you at all times with a leash whenever she's out of her crate and not outdoors. That way you can stop her behavior toward the cats when it starts, and give her praise and treats when she acts appropriately around them. It may take a few weeks, but this is a surefire method to train her to accept them as pack members.

I agree with the umbilical cord method for you. Your worry about Loki picking up on Sasha's behavior is, in my opinion, highly likely, and then your cats are up against two, with a combined effort in cornering, and "catching" their *prey*. Sasha is new in the household, and although not a "puppy" anymore, she shouldn't really be allowed the freedom of an adult, yet, and training has to be more in line with how you'd train a puppy.