hey every one! new member here finally decided to stop lurking and sign up, seems like a really nice forum for husky stuff

    Quick history around two years we got our 1st husky and my 1st dog in 30 years !  Im 45 married and have a 9 year old. after a month of searching found a puppy for a reasonable price. we had to go with a puppy as we had 2 cats and 2 birds already (amazon parrots), i was a bit nervous bringing a husky in the mix. so far so good i was firm with our girl khloe and after a quick tail bite and a stern leave it , NO! a few times the parrots were off limits, now she will sometimes sit near them in hopes they drop a bit of food
   The cats were a little different story, one cat would submit and lay there to be nose poked and licked/ tormented and the other cat (the alpha one) would claw her nose draw blood etc... and to this day its a war to see who is in charge, dog or cat, the cat would even tease and attack on occasion, the husky if she could make the cat run would give chase, but it was always a hollow victory as the cat would bunker in under a tight space and smack any dog paws that got to close. So everyone gets along at that level, no amount of leave it or disciplining can make those 2 get along.
So after a year  of having one dog its time for #2, i thoroughly enjoyed the dog ownership experience, not as much work as i thought. so we began looking for another husky slowly ( not wanting to speed $700 again) started to look for re-homing of older dogs. checked the shelters in Kansas City close to where we live. and after over 1 month only 1 husky was ever there and he had a pending adoption once his 2 week hold ended. i keep reading about how so many huskies are dumped, it just didn't seem to be the case near us.
 finally i saw Oscar who was 5 hours away but the lady who owned him seemed nice, single mom with young kid, one more on way, a boyfriend who didn't like the dog much (my guess). she had paid $2300 for Oscar 1 year and 2 months ago... i was stunned, apparently living in a apartment with a husky was not working out. i loaded the famliy up in the trailblazer and headed  down to check him out, (she said $300 was ok since i had a very long drive)  
 We arrived and she met us outside with Oscar and we had brought Khloe with us so they could meet and after about 2 minutes of khloe going a bit savage on him (she is dog park veteran and can seem to play rough to others, but never hurt another dog just looks and sounds wild)  in any case after the initial contact they settled into a quite wrestling  match, this only happens with dogs she likes/ feel comfortable with. So we loaded him up and they played for 5 hours in the back of the vehicle.  then once home another 3 hours before we forced them to lay down.
  His previous owner said he was kennel trained, but i noticed he had some wear on the backside of his large canines. (chewing the bars ?) we only used the kennel for a few days. Our female was rapidly training him on house rules it was quite amazing, Oscar had never been to a dog park, never got to run around, we realized off lead. Had almost no interaction with other dogs, he is very submissive, the 1st time i had to get on to him about door rushing he fell over on his back and gave me the most submissive look ever, which i have found out he does everytime he gets in trouble as it makes it tough to stay upset with him.
  He was curious about the birds and cats but very friendly just a sniff and he would back away, so we had gotten very lucky with his temperament, fun loving, goofy, omega of the pack, always ready to play or talk.
but not getting him as a puppy came with a few bad habits, his 1st 4 months with us he was obsessed with getting back in the house when put out to use the restroom. so much in fact he would only go number 2 on the concrete around the pool. (which greatly upset my wife) ( i told her it was from living in the apartment i bet he had to go right outside the door etc) He also had an almost ninja like ability to steal food from anywhere ! just put mustard on a sandwich, put mustard away in fridge,  im talking 10-15 secs of back turned and sandwich is gone... i was like oh i must of put it in the microwave....  nope Oscar was happily licking his lips as he left the area. scold him and on his back he goes, most pathetic thing i ever seen ! my girl once in trouble she respects the decision and wont do the action again if we are around. ( if we leave food out and leave for 2 hours 50% chance she will get it, but when we are home she wont touch it.)
  Fast forward 8 months and both dogs are doing well. both are 2 years old now. Oscar still steals food, but now uses the restroom in the grass like a proper dog i can leave both dogs in the house for extended periods 2-3 hours or so and never had any issues. i have a camera setup and mostly they look out the window and sleep. yikes massive post ! i better stop. i found a few pics u might like.  

tried to link pics but said couldn't for 7 day (using imgur)

Welcome to the forum! You can also use the little floppy disc picture in the tool bar to add pictures to the site. It will allow you to upload and host through imgserve and then you can add the pictures using the picture icon from the hosting url imgserve will kick out if you don't want to wait the waiting period for imgur.

I got my girl from a shelter in Olathe KS. I'm located in middle Missouri so sounds like you aren't too far away. To get her I showed up super early to an adoptathon that the shelter was holding her for and nabbed her when she got off the truck before anyone else could. Huskies don't seem to show up in shelters too much around here. People see them in these parts as a meal ticket and instead will list them on craigslist and sell them when they get tired of them.

My latest male had a similar bad habit when I got him too. He liked being in the house and wouldn't get off the porch long enough to potty. Mind you, he was a three year old 70 pound dog and was pooping on my porch. We too went rounds on that but he did come around.

Hey, welcome! Great story! Yeah, older dogs do have their quirks that you have to work around, but I really loved all the older dogs I adopted.

Speaking of older dogs and quirks, how does Oscar get along with your Amazons? I apologize in advance because I don't really want to scare you, but I do have a word of caution that's coming from pure experience: I grew up with parrots, budgies, conures, lovebirds, cockatiels, finches, and canaries -- MANY of them -- and had them for most of my life. I turned a room in my house into an aviary. When I adopted an older dog, my Lapphund, he was very calm, friendly and mellow and didn't seem to be a threat to my birds at all -- UNTIL after I'd had him for nearly FIVE YEARS. I won't go into the details, but the incident has gone down in family history as The Great Cage-Bird Massacre. I haven't owned a bird since.

Remain vigilant!

Misty Mia Husky wrote:

Hey, welcome! Great story! Yeah, older dogs do have their quirks that you have to work around, but I really loved all the older dogs I adopted.

Speaking of older dogs and quirks, how does Oscar get along with your Amazons?  I apologize in advance because I don't really want to scare you, but I do have a word of caution that's coming from pure experience:  I grew up with parrots, budgies, conures, lovebirds, cockatiels, finches, and canaries -- MANY of them -- and had them for most of my life.  I turned a room in my house into an aviary.  When I adopted an older dog, my Lapphund, he was very calm, friendly and mellow and didn't seem to be a threat to my birds at all -- UNTIL after I'd had him for nearly FIVE YEARS.  I won't go into the details, but the incident has gone down in family history as The Great Cage-Bird Massacre.  I haven't owned a bird since.

Remain vigilant!

Oscar has done very well with the amazons. there has only been one incident and that was  around the 3 day mark. 1 amazon flys from his cage in the Bird/sun room, to his stand in the living room. and my other parrot while fully flighted walks everywhere or calls to be carried if she wants to move. (she also has a destructive habit of chewing wood work and nesting certain times of the year so she remains in her cage when we cant supervise her on the stand  etc.. )
  The incident was fairly serious in my eyes,  kaylee the amazon was walking from her cage to the living room stand (open floor plan) oscar had been with us only 3 days or so and together him and khloe were nose poking the parrot and had her taking cover under a table very upset, when my wife picked her up she got promptly bit very hard by the bird, so i know she was scared. (has not bit anyone in  10 years). Much husky neck holding insued,(and firm No's and leave it's)(i have always grabbed the scruff and held khole down over serious issues, while using verbal over minor infractions)  and now when i hold the bird near Oscar he goes belly up and submits (which is his standard move when in trouble over anything)  my female will just hang her head and not look at it. (embarrassed over forgetting not to bother the parrots, she was instantly supporting the other dogs curious pokes) (i figure another few minutes and the parrot could of been stepped on or pawed.)
       We are at the dog park on a day after a big rain and huge areas of park were under 2-3 inches of water. khole runs over and is playing with something in the water, i rush over and she is holding a bird in her mouth, seeing me she promptly drops it unhurt ! she had it for a good 45 secs and had not squeezed it. he was water logged and unable to fly possible a juvenile. i let it go over the fence and it flew a little ways then ran off in the tall grass.
  i on occasion still test them by moving the bird near either one. both ignore the parrots now. the flying parrot makes many trips to the living room and no one even looks up.

quick note on the birds history had one for 14 years and the second for about 4 years ( his owners were friends with a guy i flew RC planes with) and they were moving to assisted living and could not take him and knew i had a bird so offered to let me have him. (both are 21-22 years old now and i am their 2nd owner. for those unfamiliar with amazons they can live to be 60-80 years so i figure if i feed them a steady diet of fried food and Cheetos maybe i can shorten their life span to match mine )

>i on occasion still test them by moving the bird near either one. both ignore the parrots now. the flying parrot makes many trips to the living room and no one even looks up.<

The testing is probably a good idea because it reinforces for the dogs that the birds are off limits.  I didn't reinforce it in my dogs because I (mistakenly) thought I didn't have to.  

Okay, the details: My birds didn't have free access to the rest of the house -- They had a play gym in the aviary, and they were allowed to come and go into their cages pretty much at will.  I also kept the door closed to the aviary when I wasn't inside the house, but that apparently wasn't good enough.

I had two dogs at the time:  Miles, my sweet, lovable Lapphund, and Max, a gorgeous but evil-to-the-core American Eskimo Dog.  Seriously, Max looked like an angel but he was a demon.  We loved him, and he was very devoted to us, but he was EVIL.  Miles was the good dog, and Max was the bad dog.

I'd ALWAYS had pet birds growing up, and I never had trouble keeping them safe from the Terrier or the Malamute.  Naturally, as an old married lady, I still had birds in addition to the dogs.  I had seven birds at the time: A parrotlet named Squeaky, a Society finch named Tweety, a rosella named Rita, a conure named Squeegee, a lovebird named Nesbitt, a gray cockatiel named Punk Pigeon, and a blind (yes, blind) lutino cockatiel named Oedipus ("Eddie").  They were all in their room with the door firmly closed.  Some were in their cages, some were playing on the bird gym.  

As I had done many times before, I left the dogs indoors (we hadn't crated them in years) and went outside to mow the lawn.

Now, at the time it happened, I didn't think anything of it -- but while I was pushing the lawnmower around the house, Max (the evil troublemaking American Eskimo Dog) started following me from window to window, barking his head off.  Max was ALWAYS barking his head off about something, so I just blew him off: "Yeah shuddup, Max, you bark too much."

Half an hour later when I was finished outdoors, I went into the house -- and before I even saw anything, something just seemed WRONG.  Max, the American Eskimo Dog, was just lying on the kitchen floor STARING at me.  He usually barked a greeting when I went indoors. Then I saw a trail of gray feathers leading from the living to the hallway containing the birds' room.  

In the hallway was the carcass of my gray cockatiel.  The aviary door was open -- the doorknob catch had been forced through the wood with a very strong push.  Broken parts of cages and stands were EVERYWHERE in the room.  Not as many feathers as you'd think, but plenty of bird food was scattered everywhere.

The birds were gone.  They were all gone without a TRACE, except for one bird -- Oedipus the blind bird was sitting on the floor in the middle of all of the wreckage completely unharmed.  There wasn't a scratch on him.  He was just sitting there and tilting his head around in curiosity, like he was trying to figure out what was going on.

And then Miles, the sweet, lovable, "harmless" Lapphund, trotted down the hallway toward me with a big grin on his face and gray feathers stuck to his muzzle.

Miles wasn't as big as a Husky, but he was very powerful.  Apparently he'd forced the door open and caught and SWALLOWED all of the birds -- except, of course, for the gray cockatiel that had died outside the room, AND except for the BLIND bird.  I mean, seriously?  A blind bird -- the perfect prey -- and he wasn't harmed at all?

And Max, the evil little American Eskimo Dog, had tried to warn me that Miles was being a bad, bad, BAD dog.

My husband was understandably shocked when he got home and learned the news -- He'd also been convinced Miles was utterly harmless.  We had a small funeral for Punk Pigeon. Miles didn't even have the decency to get indigestion from the incident.  I did forgive him, but still ...!

Oedipus the blind cockatiel died shortly and suddenly after the massacre.  I haven't had a bird since.  Just dogs.

Oh, my goodness, Faye! Such a sad story. When I was 10, our Norwegian Elkhound killed one half of my pair of finches by catching one in her mouth while they were out. The other died of a broken heart within a week. But we'd had a parakeet for years prior flying all around our dog without incident.

I might have a parrot if not for Grant. But I see the way he looks at small animals in the forest and I dare not. Instinct is hard/impossible to train out of predators.

That said, I do have a bearded dragon, but he goes outside in the (off-limits) front yard in his portable pen, and I don't even allow Grant in the room with me while his cage is open. The lizard is my rather zen gardening buddy, with his own special plants.

Grant sees the gardens as a place to chase squirrels--plus, he could dig up a year's worth of landscaping in an afternoon (in his backyard, there are nose-sized holes all over in various stages of regrowth).

I think restricting the Huskies from parts of the house and acreage is important for the dogs' safety, but also the safety of anything else that wants to survive. Haha

Oh, and nice to meet you, Oscar and Khloe's human.

>>I think restricting the Huskies from parts of the house and acreage is important for the dogs' safety, but also the safety of anything else that wants to survive. Haha<<

You are too right, Chris! I think we should just give up on the backyard landscaping as long as Misty is back there ruling the roost.

My daughter thinks she wants a bunny. HECK NO she ain't gettin' a bunny! I told her that as long as we keep getting big hairy dogs, she is NOT getting a bunny. I don't think my nerves could handle it. Her stuffed animals are in enough danger as it is!

Yeah, Faye, I had plans for more Japanese Maples all along the backyard wall. But a two Husky years and two hurricanes later, hahahahaha no.

I can't have cats, Rilak, which is actually a relief, since the constant vigil would wear me out. But I admire those who are up for it.

Oh, and Faye, I think children are super lucky to have dogs. Way better than bunnies.