Hey all! This is my first Husky, and Ive had him for about 4 years now. He is sweet and not distructive at all out my current house (With mother)

But Im old enough to be living on my own and am looking for an apartment with a roommate. Im really nervous how my Husky will handle the move. Ive read up that they can become destructive, and their anxiety levels will sky rocket.

Im not too worried about him being destructive, what I am worried about is him howling when I leave. He doesnt really like to be alone, but has never gave us an issue at my house. Im nervous that because its an unfamilair place, he will howl when I leave for work.

I dont leave him in the crate because its an 8 hour shift. He is freem roam because hes never had an issue with accidents.

Anyone have advice for Huskies and Apartment life? How do I avoid the howling so I wont get any complaints from the neighbors. How can I keep him busy for 8 hours each day? I wont have enough for Dog walkers

We got our Husky when we lived in an apartment. Never got any complaints from the neighbors.

The only advice I can give is to make sure he is tired when you leave and possibly leave him something to do when you are gone (chew toy or something of that nature). Also if you really are concerned, you might want to stop by your closest neighbors apartments and let them know you have a dog that might get noisy when you are gone and that if it is an issue to let you know so you can attempt the fix the problem before it gets out of hand.

Also, an 8 hour shift is not that long for a dog to be in a crate. We crate Gabby (our Husky) for 8-10 hours a day 3 days a week and she is just fine. We crate because we also have 2 cats that she tries to chase on occasion and do it to avoid her accidentally hurting one of them.

We also take her to day care 1-2 days a week and that is normally enough to keep her just wanting to sleep the whole next day until we get home (another idea to keep her tired and noiseless).

Hope this helps.

Crating - and I know I'm not the only one - I crate my two sibes overnight without problem. I "crash" somewhere between 10:PM and midnight and get up somewhere around 7:AM, so mine might be in their crates for up to 9 hours. *My* main reason for crating is that if I don't, I find a wet spot (or two) in the kitchen when I go to make coffee ...

It's different that you'll be gone during the day and I'm only asleep but still there. The change from being home with your mother and being alone during the day, really that makes crating the safer option - if he gets bored and decides to chew on something he shouldn't, well, he can't if he's in a crate. Having him crated also prevents him 'slipping out' if the room mate isn't too aware of a Husky's desire to run and leave the door open or just stands in an open door.

Exercise him before you go and when you come back and crating shouldn't be a problem - of course, as you note, noise might be.

Bring him over to the apartment daily for about 2 weeks before moving him completely, if your parents are cool with that. Make the experience fun, but also have structure during the visits. I've moved with my sibe three times now, and am currently living in a studio. My sibe is crate trained so moving him was a lot easier, especially since he too has separation anxiety. There is no way to get around the initial howling. Kale did for the first week but stopped the more we kept his routine the same and gave him extra love and walks. Keeping him tired really seems to work. Moving with dogs is hard, best of luck to you!!

I am living in an apartment with my 2 dogs. I keep them both crated in case management ever needs in (so they won't run out) also so that the chances of destruction are very low (they have escaped the kennels a couple of times). I deff agree with the people above saying to make sure they are tired before leaving, lots of walks! I'd also look into getting kongs and lots of bully sticks! Koda howled for a while until I started covering his crate, then as he got older I stopped covering it and have had zero problems!

Also I would double check that the apartment you are moving into is cool with Huskies, most are not.

lepp1892 Thanks so much for the advice! Im not too thrilled about the crate training only because we never really did this with my dog as a pup. There was always some one home before, so we never thought to train him this way. When we tried to around 1 or 2 years old, we did read that its actually great to crate train, so we tried it but he absoloutly hated it. He would howl and bite at the cage for almost an hour straight before my father at the time took him out because he couldnt stand the crying.

I will attempt to wake up extra early and take him on a longer walk though. A daycare is near by but Im worried about the costs. But 2 days a week doesnt sound at all unmanagable.


aljones Thanks so much for replying! I am a little uneasy of trying crate training over. My mom and me work for 8 hours a day, and we come back to everything in order, no wet spots or nothing chewed up. I am very worried that he will start to make this a new habbit though when we move to an unfimilar place. It will be a lot smaller, and he will be alone. But I will look into crate training again since everyone seems to be confident this is the way to go.


hypers987 Thanks for the help! Its good to know that you live in a studio honestly, I was really worried that me moving from a house with 3 floors, to a one floor, small apartment would make him get bored easily and/or feel less freedom? Its hard to explain. But it seems like the howling is unavoidable. One week doesnt seem too bad.

I actually really like the idea of bringing him to the apartment a few times to get use to it. I dont know why I never thought of that, but thats something ill deff try.


MMcCoy Yes, my issue right now is finding an apartment that is okay with dogs in general. A lot seem to be okay with cats, but as soon as I mention a medium sized dog, they reject it. The ones that do accept dogs are far too expensive for me to afford. I was thinking of getting kongs and bully sticks, thanks for that. My dog does go into the crate, he likes it in there, to sleep if hes not sleeping with me, but he doesnt enjoy it when I close the door. But ill try working on it.

Thanks to everyone who answered! Very helpful ^.^

So...this is not from my experience because I work from home and have the luxury to be with my Husky most of the time...but this is from my sister's experience.

She just adopted an 8 month husky who was a stray. Started to crate train her because she works a regular 8 hour job and wasn't sure how she was with accidents. Plus, first dog ever. She lives in a condo which have the same structure as apartments. She received an email from her HOA about noise complaints from her dog. The anonymous neighbor also left a note at her door per the HOA request to resolve it on their own first.

My sister was stressed out and had to take her to another sister to watch her for a few days so that she can figure out what to do. Obviously she is not planning to get rid of her. Finally, she gave in and try to give her husky, Oryan a little more trust and allowed her to roam free for a few hours alone. No damage and no accidents. Still concern about any noise though. So far, 2 weeks of roaming free during 8 hour work days have been successful with little damage. There have not been any complaints since then either. I think Oryan was not liking the crate so she was making most of the noises early in the morning when neighbors were still sleeping. So be careful if you do crate train.

I also agree with having her at the apartment at times when you are home (during weekends) so that she feels safe there too before having her alone during the work hours.

Good luck!

I didn't have a Husky in an apartment, but I did have an American Eskimo Dog and a Lapphund (medium-sized Spitz breed slightly smaller than a Husky) at the same time in an apartment townhouse.

First, I made sure to get up early enough every morning to take them on a LONG walk around the apartment complex, to tire them out. I also always gave them plenty of toys -- Kongs were by far the favorite. THEN I had to deal with their individual quirks.

First, the Eskie: He was NOISY. He was also destructive if left alone for more than two hours -- chewed carpeting, chewed door frames, and he even figured out how to open the refrigerator(!). I ended up needing to crate train him, but once he was, he was fine. No more noise or destruction, and no complaints from neighbors. However, I also kept the apartment management up to date what was going on (and I agreed to waive my damage deposit before they could say anything, since my dog DID damage the carpet and woodwork). I let my neighbors know, too. They were very nice about the whole thing -- Some of them also had dogs.

The Lapphund had entirely different problems. I tried at first to be "fair" to the dogs by crate training both of them. The Lapphund had separation anxiety and totally rejected crate training. He could not be left in a crate or shut in a room -- He could bust out of any crate, and he tended to trash a room if left alone in it for any length of time. However, he was a quiet dog, and when left to roam around the ENTIRE apartment, he never did any damage -- He just liked to hang around, chew Kongs, and check on the crated Eskie once in a while. So, I finally gave up on what I perceived as "fairness" for the dogs (okay, so one's crated and the other isn't) and just let him have free rein when I was gone -- and he was fine.

Once THAT issue was dealt with, though, I started having trouble with the Lapphund's WEIGHT. He started to get rather chubby. This is a common problem with medium-to-large apartment dogs. Taking him for an extra walk every evening, in addition to his morning walk, seemed to solve the problem. It wasn't an issue with the Eskie, but the Eskie was a much smaller dog and had an easier time running around the apartment.

Oh, and be sure to invest in a lot of good-quality grooming tools. Perhaps because of the smaller space, MUCH more hair seems to accumulate in an apartment than in a house.

-- Faye

Oh! And a radio! I almost forgot -- I've done this for all of my dogs since, for the longest time. One thing that REALLY helped my American Eskimo Dog to quiet down while he was crated was having a RADIO on for him all the time. Not loud -- Just low-to-medium volume, on a station or something close to what your dog would normally hear while you're there. I'm guessing it calmed him to hear something familiar, and it also helped to somewhat mask outside noises that he would react to and bark at. These days, for Misty, I have an Echo Dot linked to a Bluetooth speaker. I just have Alexa play a local radio station for Misty all day when no one else is home.

-- Faye

IamtheAlpha Thanks for that and thats exactly what I was worried about. Ive had a neighbor complain about howling once before at our house, but it was easily fixed, though our neighbor wasnt too understanding about it. So im nervous that for that first couple weeks, my neighbors wont be too good with it. It would be in the morning after i leave for work so Im hoping that no one would be around at that time.


Misty Mia Husky. Yeah, my husky has seperation Anxiety, but not too seriously. If I am in the backyard and he can hear me, he howls and cries to demand to be with me. But If Im at work, he doesnt howl. I had a friend go by and check/taking him walking and told me my Husky was on my sofa sleeping. He only throws a fit if someone is near by and he cant be there with them. In the house he is in the room where people are, he doesnt like to be on his own.

I am going to have to find a better groming tool becuase my husky already sheds so much and i dont want my new room mate to regret moving in with a husky owner. As for the raido, ive actually done that before, but with the tv, but my bill would kill me. He is okay with the house being silent, though I think I will get a radio and try that on a low setting.

I have a husky in an apartment right now. I am extremely lucky in that she is not much of a howler. XD

The tricky thing is that you should really make sure what the landlord thinks of large dogs. It's one thing is large dogs are allowed and a normal thing in the apartment building, it's a COMPLETELY different thing if it's the exception and you're the only person with a dog. If dogs are all over, occasional noise is a kind of forgivable thing, the landlord and the neighbors just know it's going to happen occasionally so it's not a big deal unless it gets really bad. If it's not a typical thing for the building- you need to be more aware of the landlord (and their misgivings) but ALSO the neighbors. Neighbors that don't like dogs are total snitches about noise. :\ (I personally haven't had this problem because my dog doesn't howl, but I know people who have). It can make a huge difference if the landlord and neighbors are on your side. If people are going to be weird about it, you really need to crack down on figuring out the reason for the noise-making.

I moved from a house to an apartment, and basically accepted the fact that, regardless of how early I have to get up in the morning, I'm going to have to go out and exercise my dog before I leave for the day. Tiring her out I know gives her at least 2 hours of being kind of chilled out while I'm gone. This will help with destructiveness.

This is a controversial one, but if you KNOW your dog howls when you're gone, you might want to consider a bark collar? I'm not talking the ones that actually zap the dog, but there ARE ones that just give them a beep sound and some vibration. You can't correct your dog when you're not there, so something like that could possibly let them know that it's not okay.

If it's not just howling, but some serious separation anxiety, that's not going to work, it would just stress out your pup even more. You might want to work with them, there are tons of youtube videos and articles on how to slowly acclimatize your dog to being alone. My dog isn't perfect, but she's gotten a lot better.

Have your neighbors meet your dog! I did this first thing when I moved in. That way, they know her and how sweet she is- so she's not just this faceless beast on the other side of the wall. Almost everyone in the building knows her and loves her, the others I just make sure she doesn't bother.

If you can't afford dog walkers, I would look into whether a friend with a different schedule could pupsit, or even if a neighbor wouldn't mind checking in on your dog (some neighbors might if they love dogs and don't have one, it's a great excuse to play with someone else's dog, as far as they're concerned). But also, I'd just reiterate keeping your dog exercised, and give them something to do before you leave.

I hope any of this was helpful, as I've been dealing with a similar thing!