Hi everyone! I haven’t posted here for a really long time. I used to have two huskies, Leo and Jack, but due to some unfortunate circumstances I had to surrender both of them. I still sometimes have dreams of Leo finding his way back home...

Anyway! A few weeks ago my four year old son and I adopted Jasper who is 2 years old. He and my son got along great. This isn’t a thread about huskies getting along with kids. They were a good pair. But Jasper would not stop trying to hump my old 9 year old mut when I would bring Jasper with me to work. The mut, my sweet old August, lives at my parents acreage which is where I go to work. After a little bit of work they did OKAY for a little bit inside the office together, but August would get very defensive when Jasper would get too aggressive with his playfulness.

I realize I’m rambling so I’ll cut it a little shorter. I couldn’t get them to stop erupting in fighting (although it was August fighting, Jasper was just doing the Husky rough-play thing mostly) so I brought Jasper back to the shelter. Long story short I miss him a lot and so does my son actually.

Soon I will begin working from home most of the time and have been thinking of trying to get Jasper back. If I am able to, my question is for any other single parents out there and how you juggle your daily routine? I need to get my son to school by 8, pick him up at 5, and get him to sleep after 8 again. Do any of you husky owners with kids around the ages of 4 have some routine and organization tricks and tips?

So no kids, i used to work in pre k and i have a disabled hubby. No real tricks other then keep to the schedule and be consistent. Think of it as having a 4yr old and a non verbal 3yr old. Doggy daycare maybe to burn some energy off. Also depends on do you have a yard or is all outside stuff on a leash

Squirt grew up on an air force base. She knew reveille was time to get up and taps was bedtime. We had some issues when we moved because her signals were absent.

Spider threw a fit this morning because i was backed in any monkey wrench freaks her out. Its like OMFG the lawnmower is only 5 feet out of place...

So what it all boils down to, both for dogs AND kids is consistancy

What Emily said. You've got to make a schedule and stick to it. Plan your day out. When everyone eats, when you take the dog for a walk, when kid goes to daycare/school, your work, lunch, lunch walk, meal prepping, training, etc. The whole nine. You have to build structure and make sure your day has time for all the necessary things or you will just end up with chaos and a dog that is too excited and still wanting to hump your kid constantly because you didn't account for enough exercise or enough training for the dog between work and trying to get your kids ready for their activities.

On a side note, shelters will often blacklist anyone who returns a dog or surrenders a dog. So you may prep yourself in case they won't give Jasper back to you, or allow you to get a dog from them at all.

Yeah, I am prepared for the chance that they will not allow re-adoption or have a policy against it. That's okay. I contacted them about the possibility of that today so I can get an answer on that and depending on the answer I might not have to worry about any of this!

That all seems pretty obvious now, haha! Consistency, consistency, consistency. I don't mind at all scheduling out every part of the day. I could tell that while we had Jasper he started to do pretty good with our weekly routine in short order. Only thing is during the weekends my son spends with me (he spends the weeks and every-other weekend with me, but every-other weekend at his mom's) I'm not sure how the exercise will go, especially now that it's winter. During the week after I drop him off at school Jasper and I would do a 20-30 minute walk at a good clip with some running sprinkled in and that helped his behavior for most of the day before we needed a second good walk in the afternoon. My son wouldn't be able to keep up with us right now, but I suppose we could go to the dog park or just hire a dog walker for those days.

Emily, it's funny you mention Spider throwing fits over something being out of place. When I had my Leo he would start yelling at us whenever we would rearrange a room! Haha.

Also we do have a very big backyard which I used to have fenced but it's only partially fenced right now. The fence is 4' cattle panels, so I wouldn't be able to let him out there unsupervised anyway. Hopefully next summer I'll have a 6' privacy fence installed so I can have a little more peace of mind letting him outside, again if I'm able to have him back from the shelter.

Thanks

My fence is cattle feedlot panels step in posts various braces and chicken wire. My dig not jump and in 3 years we have only had 1 escape

Sunglare was bad and the sapling clones are buried in snow but im doing a "living" fence with my feedlot panels. The aspens shoot clones and ive been moving the clones and weaving them into the fence. It should look nice in about 10 years

That sounds like it should be super pretty when once it starts maturing! And that’s pretty much the same fencing I have too. When I had both Leo and Jack in the fence the only time they’d escape is when the north end would drift completely over and they’d just walk out lol. It helped that they had their own little pack of each other out there so they didn’t feel the need (too much) to break out.

The board of the shelter will have to review my request, so we’ll see what happens. In all honesty if I was in their position I’d lean toward not giving a dog back to someone who brought it back like I did. So I won’t be too upset if it doesn’t work out, just sad to not have Jasper around again.

I have a friend that has been blacklisted at every shelter in Colorado. Really she shouldnt have any animals. I hope it works out for jasper

Oh wow. Well if she obviously shouldn’t have an animal it’s good all those shelters reaped it. And yeah, as much as we miss Jasper, if they deem it best for him to not come home again with us I’m mostly okay with that decision. They seem like a good shelter. They rescue a lot of dogs from kill shelters in the south, so they have the animals best interests in mind.

He did have a little bit of that resting bitch face, haha, but he was soooo sweet and gentle with people

He looks like a panda

I am a mom who works from home, although not single.
We have a middle-aged rescued husky mix. Our routine is something like this:

Everybody up. Dog can have potty break in yard if he is urgent (ours never is, he has an iron bladder)
Walk kid to busstop or drop at preschool. Take dog for an hourlong brisk ramble! ( I was always a runner/hiker, so I enjoy this.)
Come home and start workday.
Sometime about 5-6 hrs after first long walk, a second decent outing or yard play/training time.
End work and do pickups if needed (Rumo usually likes to come in car with me, he is allowed to come if I don't have to do a bunch of other errands)/ dinner / relaxation
Kids to bed, dog has last potty (short & businesslike).
Sleep.

Caring for the dog will take a couple hours a day and make for some extra chores...it can be tiring as a single parent without help! Maybe think about a doggy daycare that you could use once in a while for a break.

A fully fenced yard may help to save some time (i.e. sometimes he can just be let outside and you can keep an eye on him through back windows ).

If it's just every other weekend, your dog should adapt well to just having less exercise that weekend! hmmm....on the winter weekends you have your son, you can bundle him up in good clothing, put your dog on a long line and head out to a big field or park and let your dog explore. That way you could pick up your son if needed, or not walk so much? Other days you could bring your son's stroller, walk in neighborhoods, let your son ride in stroller if he gets tired?

Lastly...the energy level/temperament of your dog matters a LOT if you work from home. We chose a quiet middle-aged guy and he is good about napping & amusing himself while I work. A puppy would have been hard!!

Also...going out and about with a little kid and a husky, you'll need to invest some time training Jasper.
He can't be lunging, pulling, howling and crazy on leash, or you'll never be able to do it...he needs to have some leash manners/obedience, even simple commands like "Wait" (he should be willing to Stop) and he should be able to pass other dogs & people without going nuts.

If you think you can pull it off, I think it would be great to bring him back. There isn't a big adoption market for large older dogs, sadly. Mine would have been put to sleep except that the rescue pulled him on his last day.

Thanks for that great input, Shepsky!

The only thing that the rescue I got him from originally knew about his history was that he was a stray in Texas and scheduled to be euthanized before they rescued him. So I wasn't sure how he was going to be, but with my previous husky experiences I knew even if he'd be crazy as far as energy levels, he'd be very good with people and kids. Jasper surprised me with how gentle he was around my son and most strangers for that matter. He was still recovering from his altering surgery, so he did start to get the "crazies" once in a while in the house, ha, but that wasn't much of an issue at all. I was also really surprised with how well he'd be on the leash. He'd stop to stare at any critter he'd spot, but thankfully he rarely ever lunged. And he seemed like he would only pick up his pace when you'd allow him slack. I still of course wouldn't trust my son to hold the leash on him, Jasper can seriously PULL when he wanted/I allowed him to. He did pretty good with "wait" and particularly with "on by," my son even started using it on some of our small potty-break walks lol.

The finished fenced yard would be super handy! Also he thankfully wouldn't have to go to the bathroom right away in the morning. Of course he'd come into the bedroom and remind me it's time to get up, but he'd be content to just walk around the house or patiently wait by the front door while we get ready to leave and save his bathroom duties for the morning walk/run.

When a stranger would walk or run by on our morning walk he would want to go right up to them to introduce himself, but he never got vocal or tried to jump up at them which was nice. Hmm, he was a really good dog! I think I just made a bit of a brash and emotional decision about him and my old dog who stays at my parents which is where I go out for work, and I wasn't about to pay for him to be at someone else's house all week long or leave him in a kennel all day long. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for that input! The ideas of bundling up for winter weekends and spending time at a park with a longer lead are good! Our unfinished basement is actually pretty clean and open, so we could cheat and think of some kind of games to play down there to get him running around inside, haha.

Aw, he sounds like a very nice dog!
Without too many issues!

In the basement, there are always games like "find the kibble" and also mine likes to chase stuffies on a string/pole ("flirtpole") and there is always obedience training/tricks (which is probably not the first choice for huskies but it's good for them). They seem to be OK living without serious exercise for a day or two, especially as they get older. But they are much happier and easier with daily outings and exercise! (like kids)

Oh, and one last happy thought. My daughter's friends at school are used to the sight of pointy ears and a furry head poking out the window at pickup. They are like, "There's Rumo!" He is often with me and he gets excited when he sees my daughter come out. He doesn't seem to mind schlepping around driving the kids...:-)

Update:

Just as I gave up on hearing back from the shelter about Jasper, I got a call from them last Saturday saying I could get Jasper back. Apparently a number of families visited Jasper, but the shelter could tell he wasn't very interested in meeting any new families :O

He's doing well at home, but I noticed a lot of flea dirt on him after some brushing. No actual fleas spotted until I treated him with frontline and I saw one dead flea after that... fingers crossed a crisis has been averted. I've been vacuuming like crazy.

With it being a pretty warm winter up here so far I think I'll be able to drive the last few posts I need and put up the rest of the cattle panels so we can get some convenient and safe exercise in at home!

Backyards are a must in my opinion. I got stuck in a motel with 4 dogs for 3 months. Lately i have to force my dogs out in the am. And we are having a warm winter here too, its only hit -20 twice so far.

Im glad you got jasper back, with togo coming out lots of families will get huskies and when they hit about 6 months they get ditched at an animal shelter. Jasper is lucky he got a home.

Nice to hear Jasper is back home

I've always thought there is the ideal home for a dog and then...the one that works, warts and all. Dogs are quite adaptable, find there place with you and life goes on.

Congratulations on getting your buddy back.