Her name is Nutmeg, named for her unique color. She has copper colored eyes and is the sweetest, kindest, and smartest little girl (can you tell I'm proud???). We love her to pieces. While we were told by the shelter that she was a cross, but now that she's dropped her puppy teeth and grown out of that awkward stage we think she's likely purebred. We got her in October at 4 months old. She's truly blossomed and now she's a gorgeous (I think!) adult looking dog all of a sudden. Her and her littermate were found wandering around (this is why I always tell people to NEVER let your Husky off leash!!!!!!!!!!) as strays. Her littermate was adopted 1 day before we adopted her, so we never got to see her. We were told she was a more subdued red/white color with blue eyes.

We've had 2 huskies--boys--in the past. One we adopted out of a bad situation at around 8 months old, locked in a basement and with a severe limp. Ended up in x-rays he had a broken pelvis that had done its best to heal and some buckshot lodged in his bone. We rehabbed him, I trained him, and he ended up being an EXCELLENT dog who, after alot of glucosamine supplements and some targeted exercises walked sound for the rest of his life. The other dog we had we suspected was a Malamute b/c he was HUMONGOUS and was also adopted out of a bad situation where he was going to be euthanized. Both were black/grey and whites with blue eyes.

I always say if you can train a Husky, you can train ANYTHING but I do have to say Nutmeg makes it VERY easy.

Glad to have found your forum! We love Huskies, and we're very excited about sharing our new little girl. I plan to train her to be a therapy dog for visiting hospitals etc. She has the perfect sunny personality for it. I have a friend who certifies them who is going to help me on the finer points of therapy dog training, but would love to hear if any of you have any advice on prepping her for being a volunteer therapy dog.

-Leeandra and Nutmeg

Congrats on your new furbaby! Please post pics!!

I was trying, but I keep getting an error from the "host an image" server saying it can't create my upload directory. HELP! I had them all ready in a folder on my computer, just couldn't wait to share :-)

Try using the photo upload website photobucket.com
Once your images have been uploaded copy the IMG code into here.


Beast advice I can give is socialize her with as many good things (and weird things) as possible! Also not allowing her to chew hands or jump up will be easier to break now rather than down the road

Welcome to the forum Leeandra and Nutmeg! Can't wait to see pictures of her! She sounds gorgeous!

Welcome! yes yes pics please!!!! Can't wait!!!

Kristina--THANKS!

Here's some photos :-)


Nutmeg smiling in the backseat of the truck this weekend while keeping me company getting a round bale for the horses (see the round bale in the backseat??)


Nutmeg sacked out last month (approx 7 months old) after cheering for the Steelers.....LOL!


My husband Joe putting her seatbelt on--she LOVES car rides and is our constant traveling companion on weekends


Nutmeg's first public outing during leash training as a puppy--she was about 5 1/2 months old in the pic, only 6 weeks after we got her.

Last one:

Nutmeg RIGHT after we got her @ around 4 months old

Welcome to the forum!

Aww, she is so cute! I love her markings!

Thanks! I love all the pics of the pups on the forum. And your signature blocks are all quite cool

Ginger is a gorgeous dog! And I love the snow pics. We have some somewhere....Nutmeg was VERY confused and cranky about snow at first. She would catch snowflakes on her tongue, but that was about it. She stood outside glaring at the sky and would stand like a statue in the snow. Now, she's a complete maniac if she sees snow on the ground--bows, bites it, runs in circles at the end of her long leash and puts her nose in the snow like a snowplow while she runs. It's hysterical. I took her out for a walk at midnight the other night and had a snowball fight with her. I'd toss snowballs and she'd leap into the air and catch them. Then she'd run flat out at me, drop and bow, and then kick snow at me as she shot back out for another circle run.

@ Kristina--thanks! I take her as many places as I can as often as I can. I took her with me to get hay the other day just to socialize her with the hayman's dog. Now, if I can just get her over her WAAAAAY OVERENTHUSIASTIC greetings of strangers, we'll be halfway there. My therapy dog friend said to try putting listerine on our hands to discourage her from grabbing them--she just licks it. Silly dog. She knows she's not supposed to greet anyone with an open mouth. She knows she's supposed to greet new people by sitting or laying down, she knows she's NOT supposed to jump on humans. But there are time she just completely short-circuits into crazy-happy-wolf-puppy mode and there's no amount of noise, distraction, loud clap, or ANYTHING that will get her attention for those few seconds when she meets someone new. We're working on it, but WOW is it a slow process. I started teaching her a verbal command that's just "GENTLE!" when she's trying to sniff something, hoping to bridge it over to meet and greets.

awww she's beautiful

Thanks! I love all the pics of the pups on the forum. And your signature blocks are all quite cool

Ginger is a gorgeous dog! And I love the snow pics. We have some somewhere....Nutmeg was VERY confused and cranky about snow at first. She would catch snowflakes on her tongue, but that was about it. She stood outside glaring at the sky and would stand like a statue in the snow. Now, she's a complete maniac if she sees snow on the ground--bows, bites it, runs in circles at the end of her long leash and puts her nose in the snow like a snowplow while she runs. It's hysterical. I took her out for a walk at midnight the other night and had a snowball fight with her. I'd toss snowballs and she'd leap into the air and catch them. Then she'd run flat out at me, drop and bow, and then kick snow at me as she shot back out for another circle run.

@ Kristina--thanks! I take her as many places as I can as often as I can. I took her with me to get hay the other day just to socialize her with the hayman's dog. Now, if I can just get her over her WAAAAAY OVERENTHUSIASTIC greetings of strangers, we'll be halfway there. My therapy dog friend said to try putting listerine on our hands to discourage her from grabbing them--she just licks it. Silly dog. She knows she's not supposed to greet anyone with an open mouth. She knows she's supposed to greet new people by sitting or laying down, she knows she's NOT supposed to jump on humans. But there are time she just completely short-circuits into crazy-happy-wolf-puppy mode and there's no amount of noise, distraction, loud clap, or ANYTHING that will get her attention for those few seconds when she meets someone new. We're working on it, but WOW is it a slow process. I started teaching her a verbal command that's just "GENTLE!" when she's trying to sniff something, hoping to bridge it over to meet and greets.

Beautiful dog! I love your quote "If you can train a Husky, you can train anything." I might have to quote you on occasion. Our new baby is only a little over 3 months old, but like you, I've had a husky before. My mind just seemed to have forgotten all these "puppy antics". I also like your description that your pup "short-circuits into crazy-happy-wolf-puppy mode" ~ probably only fellow husky lovers really get that! lol

Welcome!

Thanks Lisa! I'm a computer engineer by day, horse trainer by night and weekend :-) I've been a dressage trainer for 10+ years and have been training general horse training for almost 20 (god I feel old now). So, animal training isn't too foreign to me. I've had a long-haired German Pointer (pound puppy), and 2 sibes. I've probably trained about 200 horses or so LOL! It is interesting, from a cerebral standpoint, to see how the different breeds and species work when it comes to behavior chains and motivation. One, of course, being prey-driven and a predator and the other, well, being prey and flight animals! I like to watch them think and figure things out--give them puzzles. Nutmeg's intelligence is striking. I mean SCARY smart. Obedience, well, that's a work in progress. And, she has the attention span of a cricket but ITS A HUSKY THING---ROFL I LOVE the name of this forum--it's SO true!! As she gets older I see glimmers of keeping that attention longer.

Recently I've had a REALLY bad back injury, so while I was walking 3+ miles a day with little Nutmeg and actively teaching and training, I'm now in a foot cast and waiting for back surgery. I can't walk 100 yards or stand for more than 30 minutes without my back seizing up. I can't hardly put weight on my right foot without a ton of muscle relaxers and painkillers on board. So, Crazy Silly Nutmeg is REALLY REALLY crazy right now. She NEEDED those daily marches and long hikes on weekends. My husband HATES to walk--he was military and says the only way he'll walk or run now is if an XO is holding a gun to his head LOL! So, poor Nut is going as stir crazy as I am. I was even planning to join Volkmarch this year and take her on long competitive walks on the weekends. Very bummed about this right now. And, while I have wonderful friends who would likely walk her for me, I 1. don't want to let someone screw up her leash training--I have VERY specific commands for things and make her stop and sit every time another dog walks by etc. and 2. I could never forgive myself if she managed to play too hard, break the leash, they let it slip, whatever and she ran away.

But I digress..it's late at night and I'm at work waiting for servers to reboot......I get chatty.....

When we were first starting Nutmeg's crate training she would HOWL AND HOWL AND HOWL incessantly. She would howl so hard it sounded like she was going to throw up! I used to joke with people that I was keeping a wolf in my living room. And whenever she'd start back up Joe and I would joke with each other and yell back and forth through the house telling the other one to stop poking sticks/pinching The Wolf :-)

You are SO right about the leash training! I refuse to use the choke collar and have decided to wait until he's a little older to introduce a pinch collar, so for now he just plays and runs through the yard. It so easy for a husky to learn bad leash habits! Twenty years ago now, my first husky and I achieved the award of "Most Improved Dog" in obedience training class. I really thought we were going to fail and I had never before failed anything in my life! It all boils down to: 1) huskies want to pull, 2) huskies want to meet and greet ALL the other dogs and their owners in the class and 3) huskies (like you said) have the attention span of a cricket!

So sorry about your back! I have a friend who had surgery a few weeks ago on a Thursday and was coaching his son's rec league basketball game that same Saturday! I hope your surgery goes as well as his did!

Thanks!

Unfortunately I'm still in the process of finding a good surgeon. I went to a new doctor today and am getting an updated MRI to take to another surgeon appt in April. The last surgeon I went to in December looked at a lower lumbar MRI that was over SIX months old, after I told him very definitively that something had changed in my back and I needed help, and said "You are not a surgical candidate". I see a chiropractor regularly, but my health has degenerated so badly over the last few weeks that I'm convinced that whether it's surgery, injections or whatever SOMEBODY has got to fix this. I can't live in this am't of pain or dysfunction. So, I'm on the hunt for a new doctor. Thankfully I got a great lead today at my podiatrist, who gave me a walking cast so I could at least put weight on my right foot with less nerve pain now. So, things are looking up :-)

Glad to hear about the recovery of your friend. I am quite concerned about the recovery time necessary.

And back on topic, sounds like you were a LOT better than you thought at training :-) I do use the plastic "good dog" collar that is a mild pinch collar. Huskies just seem to have such a need to feel a light "weight" in the leash at all times, it's a challenge to get them to walk on a loose lead. Thanks to the pinched nerves in my back, I've been dealing with some coordination issues with my hands recently and was having trouble maintaining "weight" in a lead (or in a rein while riding), so I had to move from the standard collar to the Good Dog to lighten Nut up a bit while walking. She's still not 100% on a loose lead next to me, but she's ceased thinking I was a mobile sled she was pulling LOL!

BTW, it's actually quite funny--I have a newborn foal (now 8 months old--her and Nut are the same age!) that while I was lead training her and doing the standard walk-up, shoulder-to-shoulder on a loose lead and stop and turn direction if the dog passed me, and walk the other way, I was training the filly the exact same way. That method works with both. I'm training the filly to stand quiet tied now, and Nutmeg to "stay" at a target spot. The parallelism of their training tickles me sometimes.

The other irony--while I guess copper isn't that common of a Husky color, chestnut is very much NOT a common color in andalusians or friesians. My filly, a personal breeding from my blood red bay andalusian stallion (also very unusual color for the breed) and my black friesian came out a strange liver chestnut. She is the only chestnut andalusian x friesian that we are aware of, and we've really put the data call out there on the internet. She's an odd color of chestnut, with blonde/flaxen tail and feathering.

We adopted Nutmeg only a few months after Tiki was born, and they are identical in color and age. Anyone hearing the Twilight Zone theme in their head reading this????? I know I do when I think about it. And they are EXTREMELY similar in personality. I've had guests visit who know nothing about horses or dogs mention that they're very alike---boisterous, rambunctious, bold, fearless, and people-friendly to a fault :-) When we pull in the driveway Tiki is our farm greeter and whinnies and runs over to the fence to say hi and get scratches.

Congrats on the new pup! You should get a dog scooter when she's a bit older and tell your hubby to take her out with that. Then she could do all the work! Plus it's fun!

Doubt it, but if you want to make a trip to FL, my dad knows a great doctor. He did surgery on my dad's back and neck and did a great job both times. Hope you start feeling better soon! If you need to control her a little better since your back is hurt, a gentle leader would probably be a big help. It's not a fix all, but while your back is hurt it might help out a lot. I know it keeps my girl from pulling and actually lets me train her some in obedience and rally. If I don't have it on her, she doesn't pay as much attention to me and pulls much more. I think the idea of the gentle leader is to use it early so the dog never learns they can pull you and do all the training with it on, so when you take it off they already know how to heel. BUT most dogs, including my own, really hate wearing one, so you have to spend a lot of time getting them used to it.

Oh forgot to mention, there is a husky in my local snowdog group that looks soooo much like yours! Almost the same color, but more white instead of the off white, but same mask and eyes and tall and lanky!

Im a little late but WELCOME!!!!!

wish your pictures were larger she is a cutie!

Thanks--I'm not down in FL often, but if it comes to that and I can't get anyone around here to work on me, I'll keep it in mind.

As for the gentle leader--I bought it and put it on her once. ONCE. Didn't even attach it to the lead, just put it on her head. I've honestly never seen her freak out like that. I'm talking complete panic, throwing herself into the air, having no regard for her own body and slamming into everything--TV, table, couch, while standing on her back legs and writhing madly. She was in a state beyond terrified. I had it on for only a matter of minutes, thinking she would calm down and at least take a breath but it just kept escalating, so my husband pounced on her and held her down while I got it off of her. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, gums white, and she was just paralyzed with fear once she was still. She's a pound puppy and was a stray found wandering at 4 months old. My best thought is it triggered something that happened to her before she ended up in the pound--maybe they used that loophole-on-a-pole to catch her and keep her mouth shut? I have no idea. But, after that I put it back in the package and put it in the cabinet where I keep her stuff.

99% of the time Nut is great on the good dog collar. We're just highly aware that it's flimsy plastic and can break, so we put a "safety" strap that also goes around her neck and runs through the regular collar she wears 24/7 that has her dog tags on it. That's tight enough that it won't go over her head if she pulls, but loose enough so that she's comfy.

I LOVE the scooter idea!!! I bet Nut would love that too! I was reading the thread about the person who hooked their dog up to a bicycle with a harness. I was having visions of Nut pulling the bike and then making a hard right turn and darting off the trail---"LOOK! SQUIRREL!!!" and me and the bike in pieces after we ran into a tree LOL!

@ Jennifer--click on the picture thumbnail and it takes you to the full sized pic :-) Being a computer person, I figured rural people on dialup would hate me if I put big pics in the thread. It loads faster with little thumbnails. Guess I have to stop thinking like a techie sometimes.

Welcome Leeandra and Nutmeg. Kudos for adopting her and she looks adorable! Has anyone said she looks like an Alaskan husky? I watched a program on TV yesterday on Alaskan huskies and Nutmeg looks just like them! My goodness you sound like a busy person too!

The scooter is a good idea to let her burn off some excess energy. Bikejoring is also an option but part of the problem is she'll need some training on directional commands and such before you go out like that. Plus she's still a pup and is still growing so I wouldn't go head first into heavy running and pulling for a few more months and also try to keep the running to softer surfaces like dirt and grass rather than concrete. Not sure if you've done all this already with your previous 2 huskies so this may all be just a repeat. Is there a safe, enclosed dog park nearby that you could take Nutmeg to so she can burn off some steam there?

Anyway, glad to have you here!

Thanks Val! We used to take our 2 huskies to an enclosed tennis court to let them burn off steam. I'm meeting a friend next week in PA to check out the dog park she goes to. Any of the dog parks in the tri state area are all 45min+ away. Nutmeg will happily hang in the car or truck backseat for hours, but it's more the time commitment driving there and back after work until the days get longer. That's why I scheduled her a play date with my friend's Ridgeback in the dog park next weekend :-)

As for Alaskan--yup, it's actually my CAT vet who told me all about that. She works on cats and has a cat hospital, but LOVES Alaskan sled dogs and goes to trips in Alaska. She even volunteer vetted at a dogsled competition. As soon as she saw her (and we were still saying she was a German Shepherd/Husky cross) she set us straight. We were really starting to think she was purebred, but her long snout, brown eyes, odd beige instead of white coloring and lithe build threw us. I was picking up Sammy The Siamese from her office and was dropping Nutmeg off up the street to be spayed. She peeked through the door very vehemently insisted she was NOT a cross. She said she was the "sled dog" variety, built to run and pull sleds. Said some of the teams she worked with would LOVE a dog like Nut. I started poking around on the internet--that's how I found this forum--and found pics of Alaskan Huskies that looked JUST like her!

Whenever we are out walking in a park, people stop us CONSTANTLY and ask what kind of dog she is. They're all entranced by her color (as were we! I saw her picture and just HAD to have her!). I am always in awe of her beauty when I look at her. Our boys were nice looking dogs, but she is (I think) really remarkable! So unusual......and regal too!

shes gorgeous