We have just rescued a husky cross puppy from northern Canada. He came to us in very poor condition. We'd like to learn how to best take of him. His name is Remus and he is black with brown shadowy undercoat. He may be 3 months, we weren't told exactly. I'll attach a photo when I can figure it out.
Looking forward to your advice.

Oh, now that's no fair, Ontario stretches from eastern New York to the middle of Minnesota and god only knows how many degrees south to north, that's almost as bad as me saying "I'm from Texas, y'all". The betting money says you're over toward Ottawa or maybe south towards T'ranna?

Anyway, welcome to the forum. If you look in the upper right hand corner there's a sticky on how to post pictures - I wrote most of it, it works!

You say he's in very poor condition, have you run him past a vet yet and what's the vets diag/prognosis?
Because of their old genetic heritage, Huskies are - on the one hand - pretty disease free and - on the other - prone to hip/bone issues. Drop back with pictures and some idea for us of what you mean by very poor condition, eh?

Oops! We're north of Guelph about an hour. Arthur to be specific. We had him to our vet yesterday but he had already been through a course of Panacur with the rescue- IFAW. Northern Dogs Project. He has legs and paws which I think are disproportionately large for his little body. The vet, who was very new, said she thought he was okay. Of course, you can't go in but have to wait in the car. It was hard to have a normal discussion. He is black with shadowy brown under coat in places. Darn, I will try to get a picture on.

IFAW rescue brings down unwanted puppies from northern communities. J Hannah says she thinks they are all huskys or husky crosses.




Remus, our little black husky and Romulus , his not-so-husky brother. Remus had a lovely white and silver husky mom. His dad was supposed to be this hugh malamute and collie tricoloured dog. We really don't know. Both boys have their baby teeth, we are told they are 3.5 months old. Still no sign of adult teeth and are sadly booked for neuter early September. We would have liked to wait a little longer.

Remus has larger than life legs and feet which makes me think he was under nourished?

Mostly just looks like awkward puppy phase. He does have the aussie shepherd look might be tricolored but puppys change color as they age quite a bit.

@remusaunty Puppies are like that!  They have huge paws and grow into them, they have huge - often floppy - ears and grow into them, they have long legs and grow into them.  
I wish I were any kind of artist 'cause I'd love to do a drawing of a human child with puppy growth spurts. (( Picture arms that stop about knee high! ))

Personally, neither of them look particularly Husky, even if their mom was and it seems as if, generally, the Husky dominates in a lot of ways not apparent in your (very cute) pups.

I'd love to see a DNA test run on them;  I'd bet that mom wasn't 100% Husky and the conglomeration of genetics resulted in what you see.

I knew I recognized Geulph - I used to live in extreme northern New York with family in Illinois so I'd hop across and take the 401 or the 403 down to Windsor - running the hypotenuse is a lot shorter then going south and west!

ETA: While you may be in an area where northern breed dogs are common ( don't know ) you might want to find a vet who knows Huskies (northern breeds in general.) I have two vets that I can use, one is an old timer who doesn't like Huskies and the other isn't particularly Husky literate but is willing to look and listen ... her son, also a vet in her office, is much more aware of the northern breeds even is he is a 'large animal vet' (horses, etc)

Dna is weird like that. Squirt looks like a typical keeshond even though her dna profile was 49% village dog 50% sibe and 1% keeshond.

The doberman looking one looks like my cleaning ladys dog. Hers is half husky quarter malmute quarter bloodhound

Usually huskies will dominate a mix looks-wise, until that mix includes Lab, GSD, or Hound. lol. then you just never know. I have used Wisdom Panel and Embark DNA on my dogs. Wisdom isn't bad in price and they are pretty fast with their results.

Welcome to the forum! They will be so interesting to watch grow.

Thanks all. Right now our only concern is the soft poops(giardia?) What we call "dicky" tummy, please no IBD. Just heard from the vet re: bloodwork. All completely within normal range. Phew!

Soft poop could be food that doesnt agree, too much food, worms

From past general experience with dogs, loose stools are normally caused by the pup getting too much food.  If you're feeding the 'recommendation' from the dog food bag, you're probably feeding too much - they sell dog food so they want you to buy more ... if you cut that back by about 1/4 which should be about 1 3/4 cups total per day split into 3 meals (yeh, sure, 7/3 ÷ 3 = ... yeh, well, sorry - please don't give me grams of food, that doesn't compute to my mind!)

If you're still looking at loose stools after say 48 hours then it's time to let the vet take another look.  If everything is still fine (no worms, etc) then try for a grain free food, then try for one that's chicken based, then one .... okay, Al, stop .... if he has no worms and still has loose stools on a grain free then you've got a puppy who has a real picky stomach and you're going to have to work out what the problem is and find a food that doesn't come out loose.  The good point is that we have several people here who have done that so you can get plenty of help - but not from me!

You mentioned, I think, that they had a round of Panacur before coming to you ... if they had worms, they may still have a tummy ache from the worms and the drugs and anxiety from the move ... I'd cut his food back a bit, then if everything stabilizes - well, accept the status quo.

I'll add one passing note here: you don't mention how long you've had them and even though they're happy and playful, you may still be dealing with a bit of anxiety (something that amounts to "wonder how long we're gonna be here?")

Thankyou for that. Helpful. Yes I've thought about stress, anxiety. I had a dog with separation anxiety. He lived for 17 years and had IBD and pancreatitis at the end. I was hoping to have a new dog without the GI issues but you never know!
We've been feeding our puppy 3/4 cup boiled chicken, white rice and pumpkin with 1/4 cup chicken and rice puppy kibble for 3 weeks. My biggest worry is he needs to grow! We add a nutritional vitamin and mineral supplement and a pre and probiotic. We are trying to add a little more kibble every week.

I have gone down the extreme food sensitivity rabbit hole with spider. Im convinced she has a pro/pre biotic sensitivity on top of being picky and my gsd is allergic to anything with feathers. So feel free to pm me if you end up doing that path.

Thank you. This forum has been so helpful. Latest trepidation is about 1. Taking him off the metronidazole, otherwise known as "the miracle" drug. It kept my old dogs guts calm for 3 years. And 2. The stress of his impending neuter. Sept 8th. He survived eating a portion of salmon skin my sister gave him yesterday. No problem at all.

Okay, since I'm the primary person talking here - hey, where'd everyone go???
1)  Metronidazole is a prescribed antibacterial drug, you should have had it prescribed by a vet for some particular purpose.  Long term effects are potentially dangerous, especially in a young puppy.  I wouldn't take him off it without discussing it with the vet who prescribed it; at the same time, I wouldn't want to have him on it indefinitely.
2)  While I think this is too young to have him neutered, such is often the case with rescues.  "Better to have them neutered young than not at all." The problem with that is that it removes - er, literally - the source of (argh, just lost the word) that help his growth.
I'm thinking also that you're probably more anxious about him being neutered than he is ...
3) If he survived the salmon then it's probably a safe bet that he's not got any problems with seafood or seafood based dog food.

If you'll excuse me, I think you're overthinking the pup.  Oddly, most of them grow up strong, hearty and loved / loving no matter what we humans do.  Relax and enjoy him; he's going to pick up on your anxiety which is not going to set well with him... relax.

@aljones does an early neuter stunt them that much? in horses its the opposite, geldings are taller but lighter built then stallions.

I gotta agree with overthinking things. But also be careful/cautious with the salmon or trout. Too much of it can poison them. I looked into switching to a trout based diet because that would make feeding them alot cheaper but there is some toxic properties. As a snack its ok but its not something you want to feed daily.

@Lostmaniac I'll give you a Google Search and let you look for yourself.

In addition to possible orthopedic problems 'down the road' it will sometimes stunt their growth at their current stage of development. Oh, they continue to grow but their proportions don't change as we'd expect in a properly maturing dog. For example, they continue to exhibit the lanky 'puppyish' look ... (( my Avalanche is a puppy in more ways than one! ))

My reference to fish based food, I was thinking in terms of commercial fish based food, not nature based. Fish seem to collect a goodly portion of the residue that washes into the streams / rivers - definitely not good!

Ok so i looked and yeah seems bad to neuter early. So the 2 vets in my family reccomended it was done around 9 months and now i know why. We also didnt geld our colts until their growth plates closed.

That said i would not have thought it had a cancer factor. Splinter was neutered at a yr squirt was 2 when she was spayed shadow got neutered last nov at the age of 6 and spider is intact. Im on the late end of the spectrum.

Thanks, I know I do overthink things. But when you've had a dog with IBD for years, well...The metronidazole is vet prescribed and he's finished it this week. The salmon had no effect. Stool still soft but hes a happy pup so we're not going to worry. Yes the early neutering. The removal of testosterone will cause the growth plates in the long bones to keep growing beyond what they would have, just like in colts. But the effect is less in mixed breeds. They know we're not going to breed the boys but whatever. I was in dog rescue for years and they are pretty adament about neutering.

Well i dont know if spider has ibd, she has most of the symptoms, mainly i write it off as she got parvo as a puppy and she has had all sorts of gi issues since including a bloat scare not to many months ago. She got parvo at 5 months and will be 6 yrs old in February. So i do have years of worrying about gi issues. And on the human spectrum my hubby has chrones.

Yeah i do get the rescue being adamant about spay and neuter. I used to volunteer at the local dog shelter and at arc which is wolfdogs and northern breeds and other exotic canines like singing dogs. Here they charge you an extra 100 on the adoption fee that you get back when you bring proof of spay/neuter.

I actually wish they were more strict about the spay and neuter because most people here cant afford it and also dont fence thier dogs in. The local shelter in the county i live in is now charging people to drop off animals so people are just shooting them instead. We have such an issue with dogs being dumped the landfill had to put out a statement about not ditching puppies there. Probably similar to where your pups came from

Oh, I do understand why they're so adamant about getting the pups neutered I don't thinks there's anyplace that doesn't have a plethora of spare puppies and kittens - I just wish there were a way to hold off for a while before having them snipped.

We have the distinction of having a no kill shelter and and active rescue group so we have dogs, literally, going all over the country. One just left (is about to leave?) for the snowy central US - better him than me!!

I still find it hard to believe that that beautiful silver Husky produced such an odd mix of cute pups. That picture of him curled up on the rug is precious. "Okay, mommy, I'll be patient (for now) and wait for you ..."

I would bet a dna test shows husky lab and german shepherd and some type of hound or maybe Doberman based off the brother. Its always fun to guess with mixes. And just to throw this out there... spider was born black and your pup is greying out like she did.

We have alot of dogs from high kill shelters in new mexico, and yeah they also send them all over the country. Ironically we have more wolfdog/northern breed rescues then anything else in the surrounding 150 miles. Ive thought about another dog but i really dont know how to introduce an adult dog to my group and shadow hates puppies. This time of year i could have my pick of adolescent wolfdogs that idiots got without really looking into things.

Then there is 4 corners rescue in durango that specializes in puppymill rescues. I dont know that i could handle what they deal with.