Hello All,

I have a Husky/Lab mix who is almost 6 months old. I have experience with labs/lab crosses but none with Huskies so I thought it might be nice to have access to a community of experienced Husky owners.

The big differences I am seeing with Duck compared to other dogs I have experience with are:
He is smart and tries to be cooperative but sometimes he just can't help but decide that there is something more important than what we want - other times he is focused and good as gold. It is an odd mix of trainable/biddability and independence.
He has a lot of energy but a lot of naps too.
He is more of a food seeker/thief than any lab I have met.
He HAS to dig!
AND
His legs seem to be springs and the laws of gravity don't seem to apply to him. I have to be careful to keep all of our play at ground level so as not to encourage flying jumps or 3 1/2 standing jumps straight up as I understand this can be problematic for joints later on in life.

Any suggestions or words of warning would be appreciated.

Hahahaha seems like anything woth husky in it behaves like a husky. Welcome to the group. Both my girls are husky mixes. Youll find where a lab does something immediately the husky wants to have a conversation about it first. Yes they seem to like to steal food but nothing compared to the rottie we had that knew how to open the fridge. Spider is a constant reminder not to leave anything on the counters at night unless i want it eaten, and squirt has been known to hoard people food.

Define digging? Is it 1 spot, anywhere but not for very long, or digging a tunnel. I have mine trained to where they are allowed to dig and they didnt do it this year but we have had tunnel systems in the yard with multiple exits.

So one piece of advice is invest in a very good vaccum

I recently have had labs (okay, recently for me is in the last 20 years or so) and now have three huskies so I know a lot of what you're going through.

My labs wanted nothing more than to protect me and to do what I wanted - two of my Huskies don't know of anyone who isn't an immediate friend (the other - eh, why bother?)

I've often wondered what a Husky/Lab mix would be like.  On the one hand you have biddable, on the other stubborn; one the one hand a dog who stays reasonably close, on the other one who thinks 20 miles is close!  On that topic: thinking, now my labs were smart, intelligent but don't hold a candle to the obvious "thinking" that a Husky will do!  Or more to the tune of "What will I get out of it if I do what he wants?"

My labs would say "I'm tired" and go lay down, but a whistle would bring them running; my Huskies on the other hand will just roll over and see what dad wants, if it's interesting to them they'll saunter back over, if not, well, it's "let's roll back over!"

Neither my labs nor my huskies are extreme diggers; the labs would dig under the trailer but once they had a cool spot they were done, Avalanche (my Alaskan Husky) will sometimes dig but it's more an expending of energy and then he's done - for a while.

There you have my comparison between the Labs I did have and the Huskies I do have ... the one thing they have in common is that they're lovable dogs  not necessarily a one man dog but willing to give and receive love.

Welcome to our piece of madness - if you have a Husky anything, you'll have a piece of their madness and in the long run, you'll enjoy every minute of it!

Welcome from another husky cross owner
(as you can tell from my username, mine is a shepherd/husky mix)!

In his case, strangely, he looks mostly like a husky and acts mostly like a german shepherd? He doesn't care much for strangers, is more of a one-man dog, and is pretty obedient. He's probably one of the exceptions for husky crosses!

Oh and yes, I second the advice to have a good vacuum!

One interesting question:
does your husky mix bark, or howl?
Mine will rarely bark. He usually communicates with howls and whines and noises which are, well, hard to describe. He only barks (a few loud deep barks) if a stranger is at the door.

Lostmaniac wrote:

Define digging?

No tunnels, thank goodness. He has a number of holes in a general area. The people who lived in my place before me had an above ground pool. They put down patio stones 6 inches below the surface under the pool - perhaps to level and compact the surface. Duck is fascinated with this area. He digs down to the patio stones and then around the edges and a bit under them. This process has been reinforced as he has found "treasures" (bits of buried toys or crockery and so forth from past inhabitants that have become buried - he is an archaeologist of sorts I guess.) He will also bury bones or bully sticks - he even finds them again sometimes.

Good vacuum cleaner - check! Also a furminator.

aljones wrote:

IAvalanche (my Alaskan Husky) will sometimes dig but it's more an expending of energy and then he's done - for a while.

With Duck it seems to be about expending energy or, when he digs inside, it is about frustration I think. If we tell him no about something a few times (like harassing the cats or insisting on trying to mouth our hands instead of playing with his toys with us) he will go to his crate and furiously dig at the plastic tray bottom for a while before flopping down dejectedly and grumble-whining a bit.

Shepsky13 wrote:

One interesting question:
does your husky mix bark, or howl?
Mine will rarely bark. He usually communicates with howls and whines and noises which are, well, hard to describe. He only barks (a few loud deep barks) if a stranger is at the door.

For a long time Duck didn't bark. He still doesn't bark at the door. He did develop a bit of a barking at shadows habit in the back yard. Other than that he whistles and whines and grumbles and just a bit of wooing. He only full on howls if we do

Spider will dig in the crate.its either frustration or anxiety or revenge on not getting her way. It usually happens when she wants to go out and for 1 reason or another im not getting to the door fast enough. That morphed into spider can open the sliding glass door and lets herself out. Now to teach her to close ot when she comes in.

Yep these husky types are not barkers! We passed a lady with THREE huskies on our walk, so that was FOUR huskies passing in close proximity to eachother. One of them laid down, and every dog was panting and pulling a bit with excitement...but we passed in silence. Four large dogs, and nobody uttered a single bark! That's huskies for ya.

(I didn't let Rumo meet them because meeting three dogs on leash is just a nightmare of tangling...if it's just one other dog, I sometimes will let him say Hi).

dogpaddle wrote:

For a long time Duck didn't bark. He still doesn't bark at the door. He did develop a bit of a barking at shadows habit in the back yard.

Are you sure they're shadows? :-) My dog is rarely wrong...there is usually someone or something there....! :-)

@shepsky I'm with you. Avalanche is my "barking dog" and when he does bark I go look to see what he's barking at. Sometimes it FedEx or UPS coming up the road - which he hears before I do, of course - and sometimes it's a rabbit he want to play with.

After whoever it is, assuming human rather than a hare or rabbit - he's right there to get some attention! I really wonder what he'd do if someone less pleasant were to visit ....???

My other two, Sasha talks at me when she wants / needs something; Sky seldom gets a word in ....

Squirt is very barky, and very talkative. Shes one of those dogs that if you talk to she answers. Indian dogs tend to be barky. She is silent though on a leash. I can tell by her bark whether i need to pay attention or not. Spider on the other hand will be 5 feb 17th and i have heard her bark 3 times in her whole life. She does the screamy howl and the wolf howl and a huge variation of grunts and rumbles but no bark. The first time she barked was at a moose, the second and 3rd barks were at my brother in law.

Not that spider will do much other then run away. When people she doesnt know come over, her true cowardly colors show.

Shepsky13 wrote:

Are you sure they're shadows? :-) My dog is rarely wrong...there is usually someone or something there....! :-)

I suppose there is probably something there on the other side of one of the fences. We have a tall wooden fence so I would have no idea if there was something there are not.

Shepsky13 wrote:

Are you sure they're shadows? :-) My dog is rarely wrong...there is usually someone or something there....! :-)

A few years ago, Ami took to pacing, panting and woo woo woo at 3 in the morning. Totally unlike him. On the third morning of this, found this in the backyard:





As well as various tell tale signs by the mailbox and in the lawn. It was a very wet year that year and Mr. Cow (yeah, I know, that's a lot of bull ) was using his head to pull up on the fence, taking the posts along with him. Drove my poor neighbor to distraction - finally sold him at auction. Got the highest price of any sold that day. To be used for breeding, not hamburger.

Heh heh, that is quite a "Shadow" there! :-)
I'm glad he was not made into hamburger!

My dog alerts and I think he's insane, but there is always something...
a teen tromping behind our fenceline,
or a cat that I finally see when it comes out from behind the bush...
or a person, opening their door and coming outside! (He can apparently hear them walking around inside their house?! isn't that crazy!)

You dont really want to eat a bull anyway. Cows in my yard are an almost daily occurrence this time of year. Just curious what they got for him

@shepsky13 squirt is always barking at the people at the ranch on the other side of the field. Its almost half a mile away. Mine can also see people on the road downhill of us. Oh and the second anyone is near the mailbox they all start barking and howling and thats a little more the 1/4 mile away.

Yep, I wish I could hear like a dog! When we go for walks, we could be on the other side of the street quietly sniffing a bush, and a dog inside of a house about three houses down, will start barking!!
( Hmm but then maybe the neighbor's kid banging on her piano would drive me mad then...)

Actually an interesting thing I read, is that this is one of the key points to the evolution of dogs as companions and pets. The human tribes who had dogs, did better than human tribes who did not. The dogs could alert them to invaders or predators at night, as well as helping them hunt...that's why dogs are our oldest domesticated animals...

Ive been reading alot about canines lately. Not just dogs, genetics is what i wanted to go to vet school for, and even though its out i still read up on it. Anyway so particularly on the east coast the canines are evolving into a coyote/wolf/domestic dog mix in order to adapt to hunting and humans.

Also dogs were actually domesticated twice stemming from two separate extinct wolf types.

I don't know the actual price, just that the owner told me best price of the day.

As for did hearing. Oy. After I think everyone is settled f or the evening, Z'ev sleep in the ottoman and Ami outside work his bone, ifi try to get a snack for us for movie watching, as soon as the fridge or the silverware drawer opens...Ding Dong Ding Dong!!! Ami at the back door, looking for his share

Like this, you mean?

Exactly.

Been away for a bit but ...

OMG, are huskies and husky crosses the dog worlds best kept secret?!

As Duck has become more adult, I more and more see what a fantastic guy he is, not quite like any other dog I have had. Loving, loyal, goofy, athletic, smart (even when he decides not to bother being obedient )