Polar was born on the 09/04/11 so now he is nearly six months old, I purchased him myself after my old dog (a border collie) died. We never let polar off his lead and we feed him barking heads puppy days puppy food. Hes now about 27 pounds in weight which is small for a husky isn't it? I'm not very experienced with huskies and I'm just wondering how big do you think he will be? and when will he stop growing? BTW hes 18 inches at the shoulder and about 30 inches from nose to end ( not to his tail) How long and tall are your huskies?

Thank you in advance I shall be using this forum a lot I think!

My girl was born on April 18 and is about 18" at the shoulder and 30-32 lbs. Sounds like your boy is probably right where he should be. A good way to gauge if he's at an appropriate weight is to feel his ribs. If you can feel them but not see them through his coat he's just about right. If you can see the ribs he's too skinny, if you can't feel the ribs at all he's overweight. Hope this helps!

I'm sorry for the loss of your border collie

See your girl is younger and female but heavier than polar! Lol thanks for the advice anyway, hes not underweight or fat im just talking about his build in general hes tall i guess but light? My collie was a brilliant dog knew him since I was about 6.

Quick question how did you get that cool sig at the bottom with ghosts age on? I want one!

They're close enough in age that I wouldn't be too worried. Mine is also on the big side as far as I can tell. There is another girl on here who is 3 weeks younger and about half the weight but totally healthy. They all vary a little, and breed standard is a decent weight range.

For the signature, I went to www.pitapat.com and made one. Then go to the signature tab in your profile, copy and paste the url.

Polar is beautiful, btw

18" sounds fine and weight really depends on the dog. My Siku is tall and light and Elara is short and thick.

Thanks how heavy are your pups sara?

My 5 month old girl is probably about 13" at the shoulder and weights around 18lbs I think. Dogs grow at different rates and both yours and mine could spurt and get bigger out of nowhere! And then also "standard" has about a 15-20 pound difference so he may end up only being 45lbs.

I agree with pretty much everything here. Boys and girls seem to grow differently anyway.

Zander was at his full height at 18 months, around 28''. But he was VERY lean and lanky. He looked so much like an awkward teenage boy! Lol. He looked *mostly* normal at 3 years, but narrow through the chest. Around 4 or 5 he was completely grown and filled out.

All my foster girls, on the other hand, pretty much kept the same height/weight ratio and dimensions all the way through puppy and adult years. They seemed to grow equally up and out, where as all the boys grew upupup and sloooowly out.

Do sibes regularly reach higher than 23 inches?

A well bred male sibe should not go over 23.5 inches, Liam. However, there are SEVERAL huskies, male and female, who are over the max of standard- we have tons of backyard breeders who breed dogs that shouldn't be bred because they don't confirm to standard looks. My male is at the max of what the size of a male should be, 23.5" and 55lbs, and when we go to meet ups almost always nearly all the males are taller than him and I see quite a few females that are too.

I forgot to mention, Polar is super handsome!

LiamShannon wrote:

Do sibes regularly reach higher than 23 inches?

Unfortunately, yes they do. Most of the sibes I meet, I'd say easily 95% or more, are noticeably larger than the breed standard. Just because it's so common though, doesn't mean it's correct or should be. As Heather said, I think it's mostly due to BYBs, puppy mills, and generally irresponsible people. Just don't be surprised to see many sibes that are well over the breed standard, while it may be all too common it is such a shame to see.

Braiden is 25" and came from a fairly decent breeding. His is well proportioned for his size and moves quite well. While it may be a "shame" for some people to have to look at him he is very intelligent, a goofy fun-loving dog and is adored by everyone in our family. There will always be smaller and larger dogs over the standard even in the best of breedings. The key is simple.....Don't BREED dogs outside the standard. Braiden was neutered and won't be bred. That said, should people who are too "short" or too "tall" never have children? What is the perfect height for people anyway?
Just asking.

No one is saying that a dog who doesn't conform to standards should be loved as a siberian husky any less. If that were true, the majority of us would have "unlovable" dogs Koda has an overbite and Hailey's ears aren't set properly. Does this mean they are less of a dog? Of course not. Does it mean they should be bred? Absolutely not (as you said yourself).

No one is saying that tall huskies or short huskies are not beautiful animals... and are some of these "non-standard" dogs likely the products of two perfectly conformed huskies? Probably. The truth is though, that's a rarity. Most of the huskies that we see (and I guarantee at least one of my two) are products of BYBs and overbreeding. And that IS sad because it overpopulates, can give the breed a bad reputation, and undermines the purpose of this breed. Does it mean we love our rescued dogs, or even purchased non-standard dogs, any less? You think any of us would have not adopted our dogs because they don't conform to standards? No... of course not. But that doesn't mean that it's any less fortunate that there are more non-standard huskies than there are standard huskies.

I will never understand how to breed the perfect dog! For example, Sabaka's dad has fathered many pups but, according to the breeders, his dad's sister was spayed right away because she was too large, ultimately reaching 75 lbs! I would assume that Sabaka's dad carries the same "large" genes that his sister did even though he is within the range considered "standard". Once an undesirable trait comes out in a lineage, shouldn't you just stop breeding any dog from that line?



I met a gal at a kid's game last night who has a husky. She got him from a very reputable show breeder who sold him for a pet because his tail was too curled. Who's to say all future litters from those parents will not have curly tails and the breeder should never breed those two again?



It seems to me that breeders, even show breeders who occasionally get the "perfect" dog, 9 times out of 10 produce dogs with some trait not within the bounds of "standard". That's why not all dogs are show dogs I guess...

I feel that standards for height and weight are not necessarily gospel for dogs to be able to perform the work for which they were intended. I also do not believe that a majority of Siberian Huskies are over the standard for height and weight. If you can give me a reference I would enjoy exploring this further.Thanks. I would hope that every Husky is adored by their family regardless of how "poorly bred" they are. I have never seen a Husky that I didn't like.

beck3465 wrote:

Braiden is 25" and came from a fairly decent breeding. His is well proportioned for his size and moves quite well. While it may be a "shame" for some people to have to look at him he is very intelligent, a goofy fun-loving dog and is adored by everyone in our family. There will always be smaller and larger dogs over the standard even in the best of breedings. The key is simple.....Don't BREED dogs outside the standard.

I never meant to imply that dogs over and under the breed standard don't ever come from good breeders. It does happen but not so often that the majority of dogs out there are the result of such a situation. I'd say the dogs that are considerably larger than the breed standard that come from reputable breeders are very much the minority. I don't think it's a shame to see dogs that are larger than breed standard, I consider where they most likely came from a shame. I love all dogs regardless of size, it just makes me sad when I go to a husky meet up and 28 of the 30 huskies in attendance are way over 23.5" tall because I can guarantee the majority of them did not come from a reputable breeder.

NONE of my dogs confirm to their respective breed standards and they are all rescues. My sibe has an undercut bite. Faith was bred by a GREAT breeder who showed her dogs, was an experienced breeder and Faith has many champions in her pedigree. Yet Faith has an overbite and she weighs 6.4 lbs when they breed standard is maximum 6 lbs. Faith otherwise has excellent structure and wonderful movement but due to her weight, overbite, and cataracts she should never have been bred. Unfortunately she ended up in the hands of a BYB and was bred every heat and passed on her problems. Our chi, Glory, is Faith's daughter who is the result of Faith being in the hands of a BYB. Glory is even bigger than Faith at 7 lbs, she has luxating patella, cataracts (got that from her mom), her structure is totally off, and her movement is not quite right. Could Glory's lack of conformity and health problems have been prevented if her mom had been spayed as she should have been? Absolutely. Do I love my dogs any less because they don't conform to breed standard? Absolutely not. Am I ashamed about my dogs' lack of conformity? No. Am I ashamed of how they got to this point? Yes. That's what I meant when I said "it's a shame" to see, it's about knowing how most dogs got to be so far from breed standard.

I doubt you will find research on husky sizes to prove whether a majority is oversized or not. I have made my statements based on anecdotal evidence from my personal experience. My sibe is right at the top of breed standard for size yet out of the 50+ sibes we've met over the 4 yrs we've had him, I can honestly say that less then 10 of them were within breed standard for size. That's pretty shocking even to me.

And I can also say that I've never met a husky I didn't like either.

Lisa, I think this subject is so interesting. I feel that any line of dogs will always have some traits that do not meet standard. Skyla comes from a long line of show champions and there was one dog in the line who threw pups with an oddly shaped tail, yet that dog did not have have that tail. It boils down to gene dominance and recessive traits and so on. There is no perfect dog, only dogs who meet the standard better than others. I have read a lot about the history of Sibes and have seen pics of dogs that I KNOW were over the standard for size. Politics does play a big part in groups of people who wrote dog standards for the AKC. I can imagine that the professional breeders who helped write AKC standards showed bias for their particular lineage types in their kennels. Why wouldn't they? To this day there are moves to change Sibe standards. Still, don't tell me that a dog who is 1" above or below the standard can't pull a sled well...depends on the individual dog.

My comments are also based on my experiences, which are similar to Val's. I don't think there are any statistics on any breed out there that details where the majority of the dogs come from.... that'd be cool if there were.

ETA: Although I agree that politics plays a part in breeding and standards, I also think that it's very likely that the height of the dogs was developed in relationship to the size/height of the sleds that they pull. I would think that a direct and as level a line as possible would be ideal in pulling a sled so as to not put too much or too little pressure on each dog. I think there is a reason that height is the ONLY disqualification in a Siberian show dog.

Many Alaskan Huskies used for racing teams are well above height standard of Huskies so don't see that as an issue.

beck3465 wrote:

Many Alaskan Huskies used for racing teams are well above height standard of Huskies so don't see that as an issue.

But don't forget also that the Alaskan husky also was not bred for the same purpose as sibes. It's about more than just pulling a sled.

I guess I have always considered the height disqualification in the standard to be a bone of contention as to whether a Sibe is poorly bred or not. I am not the only one who feels this way. There has been long standing disagreement about this part of the standard. A dog above or below the standard can still have correct proportional conformation.

True, but to be honest I don't care to argue over the breed standard. I'm not a breeder nor do I intend to get involved in it so to me it is what it is. But you're right, nothing wrong with working ability in a slightly larger sibe. If height were a major issue in being able to work then Malamutes wouldn't be so big. Okay, I'll bow out of the conversation now as it's turning into a whole new discussion.

beck3465 wrote:

Many Alaskan Huskies used for racing teams are well above height standard of Huskies so don't see that as an issue.

The thing that conserns me about over sized huskies is the increase in body size. Alaskan huskies are lean dogs with long legs. They usually don't weigh much over 60 lbs. With over sized sibes you get the long legs, but everything above the legs gets bigger than what you see on an alskan. Majority of sibes I see weigh over 65 lbs. This puts extra stress on the joints. Big sibes are more prone to hip, joint, and other health issues seen less in sibes that stay within breed standard.

Not saying that large sibes are bad, I happen to think all huskies are awesome! But for the health benefit of the dogs, I prefer when breeders stick within the standard.

Another reason why we see big sibes is because I think most back yard breeders don't know or don't care about the standard and the possible negative health effects that come with increased weight.

Braiden is 25" and his weight is generally 60-62 pounds. Is this a reasonable weight for height do you think?

That's a good weight, Neo is Almost 27 inches and about 65lbs
He is a little lanky, but not skinny. Keep in mind dogs carry weight different.