"Every stranger is a friend I have not met yet"....... that is pretty much Frankie's motto. He was a terror when I first got him, but still had such a sweetness about him. Our first six months together took a lot of work and a lot of exercise. He is still kind of a high maintenance dog. Due to his friendliness and eagerness to meet new people, he became a therapy dog and loves having to go to "work". Having a job to do has definintely helped him. He gets very confused when someone doesn't want to pet him.

As friendly as he is and as much as he loves attention, at home he is pretty independent. He wants to be around us and does NOT like to be alone, but he itsn't much for cuddling. So he lays close by and follows from room to room, but always stays at a respectful distance.

We are in south florida, so even though he only blows his coat 2x a year, he pretty much sheds year round. He really enjoys swimming in the pool and in the summer swims about 5x a week sometimes for 2-3hours at a time. He is really good on those nights. A tired husky is a good husky.

I became a husky owner/lover by chance. Had I read about the breed prior to having one, I probably wouldn't have kept him when he showed up at our door. But after learning about them and learning about him, I wouldn't have any other dog. It took us awhile to form a bond. But once we did, I truly believe it is a bond for life that can not be broken.

I think apart from other difficult dogs the main key differences in sibes that you'll have to get over is blowing coat (they lose ALL their undercoat which makes them looks just silly and makes your house look like it's snowed) and can't be off lead (they will run away, not always, but they will). But me personally couldn't handle a herding dog like a BC or aussie. They are way too intense for me. I'll take a laid back husky any day. lol.

I will take any excuse to be able to talk about my two!!

Dakota and Willow are like night and day... Dakota could not be trusted around babies or kids until he was around 5/6 years old. Now he is very gentle with them. Willow is 9 months old and there is no way I would let her around small children, let alone babies. She loves people too much. she thinks that everyone wants her two front paws on their chest and her tongue on their cheeks which would mean disaster with small kids. Dakota does not have a love of people but he is not aggressive either. He would just prefer to smell you and walk away from you. He does not care to be handled. He allows me and my son to pet, hug and give him messages but I think he tolerates it for our sake. However he does follow me around every where I go and wants to ALWAYS be with me. He loves to sleep at my feet no matter where I am or what I'm doing. Willow would love an ax murderer and takes personal offense if you don't want to pay attention to her so she is obviously not a guard dog. I have witnessed her literally pouting because a young kid did not walk over to her to pet her. Dakota is an excellant guard dog! He will not make a sound if he sees an animal roam by but if a person steps one foot onto our property he will emit a very low growl until they leave. He has alerted me to someone walking up next to my house on several occasions. He has even walked a man past our camp sight once with the low growl until the man was out of sight because he "sensed" something about this man. Any other time, he would ignore. Dakota has never destroyed one single thing in my house our eaten anything he wasn't suppose to. He gets full roam of the house when I am gone. Willow feels it's her job in life to vacuum my floor, the driveway, our yard and every available surface with her mouth. She HAS to be crated when I am not home. Both of mine get two walks a day but can do just fine if I have to skip a day. I had to teach boundaries by the entry ways becuase husky love an open door and will bolt at every available opportunity. When my son was smaller, Dakota got free on so many occasions just because my son was too young to think about making sure the door stayed closed. I would call him back and he would turn around to look at me and then just take off again. The only reason I ever got him back was becasue he would go to another dogs home to play. I have hair floating around my house and on my clothes constantly...it's a losing battle... I would have no other breed.

26nikita wrote:

I will take any excuse to be able to talk about my two!!

She loves people too much. She thinks that everyone wants her two front paws on their chest and her tongue on their cheeks which would mean disaster with small kids. He loves to sleep at my feet no matter where I am or what I'm doing. Willow would love a an ax murder and takes personal offense if you don't want to pay attention to her so she is obviously not a guard dog.

Willow is EXACTLY like Kody! Or I should say Kody is just like Willow since she's an entire month older than him =) He goes INSANE when people get to my house. Jumping, licking, crying..like saying omg omg omg I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU! Both him and Mya would love an ax murderer too..LOL! The world is their BFF. If somebody doesn't want to touch them they get confused...haha.

Kody lays at my feet EVERYWHERE! While cooking or doing dishes especially. I'm so in love with him that I feel bad moving around the kitchen. Crazy I know..lol.

Mya isn't too into cuddling either and she "lets me", but really doesn't have it with my hubby. She'll give him a low growl like saying "i don't like that". Now Kody is the complete opposite! Oh my, he likes to sleep on my butt for goodness sake and on TOP of my hubby's head

MelissaI wrote:

Kody lays at my feet EVERYWHERE! While cooking or doing dishes especially. I'm so in love with him that I feel bad moving around the kitchen. Crazy I know..lol.

When I am in the kitchen cooking, Dakota will lay a few spaces away so I am not tripping all over him, but not Willow! She loves to lay right in front of the sink so I am constantly leaning over her. I know I should set a boundry when I am cooking, but I guess it just doesn't bother me that they are in the kitchen with me.

I personaly do not like how Willow smothers people, I would prefer she was more like Dakota in that sense. Well....I wish she was like Dakota and didn't eat everything is sight either...but that's the chance you take when you get a puppy. You just have no idea what their traits will be. I will only adopt from here on out so I can get the non-smothering, non-vacuum mouth dog in the future! I couldn't imagine having a small child with willow. She would eat every toy the child had and that's the least worst thing of what she would do!!

Oh god! Little kid toys wouldn't stand a chance in my house! lol

SaraB wrote:

Oh god! Little kid toys wouldn't stand a chance in my house! lol

Yeah, kid toys are just begging to be eaten by huskies!

One of my girls had a bad experience with kids when she was under a year, so she has been afraid of them ever since. She is in no way aggressive, she just tucks her tail and tries to hide behind me. But almost evey other huskie I've met likes kids.

Most huskies seem to calm down a bit as they grow older, but not like other breeds do. Owning a husky is like owning the eternal puppy! That's one big thing that attracted me to the breed. But that is definitly not a trait that everyone is looking for!

All three of the huskies I've had have been from working lines. Unless you are willing to give your dog a "job" or some extreme exercise, I would not get a working line sibe. Mine would be sad, and probably very naughty if they didn't get to pull me around!

SC, I too would like too commend you on doing the research. I started out doing the same thing before getting Miko. I wish that I had come across this forum at the time, I would have been a little more prepared. A lot of the sites I came across gave the basics. How to care for them, what to expect with the shedding, the general nature of the breed, tips on handling and correcting bad behavior, etc. But a lot of sites also mentioned that Sibes are a quite breed and not food driven, highly intelligent and intuitive, easy to train. I laugh now when I think about it.
I think the best thing to describe a sibe is that everyone is different. Their personalities are what set them apart from other working dog breeds. Miko does what I call "talking". She talks back when she isn't getting her way, she talks when she is playing she talks when she wants to go outside she talks when she doesn't like the music playing on the stereo. She talks all day. Its a combination of howling, barking, singing and grumbingly. The only noise she has never made is a growl.
Miko is food driven. She could care less about what is in her bowl but if she can get into "people" food she will. There isn't a garbage can on the planet that can keep her out. It has taken me 9 months to break her of this habit.
Miko is far from mellow. I joke and tell people having her with us is like having a room full of three year olds. She wants to be involved in everything and at times, simply out of boredom(just to say hey Mom, lets go for a walk) She will start running in circles throughout the house.
She is at my feet whenever I am home. When I am doing the dishes she is right their watching. When I am in the shower she lies right outside the bathroom door.
But the one thing that I was not prepared for and find the most frustrating is the stubborness. I took her to obedience school when she was 5 months old, just to get a head start. She knows all her commands and while in the classroom she did them. She was very charimatic about, "Down" resulted in her throwing herself to floor and waggling her tail, but she did them just the same, but at home its a diffirent story, she knows the commands but getting her to do them is another story. She will actually watch me from the corner of her eye when I call her name but not move an inch.
I had taken her camping for the first time last July and I was nervous becuase we were going with my sister and my one year old neice. i don't have children and I wasn't sure how she would behave around such a small child. She loves the kids at the park but they are older. She was so gentle with my neice that I was speechless. Miko would curl up around her like Maddison was her pup and lick/groom her.
They are a highly intelligent and intuitive breed, so much so that at times they seem almost human, but that may be an insult to huskies. My boyfriend recently started having seizure like fits and Miko always seems to know when one is coming on. She does not leave his side when he is having one.
Having a new baby on the way you probably don't have a lot of free time but if you do I would reccommend looking for Siberian recue shelters in your area. They are always looking for volunteers, spend a day helping out. I know the on near me usually has between 10 and 20 sibes or sibe mixes on sight. This will give you a feel for how different every Sibe is and maybe that will help you make your decision. Goodluck to you and I am sure whatever decision you come to it will be the best for you and your family.

That is a great idea about going to the shelter and volunteering, but we don't have a siberian rescue shelter anywhere close to us. Or where were moving at either.

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to tell me about their dogs. They all sound amazing, and it was great getting to learn about their differences and similiarites. Most of your stories were very entertaining as well as educational, lol. I think Im going to have my hunny sit down and read everyones post and see what he thinks. He has only been around a few in the same environment so it will be nice for him to learn about them in a different one.

Thanks again everyone, and who knows maybe I'll be back again in a year or so to introduce the new family member if we decide on a siberian husky. :-)

The meeting up with huskies at shelters and rescues is fantastic if you have them available to you. My only caution with that though is that dogs (regardless of breed, and sibes are no exception) can act one way at a shelter/rescue but then show their true colors after they've had time to settle into a normal home environment. Not saying that will or won't be the case, just keep it in the back of your mind if you ever do get to meet up with a nice size bunch of them. Maybe you could visit a breeders kennel or find your way to a dog park when there is an organized husky meet up. Just some things to keep in mind.

We don't have a dog park or a breeder anywhere close to us either. lol. Nor the place where we are moving. I have never even seen a dog park actually.

Where do you live and where are you moving to? Maybe check out akc's website and see if there are going to be any shows in your area and see if any sibes will be there.

I live in Millersburg, OH and Im moving to Webster springs, wv. There is nothing in either areas. Millersburg is a big Amish community that sell poorly bred puppies out the wazoo for crazy cheap prices so no one really bothers with registered anything and in Webster its mainly hunting dogs( I grew up there) people don't want t spend money on a well bred dog. So, again, there isn't much around.

Yeah, I'm in central VA and I was looking at husky breeders and rescues in VA, WV and NC before we found Sabaka. It may be totally offensive to say that some of the puppy pictures that I saw in NC made me question what the breeders were thinking. And, believe me, I think most huskies are beautiful! I believe there are some good rescues in No. VA and in the Tidewater area but they state online that they only adoption to people within a certain distance to the rescue.

If you are going to South East WV, we have family there and may take our wild boy there sometime then your hunny can meet him and see some of this craziness that we all know and love! Actually Shannon and I are both not far from the SE WV border...

(I typed all this and then saw your last post. You are north of us, I guess. I grew up in Lewisburg, so I know the hunting dog / mutt mentality well! Actually there are some great husky mixes out there. I saw a lovely husky-collie at the park a couple weeks ago!)

Ya, the the rescues I did find were very strict about where their dogs go. Im not to familiar with Lewisburg but have been through there a few times. I saw a picture of a friends Husky mix yesterday. She's husky and malamute and she was gorgeous. I have no idea where she got her though and she lives right in the heart of the "hunting dog/mutt mentality" so maybe I should ask if they got her from a rescue of some kind.

Keep an eye out for ones at shelters. Maybe give the shelter your name and contact info when you decide you want to get one. Unfortunately they end up in shelters a lot. There's a really sweet black and white 4yr old female at the shelter I foster for. She's so sweet, I don't know why the owners gave her up.

A great resource for finding Husky rescues.

http://www.siberianrescue.com/southeast.htm

I know Tails of the Tundra while based in PA adopt out dogs throughout the region and WV is one of their states they cover. Most rescues also have a great referral and transport network of placing huskies in need of homes. Speaking just for myself I would and did drive 300+ miles to adopt a dog before I went to a puppy mill or breeder.