Although I confess I thought the opposite, as I've educated myself on "Kona-Care" I was surprised to read that Huskies and Mals are not considered good guard dogs.

So far Kona:
He growled at anybody who came in the first few weeks we had him.
He growled at my best friend and his daughter. (recognizes them now)
I really became suspicious of this when he growled at my parents...
The remedy was a short walk. With my friend's daughter it was striking - he went from bared teeth to head under her hand in about 5 seconds. Almost a, "Sorry about that, didn't know you're on the list. Just business you know."
Then they could come inside, pet him, move throughout the house - anything but hugs, they make him talk.

My Father in Law moved in with us - Love at first sight

Today a friend was giving us a deck umbrella. He's met Kona many times - Kona's even been in his house!
BUT:
Our friend has never been inside the house.
Kona growled for a second, then wagged his tail and sniffed him, so I thought it was ok and I left my Wife and our friend chatting in the living room while I grabbed a last piece from the drive way. As I opened the front door, Kona growled louder then then a quick succession of LOUD ANGRY barks!
I flew back in and hustled Kona outside and shut the door.

Fortunately our neighbor understands.

Any ideas on training Kona to allow people into the den?

In my experience you've a really strange Husky there ... most I've known (or have / had) would gladly point the way to the jewelry or silver. Very much overly friendly.

My Alaskan will bark at someone / something he doesn't know - but if the person acts like they belong here he's quickly friendly as well.

I'm betting that what happened was:
You told Kona that this guy was okay.
Kona gave him casual acceptance.
You opened the door while Kona was still "accepting" the presence of the new person which gave him two things to watch, the new person and someone at the door. Alert!

If all he does is to bark - telling you that he's uncomfortable with something - I don't think you really have a problem, or at least, in my opinion, it's a good problem.

What I've seen - not with Huskies, but with other breeds - is that people think they want a people friendly dog when what they really want is a people aware dog.

Example of one of my Black Labs: Basically this girl was on best buds terms with anyone. But when a fellow picking up beer cans from a weekend party behind our apartments came at her aggressively, she got between him and me and I swear she was ready to take his throat out.

Same dog, I was living with my aunt in Louisiana, someone came through the gate and Lady was watching but "really didn't care" until the person (who was an unknown friend of my aunts) started to open the door. Lady didn't get aggressive, she just got up close and barked.

Personally, I don't like surprises, if I have a dog that barks at strange things I'm fine with that. If it evolves into biting without cause then I definitely am not. But then I've seen very few randomly aggressive Huskies.

Mine will bark and sometimes growl at people at the front door. I attributed it to his german shepherd DNA, since I know that huskies are typically more friendly??

Anyway we have to be always careful when people come to our house.

With working men (cable guy, carpet cleaners, etc) he is kept gated in the kitchen while they are moving around the house. ( I learned my lesson when he once laid down a few feet away from the plumber and kept staring at him with a constant low growl in his throat...plumber asked nervously about him...I had to drag my dog away and tether him to my chair).

For a more short casual visitor, like someone dropping off their kid, before I open the door, I often clip on his leash - unless it's somebody he has met a lot. With clients and friends, he will remain "on guard" but I learned that if I smile at them, lay a hand on their shoulder, shake their hand...then he will relax and go lay down.

When out and about, I have fended off children running towards him and adults reaching to pet, with my held-out "Stop" hand. After learning lessons the hard way where my dog has growled at overly-familiar people, I now keep a "safe zone" around him while we are out.

It took me a long time to learn how to manage him, because my previous dog (Great Dane) never growled in her entire life and loved all other humans and creatures! But you may have to develop careful habits about visitors to your home. Just a brief moment like your dog nipping a visitor who stands up suddenly...can result in going to court, home insurance issues, having to always muzzle your dog, or even your dog getting to put to sleep. So be careful...

Lastly, you could try obedience training (to keep him under control with visitors around) or treats (to associate visitors with pleasant experiences) to get his behavior to ease off a bit?  And yes, I did not not think huskies were very territorial or protective, so it's surprising to hear that Kona does this!

Oh, I am with Al...barking isn't so bad...

My neighbor tried to pet my dog on the head and my dog growled and air-snapped at his hand. I think the next warning level is a bite. Sooo...I'd be OK with barking, although I would try to get my dog to calm down.

I have two that would smother people with love when the enter the property, including the house. The big one I have to watch because he will sometimes jump up and could easily knock over someone small or not expecting the attention. Now - my son's husky mix, that's a different story. I noticed his guard dog tendencies even as a pup. When my dog would fall asleep outside, Archer would sit beside him, obviously standing guard - alert and scanning. With Archer, I have to fully aware if someone is entering the property, he will bark, hair up, run at the person, circling, again obviously trying to contain the intruder. We laugh about the dogs vocalizations: with Ami and Z'ev, it's "woo ee, company, mom, company." With Archer its "alert, alert, intruder, INTRUDER."

So, short answer is, I keep my guys contained when I know someone is coming, and, if an unexpected person arrives, I immediately corral them. Tools I use are voice commands, ecollar and/or tethering, confine to a different room. I can't afford to have a lawsuit either because Ami knocks someone down and they get hurt or Archer nips at someone (he hasn't but the signals are there.) As for Z'ev, he wears a muzzle when not crated, with his history, he'd be ordered put down even if all he did was accidentally scratch someone.

Im my house we joke about the 3 phase alarm system. The terrier barks an alert to the german shepherd who runs out quietly to assess the situation and spider runs in to tell us (and hide behind us).

Squirt is very talkative and people have gotten scared by her talking. Spiders downfall is sometimes i dont think she knows if shes a wolf or a husky. She really likes people but always has an exit and she is very cautious when people she doesnt know approach her. With people she knows she almost becomes pushy as far as getting them to pay attention to her

When people come over squirt stays in her bedroom shadow stays in our bedroom splinter goes in the crate and spider goes on the leash. Then depending on who is here when spider and splinter calm down and everyone is sitting i let them go say hi and if they are behaving they stay loose if they dont they go back to their respective places

Yep, so I guess the description should say "Most" huskies are not guard dogs, with an emphasis on the "Most"!

Some trainers recommend training your dog to go to their spot and lie down ("Place!") with visitors. (Other commands I've heard of are "Down" or "Go Home", which means go to their crate.)

Some trainers recommend giving treats when visitors are over, and even having visitors give occasional treats...so the dog will regard visitors as less of a threat.

I tend to use the leash / gate / containment method.

Anyway amymeme and I agree that it's not something to take lightly - be careful - because you don't want any incidents ...There are stories of people who got scared when jumped on, got only got a tiny scratch, and reported it as an Attack to Animal Control...then bad things happened. Not tryin' to scare you!! It's just something I've had to think about a lot since I own a "growler" too.

My gsd is an awesome guard dog and trained as my bodyguard. What most people think of as a guard dog and an actual guard dog are 2 different things. Warnings are great but its the silent ones to worry about. Its really 2 ideas the first being a loud dog that appears mean will work as a deterrent and the quiet ones are the ones that actually attack. My dad bred Tibetan mastiffs and the loud terriers would alert the mastiffs and the monks.

Lostmaniac wrote:

Im my house we joke about the 3 phase alarm system. The terrier barks an alert to the german shepherd who runs out quietly to assess the situation and spider runs in to tell us (and hide behind us).

Too funny!

We're not too concerned, he's made huge improvements from his first few weeks with us. When we first got him, he was shy of strangers on walks and growled at people who wanted to pet him.

Today he accepts attention from almost anyone the we introduce him to (as opposed to people who just reach for him). So he's learned that people outside the house are mostly ok.

However, Kona is still wary of visitors inside the house. My friend and my parents are known now, so they're welcome, but he seems to need a couple meetings before he's comfortable.

I was reviewing yesterday's incident in my head and came up with a few things:

1. Kona has met our friend multiple times - greets him happily when we see him in the street; Kona's been in their house, but had never seen the friend in our house before.
I should have made the entrance more official and obvious to Kona - let him see that our friend is welcome in the house/den

2. While our friend was in the living room talking with my Wife, I left the room unannounced.
I should have remembered this one - my boyhood wolf mix never liked my Dad leaving the room when company was over; he'd ramp up the "guard" a few notches everytime he did.

3. We need to have people come inside (in a controlled fashion) more often to train Kona - I don't want the guard dog trained out of him (doubt I could anyway!), but I want to give him some direction on who to growl at.

Patience and time...

Sounds good!

Our dog has definitely gotten less tense as time goes by, and has developed a better sense of what's right/what's not. I think most of it comes from realizing that when I welcome somebody in to our house, they are always harmless - they just sit down and chat. And I'm also better at managing people so that they are not overwhelming him with attention or casually reaching for his head. (I tell them that he is slow to warm up, doesn't usually like petting unless he knows people well, etc.) People have been very understanding.

I think what Emily brought up is a good point. There are alert dogs, and then there are guard dogs. My GSD mix would be an alert dog. He's a barker but he loves all people. My big white husky male couldn't care less about people. My older female falls under a more guard dog type. Not with the house, but she will bite if someone comes at me too fast. We have to watch her around little kids and strangers in the house such as inspectors while we've been trying to sell our place. She doesn't say anything, just gets stiff at my side then will grab. My old black dog was a guard dog. He would never say a word, but everyone knew to leave packages in the cab of the truck parked away from the house if we weren't home to call him off. I think you have to decide what aspects of the behaviors you want to keep and what parts you don't. It sounds like it's less guarding and more nerves. To help settle I would go back to what has helped others get their dogs to warm up to people a little quicker which is keeping a jar of treats near the door and letting new comers introduce themselves with a peace offering.

I think we learned something!

I was talking with my Father in Law (moved in with us a few weeks ago) and found out that the other day, 3 of his friends picked him up for a veterans lunch:


Our home is an upstairs duplex. The front door is at the bottom of a stairway with a corner and a window by the door. The top landing of the stairs is on one side of the living room.

Dad's visitors knocked, but my Wife & I weren't home at the time. Kona came down and saw them. Dad can't make it down the stairs unassisted, so eventually they figured they'd try to come in (what war vets won't do to see each other!). Kona let them in to help out my Father in Law no problem.

It seems that the door and front window are the key. If Kona can see people before they come in it makes it easier on him.

If they come up the stairs first, then Kona's first sight of a visitor is when they suddenly appear in his living room. --- NOT good in dog view!

That is perfectly understandable -
I would be alarmed too if people appeared in my living room!!

Maybe observe him a few more times to see if this is indeed all he needs (to see people outside first). If that's all he needs, that's a relief because it's a pretty easy fix!

Small update - we saw our neighbor on a walk today. Kona put his ears back, head down, tail wagging, sniffs, pets, even a lick on the hand (rare for Kona) - typical happy greeting.

It's the house - he's defending hearth & home.
Now we have to figure out how to introduce visitors "properly". I think strictly observing Kona greeting people at the door will help greatly.

Another quick update - my friend from the first post came by today.

He was nervous about Kona at first. I made sure that Kona greeted him at the door - no problems!

In fact - my friend became even more nervous at first when Kona decided that he knows him well enough to start talking to him - grunts, growls, a few howls.

The door seems to be a large part of the puzzle!

I have one a nervous 18 lb terrier that literally is an ankle biter. I discovered that if i pick him up until whoever is here sits on the couch then i put him down and in 5 mins hes the persons best friend. But even people he knows still have to go through the sitting down and letting him initiate or he bites. I seriously dont know how or why him and spider pair bonded

Another small follow up:

A few visitors later - having Kona greet visitors at the door rather than spot them as the appear in the living room as made all the difference!

That's good news, and a simple fix!