I currently have a 5 month old husky mixed with australian shepherd. As I hike a lot i have been letting him off lead and he does his own thing, wont go to far without turning around and waiting for me. After reading lots about husky's everyone seems to say never let them off lead eventually they will book it. I was wondering if because he is a mix things may be different? any one have any information for me?
thanks

It's a mixed basket. Every dog is different and he is still very young. As he matures his desire to explore and not care about you calling him back could grow. It's not something to be done without any firm training and extreme caution. I had a border collie/husky mix when I was young and she was good until she hit about 1 year old and then the world was just too interesting and she had too much energy to be tamed. Then she was a bear to catch. If you train, train, train really hard for it and have backup plans it is possible, even with a full blooded husky, but it's never a guarantee.

It depends entirely on the dog and in part on the way you've trained it. At 5 months old he's still puppy enough that he wants to keep checking on where momma is.

You've got a mix of two intelligent, free wheeling breeds. Husky's have to be since they're so far in front of their master that they will often see trouble before he will and they have to know how to react. The Aussie has to be allowed to roam to guard his flock and has to be prepared to meet any challengers without his master necessarily knowing what's happening.
As a breed, they're both used to working loosely together, so they want to be with or near their pack; they're both independent work dogs who really crave getting out and running.

My suggestion would be to work - really work - on recall now while he's still checking. You stand a better chance of getting him to continue to check with you if you emphasize *NOW* what you expect from him as he matures.

BTW, Husky's are pretty good about checking until they approach the year mark (their 'teen age years') after that, all bets are off. He *may* continue to check and then again, he may just go for a run ... hopefully he won't get lost (stupid dogs *will* get lost!)

Letting a Husky off lead who doesn't have good, solid recall and who doesn't know where home is can be tantamount to a death sentence.

for a backup plan... do you mean something like an e-collar? what are other options for back up plans? i do have a long leash its just hard to use when hiking because he wraps him self in all the trees...

thank you for the information by the way.