Hi all,

My wife and I adopted a rescued Husky from our local shelter today!  Ginger is about 2 years old and we think she's a beauty.  She seems to be settling in much easier/quicker than I'd expected.  I suppose the real test will be how things go tonight and whether we get any sleep!

Trying out her new bed


Taking a nap, right between my feet(!), after our first walk.


Looking forward to lots of camping trips, runs on the beach, and (hopefully) afternoon sails on our Capri 22 sailboat.

Chris S & Ginger

She is a beauty.

Good luck with the sailboat...we were hoping to take our guy on the boat. He'll walk ok on the dock bit once we get on the catwalk to our slip, he pancakes, swivels around and crawls back on his belly! I can only imagine how he'd react in a 20° heel...

Congrats! She's about the same age as Misty. Sounds like she's a lot better behaved than Misty was when we first brought her home from the shelter, though. Here's hoping you got some sleep tonight!

Hi Chris and welcome to the dog house!

If I could advise each new owner of a Husky of one thing, it would have to be "Remember that they should NEVER be allowed off lead!!"

Okay, there are exceptions, when you're in an enclosed area - like a dog park, for example (and probably when you're on you boat, but she may surprise you and opt to go for a swim!) Huskies are bred to run and many new Husky owners seem to think they're "just like any other dog, they'll come back!" and what all too many find is that they don't - I made that mistake with my first Husky and lost an exceptional dog - all due to my not listening to people who knew better! (off my soapbox now!)

How did that beautiful little girl do on her first night with you?? I see you have a crate (and a really nice house!) did you use it and how'd she handle it? Huskies, as you show in your second picture, tend to be people dogs - often to the point of being Velcro dogs - so some don't handle being crated well.

She is gorgeous!! So glad you found each other!!

So happy for you and your pretty girl

amymeme wrote:

She is a beauty.

Good luck with the sailboat...we were hoping to take our guy on the boat.  He'll walk ok on the dock bit once we get on the catwalk to our slip, he pancakes, swivels around and crawls back on his belly!  I can only imagine how he'd  react in a 20° heel...

Rorschach pretty much hated the water. He'd never go in over ankle high. Was walking by a boat ramp one day and there was a lab out on the dock with it's owner. Rorschach took off like a bat out of hell to go say hi. He hit the dock at full speed, slipped on the wet surface and skidded off the end of the dock into the water. The dummy then swam under the dock sending me into a bit of a panic as I wasn't sure if he'd be able to figure out how to get out. He eventually struggled his way back to shore. I figured he'd be even more weary of water after that...but no. He now leaps into any water he can find. He LOVES jumping off docks and swimming back to shore to just keep doing it.

I'm taking up paddle boarding and kayaking this next summer and was hoping he might just go, lay down, and be mellow as we floated on the river. Now I'm afraid he'll flip me over while using the water craft as a diving board.

Beautiful girl!

Well, the first night went pretty well. Deborah went in before me, as usual, and I took Ginger for a short walk/piddle and then dragged her bed into the bedroom with us. She wanted to get on the bed, but with a full, instead of a queen or king, that wasn't an option. She settled in on her bed until Deborah woke up, coughing, about 4 AM. They both went out to the living room so I could sleep and she was very excited to see me when I got up at 6:30. Or maybe she was just glad to see her bed.

I did have to chase her off our bed, where she was happily sitting on my shirt, just before I took my shower. I think the two of them need to work on their communication a bit (Deborah's voice isn't very assertive sounding) but an "Off!" from me from the bathroom doorway and she hopped right off the bed.

This morning they had a couple of adventures. First was on their long walk downtown and back. The bike path passes under a couple of bridges and I guess Ginger really didn't like the sound of the cars thumping over the expansion joints overhead. Deborah said she pretty much froze and took a lot of coaxing to move on.

They also had their first road trip, down to the county offices to get her license. We've got a Forester and I put a dog barrier in the back. It's only held in place by friction so I guess it needs to be tigher and maybe some jury rigging to make it stay put. There are tie down loops in the corners of the cargo area that we can use with a carabiner on her leash so she can't take off when we open the tailgate. Somehow when Deborah got back Ginger had Houdini'd her way into the front seat and eaten the bag of treats!. I'll bungee the barrier in place tonight and give Deborah a crash course on making sure the leash is properly clipped to the cargo ring before closing the tailgate.

Deborah had a Husky years ago so this isn't totally new to her; I've mostly had Labrador Retrievers with a (bouncy) border collie or two thrown in.

The advice on always using a leash is a consistent theme on the various Husky sites I've been looking at for the last week and something we intend to follow. Right now we've got a 6' leash but I'm planning to pick up a couple of long lunging straps (25 & 50 foot) so we can let her roam a bit in the park or at the beach.

Very much hoping she will take to the boat; we spend at least one afternoon/evening at the lake almost every weekend from June through September. I'm planning to get her a life jacket, not so she'll float, but so I'll have a couple of handles to use to haul her back in if she jumps/falls overboard. Neither of our kayaks are set up for a passenger but if the boat goes well I might try her in a canoe.

Can't wait for tonight's adventure when I get home from work.

Chris

Hah. 4 AM is when I woke husband up coughing, coming and lungs making awful noises. Husband barked "use your inhaler" and went back to sleep.

Best way I've found in the car is a harness with a tether attached to those cargo rings. I like the kurgo harness worn the stainless steel nesting buckles, one on each side shop no step in. I use one on both my guys. That way, when I open.the door, they don't escape and in an accident they won't have the force on their neck.

What lake do you sail on? We're on Seneca, the ideal is 3x a week but wee lucky if we get out once every week or two. Either rain or no wind or a part goes on the boat (or one of us )

A harness is on my purchase list. Her leash is one that clips to the collar then loops behind her legs and up through a ring, so it works like a harness but it also makes the leash that much shorter. Thinking the harness is the way to go. I did pick up a 25' horse lunging rope today. Hopefully we'll get some sunshine over the weekend and can take her to the park to try it out.

We're in Albany, Oregon and sail on Fern Ridge Reservoir near Eugene. At full pool the lake is about 3 miles wide and 7 miles long. Depth runs from 26ish near the dam to marsh at the south. With 4' draft I tend to be hidden stump averse so I usually keep to a 2x5 mile area. Deborah gets antsy when the depth sounder says less than 11 feet and I usually chicken out and turn around if it gets below 10. Winds are generally light, building to 12 kts (on a good day) from the north or south and pretty shifty during the day. When the sun goes down the wind shifts around from the west and gets fairly steady as the sea breeze comes in the from the coast. There's nothing quite like a nice long reach down the lake and back by light of a full moon!

Fern Ridge is a Corps of Engineers flood control/irrigation dam that gets drawn down in the Fall. They open the gates on October 1st and close them on February 1st. Since it's strictly rain-fed we look forward to lots of rain from February through May with showers into June or early July. I have to pay my slip fees by mid-March so it's always a bit of a gamble. We've had one completely failed season and one short season in the last 5 or 6 years.

I usually head down on Tuesday evening for the Beer Can (the only racing I do) and then we both go down Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If the wind forecast is less than 6 kts or the temperature is much over 85F then we don't go at all. Too hot and guaranteed the wind will completely die by 4 PM. We generally take the travel trailer and yaks down to the lake for the long holiday weekends. We'll see how Ginger changes that routine. Might be taking a canoe for me and Ginger, and a yak for Deborah, and maybe skip 4th of July entirely if she's skittish of the bangs & booms from the yacht club fireworks display.

Depth is not something we worry about. Seneca is deep, glacial lake surrounded by cliffs. Long ago, they even lousy a boxcar in it. 642' at it's deepest I believe. And long...42 miles. Our marina is at the south end and I don't believe we've ever made it more than a third of the way north. Wind is almost always north to northwest, sometimes from the south and with the lake being narrow (maybe 3-4 miles at this end) that's a lot of tacking. We rarely get to hot but do, not infrequently, get too windy with heavy white caps. Can be very frustrating to have one day be light and variable only to find heavy chop the next. We also have to be careful with afternoon thunderstorms pooping up. Seneca can abruptly get dangerous. But husband is more adventurous then i...of course, he's the captain at the helm and in the one scurrying around deck, hauling job lines, tightening things and hanging over the water fiddling with doodads :p. I figure I'm a better swimmer than a helmsmen (in 25 years, I've yet to bring the boat into slip. She's heavy, a lot of freeboard and a very tiny prop without a lot of rudder authority at slow speed)

Amymeme, we bought the kurgo car harness last night and I just took Ginger for a walk with it. What a difference and she sits still to have it put on way better than the leash wrapped around her the way they showed us at the shelter. Didn't seem to pull as much, even with the leash clipped to the back. Thanks for the referral!

She did make it a bit tricky to adjust by deciding to be a lap dog.

She is so pretty! Looks very well behaved too!

Both mine hate having the harness put on. They are getting better (used to be run the other direction and hide under some piece of furniture, lol) but still no where near where I want them to be. Never had a problem with past huskies, and with these two, my girl was never a problem til my boy "taught" her to play games at harness time.

We've been pleasantly surprised at how well behaved she is. Pretty obvious that someone put a lot of work into training her on the basics.

she is beautiful, so glad you found each other.

Awww she reminds me of my girl Kota. Also a rescue and is also just 2 years old. She is gorgeous.