Hey everyone, this is my first post, never had difficulty training a dog until I got a Husky lol. Anyway, I have a sweet little Husky named Zero, and aside from the occasional gentle nipping of fingers as you walk by, he is a sweetheart. That is, until I let my other dog in the same room as him. My other dog is a large pit bull, again very sweet, never harmed anyone, but I think thats the problem. The smaller husky almost picks on him, and has several times left scratches near (not on) his eye, but close enough to make me me seriously worry if I should allow them to play together at all. My pit will just rub his head on him, put his paws on his back occasionally, toss around. But the Husky is grabbing chunks of extra skin and pulling on them (no bite marks or yelping) and it just looks like he is trying to fight him while my pit just wants to play, he refuses to fight back rough at all, its not in his nature. Any advice? Am I just being overprotective of my older dog? He is 2 and a half if it matters. Thank you for any input, they are both sweet dogs, I just want them to be able to play together safely

What you are seeing is typical husky play. That's just how they do. They also usually do it very loudly with growls and yips. It's like listening to bears wrestle. My girl will grab my poor gsd mix by the face and drag him all around the house. He's got some hound in him so that extra skin can really stretch. When she grabs my male husky though his skin doesn't have the stretch so he makes her work at pulling him around. he doesn't care for it but he puts up with it and growls back at her and tries to knock her down. If your husky is leaving marks then I would separate before the excitement gets high enough for him to bite that hard. Let them play but start capping the level of roughness you let them go to. When it starts getting too intense (ie. going to do damage) then just separate them, do something else with your husky or make them both sit for a bit to calm down and then release them to go back to playing.

Jenn is spot on - I always say "Husky play is NOT for the faint of heart" It looks like a pair of wolves in a fight to the death

I had to laugh at "Okay guys, let's go!" yep, that got expected Husky reaction!!

For the OP, in addition to Ami's comment that "Husky play is NOT for the faint of heart" there's another phrase that makes the rounds "Huskies Play ROUGH!!" My two (Avalanche and Sky) will stand in the middle of the living room and box for a while before they get down and chew on each other.

I do agree with Jenn, when it gets too rough, step in and "take a break." With my two roughnecking dogs I use "Easy!" meaning bring it down a notch or five and "Enough!" meaning you're tearing up the house, STOP!!!

aljones wrote:

I had to laugh at "Okay guys, let's go!" yep, that got expected Husky reaction!!


!!!

Yeah....I sort of settle for herding generally in the desired direction

I have an older mastiff/lab mix (about 9 years old). My 11 mo. old husky plays rough with him all the time. My mom gets scared every time they play. The older dog sounds like a bear on his own when he growls, so when they're both playing it sounds like they're fighting. If he looks like he's getting annoyed and no longer playing I just hold my husky back till she catches her breath and she usually calms down a bit. But yea, that's just the way his kids play. Some people at the dog park think she's aggressive when she just wants to play.

my 8 week old does the same with my boys lol