I am soon to be a husky's human, so I am looking for advice from experienced owners.
Have you had luck having your husky trained to be "off lead"? I know they tend to be on the mischievous side and like to chase, but can they be trained to walk off leash and be trusted not to take off?
I have also read a lot about the prey drive, and that cats and small dogs have the risk of being dinner. Is this common for a well trained husky? I am two cats and am adopting an 8 week old puppy, so I am hoping that having exposure to cats at a young age would reduce that tendency. I also have a lot of family members with cats, where the dog would stay at times, so I don't want them to have to worry about their small animals.
Thanks in advance for any helpful tips and personal experiences.

* oh also, do females tend to burn the grass with the urine?

Good morning Kelc and welcome.  I'm working on my first cup of coffee, so if this isn't the best response give me a shout and I'll try to clarify.

Huskies - almost without exception - are notoriously bad off lead.  So the emphatic answer to your question is "NO!! They should never be off lead except in an enclosed area!!"  We have one fellow who's trained his dog as a Search and Rescue dog (( where's he been, BTW )) and a very rare few others will allow their dogs off lead - but I think everyone realizes that they're literally taking their dogs life in their hands when they do.

As far as cats go.  This is strictly a matter of each dog.  Some live well with cats ( I have three Huskies and two cats ); some will chase any cat they see; some will respect the cats that are in their family but kill any other cat.

By bring a puppy into an existing cat family you stand the best chance of having a Husky who respects the cats - cats do have 20 very point ways of telling a puppy to back off, juniour!

With the right tools, and by that I mean an ecollar, I would say it's possible to have an off leash husky. But your pup will be way too young to start ecollar training. I also am very selective about where I will allow off leash...in my spots, away from traffic but not city streets, country roads, traveLing out of the area.

As for cats, you have adult cats and ate getting a puppy. As all had stayed on the past, cats have ten very convincing ways of training a puppy to stay away. Especially effective since puppies ate naturally curious and allow to take a hint...usual result is kitty will get fed up and give the pup a what for that will stay with him for life. Adult husky and kitten I would say no way. Adult husky and adult cat...possibly.

I would never allow my Huskies off-lead. In fact, even as great as Grant is at ignoring prey while we're working (running) on trails, I have the Herm Sprenger prong collar linked by a D-ring to a Herm Sprenger longhair choke chain as a backup.

I have experienced the "no fence/no leash" attitude of one Husky owner whose 9mo dog repeatedly ran away to the point that the local police were so worried about his survival they said since he ran away to my house so often, they were going to bring him to me next time. Well, the next time he was hit by a car and killed.

Safety is more important to me than proving I have an obedient dog.

As for cats, Grant loves window shopping at Petsmart and thinks they look delicious. He asks me for one every trip.

<< teasing >> @amymeme, my cats have four paws with 5 claws on each paw ... did you have the claws removed from two paws??

aljones wrote:

<< teasing >> @amymeme, my cats have four paws with 5 claws on each paw ... did you have the claws removed from two paws??

Al...don't know that I've ever seen a cat donkey kick in defence. Or do a Bruce Lee full on all fours

<< laughing >> Touché!!!

IN addition to everything that's been said above, yes, pee on grass turns brown. There are some grasses that seem to be able to defend themselves against it, but overall, pee will usually make the grass turn brown. My dogs are trained not to pee on the grass, but I've seen Mishka do it when she thought I wasn't looking.

What turns the grass brown is the high concentration of various salts in urine. One way of minimizing this is to water the grass deeply just after the dog has peed. No need to do whole lawn, just the spot around...a really good soaking. I live in an area that gets abundant rainfall so browning of the grass is usually not an issue.

Off lead is possible, but it takes a TON of work and even then it is very risky.
My husky go for an hour long jog every morning off lead. It's even in a high prey animal area. But it's early in the morning (few other people/dogs), and it's on an island that has 1 road for access. It's done with an e-collar and took a significant amount of training. On top of that we have an older dog that is very obedient and is a good example for the husky.
For a husky, off leash training is probably the most intensive thing you can try to train and I would generally suggest against it unless you really know what you are getting into.

As for cats, introducing a puppy into a space with adult cats will certainly help. The dog will learn his place. But make sure the cats have safe spaces they can escape to in any shared living area. Shelves and high places, or low dark areas under furniture that the dog can't get to. That way if the dog ever gets aggressive in a way the cat can't handle, he/she can get to that safe space.

Dogs, especially Huskies are prey animals. They can flip and attack a cat that they have lived with peacefully for years. It's not an intentional thing. The cat just triggers the instinct accidentally, the dog attacks, and before the dog even realizes it, the cat is injured or killed. Giving the cat an escape often gives the dog enough time to realize what is going on and suppress the instinct again.

Thank you all! It is helpful to hear from experienced owners. I plan to use a training center in the area starting at 6 months to help train her correctly and avoid any unwanted behaviors. Hopefully the cats will let her know they are off limits at a young age so there will be no incidents.

I am a bit late here but just more info regarding experience with my girl. I will only let my girl off leash in areas away from traffic. I know she is really good off leash but I will not take a chance in case she runs through traffic for any reason(prey drive) and get hit. She is really good off leash on trails with only 1 way in and out. If I know I am near the exit towards traffic, I make sure i leash her up before we can see the exit. The dog beach is really good. She loves running off leash there and she always makes sure we are close by. On the other hand, my sister's husky...will never be off leash in un-fenced areas. She tried once and never again. She lost that trust with her husky after running the opposite direction to other dogs and would not come back. Let's just say she is horrible at recall.

Cats? Previous owner she was at had cats when she was adopted. Keep in mind she was 1 years old at that time. Unfortunately she injured the cat and gave them a $5k bill. Reason why she had to be re-homed and we got lucky to give her a forever home. However, I do have a smaller dog. At the beginning was scary because she tried to play with my small dog(Kuky) and Kuky screamed like she was dying. This happened a few times and hearing about her history with cats made us very cautious of how she is with her. After awhile, she got used to it and she knows to just leave Kuky alone.

Good luck! All other advises from everyone else is great.

I have a 7 month old male husky who I bike with off the leash every single day, this has never been a problem when its time to run he wants to run. If I'm on the bike even a few miles in he may lag behind a few feet but doesn't even turn his head at other dogs we pass or small animals like squirrels or cats. If we are on a road with cars when I point to my right he runs right up and stays there until I say its okay. After a run if I go to walk with him he stays right at my side. This being said if I went to just walk him off the leash he is to curious for me to feel okay with this by a road, in the woods its a different story. I believe as long as you train him from a young age and he listens to commands it can be done. This is also coming from a person extremely overprotective of his dog and if it wasn't safe it wouldn't happen. After a few months off the leash he now hates the leash and would prefer to just go out and do something together, all he wants is to go on a sort of "mission" with you.

For the cat situation I haven't completely figured out that. I have two cats both are rather timid, my grandmother has a cat that does not care about anything. With my timid cats he will chase after them sometimes if they run away from him but I don't have any concern he would actually hurt them. With my grandmothers cat he will go right up to it, sniff it, and lay down next to it no problem.

RE: Urine burn on lawns
There is a different between female and male urination habits. Female are tends to empty in one big go while male are tends to empty at few or even many different spots (marking).

Congratulations on becoming a husky's human!

RE: OffLeash

Today I was jogging in the woods with Rumo and I accidentally dropped the leash!! He started trotting faster, so I couldn't quite grab the leash again, and after a few seconds he realized he was 'free' and took off at full gallop! I stood & called him to Come, and he did stop and look back at me, but we have never practiced a recall from that long of a distance...so I wasn't surprised when it didn't work.

What did work: I know that Rumo is anxious about me being out of sight, and I know he gets excited by joggers...so I took off running AWAY as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Sure enough, I hear galloping paws behind me and he comes running up with an anxious expres​sion('are you LEAVING me, Mom?!') and I got his leash again. phew...

I feel that unless you are a great dog-trainer (I'm not!) offleash is hard. I know that if he gets offleash in the woods, Rumo will go running up to greet every dog he sees, and may chase joggers and deer. Right now, all those things are more exciting to him than obeying the recall...sometimes I wish his Shepherd DNA was more dominant, then I'd have a better chance.


RE: Pee
Yep, male dogs like to "sprinkle" it around a few drops there, a few drops here...our grass looks fine. When I had a girl dog (great dane), she did leave yellow dead patches in the grass. ( She would squat and pee it all in one big puddle.)