beachhusky

I work as a roughneck in the oilfield, and my job requires me to be gone for two weeks out of the month at a time. Its a good job, but with my wife and I getting separated, there will be nobody to watch my dog while I am away. I am also moving from a house in North Carolina to an apartment in PA. I really love my dog, but I dont know if it would be fair to her for me to keep her, for a few reasons. One, huskies arent typically good apartment dogs, and she will be an only dog with nobody to play with. The main thing that scares me is having to put her in a kennel for so long. I just dont know what effect it would have on her, I dont have much experience with kennels. Any advice would be wonderful! Im not sure what to do

My Beagle did the same thing. It was before we had a fenced in yard, so I took her to a tennis court to play fetch to burn some energy. Later on I noticed that she was wincing and wouldnt put her paw down. She had torn off the top layer of pad and it was just flapping around. Luckily, my aunt who is a veterinarian was there, so we cut the loose pad off with a scissors and cleaned it with some alcohol. Then we wrapped it up for a little while and it grew back just fine.

Thats a lot of dogs! Bet it feels like waterskiing behind an airplane lol. Hey how are german shepherds with running?

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It makes a difference if you have trained your dogs to heel when you walk them or not. I never did, so they are always out front when I run them, though they pull a little less as they get tired. I always used the shoulder harness and it works well. The lead that I use is only about 5 ft with bungees and all, and Im six foot four, so an xback would just pull thier back legs off the ground. Wait a minute, thats about 1.5-2M and im like 75 cm tall... you crazy brits with your metric system lol jk.

Welcome to the forum, theres a lot of good people here! Canicross is a lot of fun and it doesnt take any crazy equipment or training techniques. I made my own belt out of a web belt, some bungee cords, and thier regular walking leashes. I use normal walking harnesses which have a D ring that connects to the leash right behind thier shoulders, as the leads I use are much shorter than would be used for skijoring or even scootering or biking. More room is required in those sports because of the length of the equipment and the greater speed (i.e. stopping distance.) The last thing that you ever want to do is run into the back of your dog, you will have to start all your training over from the beginning. Anyhow, this setup seems to work pretty well, as the angle of the leash works well with the harness to put most of the pulling force in thier chest and center of thier body. Too far forward, and they wont be able to run properly because thier legs are too far off the ground, too far back and there will be too much strain on thier stomach muscles. (Also, make sure to feel around thier underarms and chest to make sure that the harness isnt rubbing them raw- more of a consideration with shorthaired dogs than huskies, but something to be careful of nontheless.) Youll also want a neckline, which i made of a short bungee that I attatch to thier neck collars, to keep them from running apart. As far as training, what I did was find a wider place (20- 30 ft or so) where I could run for a while without any distractions. This let them get used to running and get thier pace set before I started throwing a lot of commands at them. The only ones that I used at this point were "Lets go" to start, "easy" to slow down and "whoa" to stop. I also started them on the "focus" command. They shouldnt have any trouble with lets go, and if you just slow down and stop when you give the command, they will learn them just fine. Once you feel comfortable with thier ability to be controlled safely, you can take them to a narrower road or trail, preferably one with clear ninety degree turns where they can only go one way. Then just give the left "haw" and right "gee" commands before they hit the turn, and youll be surprised at how quickly they catch on! (Also you can use "haaaaw over" and "geeeee over" to move them to the left or right side of the trail. Just stay patient and always positive (never punish your dog while running them) and make sure to keep an eye out for signs of heat exaustion and give them plenty of water afterwards. If they start slowing down, slow down. Be sure to feel where the harnesses contact and thier legs and feet afterwards to make sure they dont have any pain or tenderness. If your dogs have fun, so will you! Good luck!

Aw I miss Michigan. Huskyhijinx, your dogs fur look really really good, what do you do for them?

Try looking up some Jack London lines.

Please don't put your dog outside, it will cause more behavioral problems than it will fix, not to mention making taking care of her fur much harder. We crate trained both of our dogs in less than a week. As soon as we got them, when they were still puppies, all we did was put them in the crate at night. They will cry and scream the whole night for two or three days straight, and you may have a mess or two to clean up in the morning. It sounds cruel and its not easy, but they love their crates now, my husky goes in there a lot of times just to be on her own. For some reason, we have never been able to leave blankets in there with her though because she shreds them into giant piles of fuzz. I've heard a lot of other huskies do this too, its some sort of nesting instinct. One important note is that aside from praising and possibly treating your dog when she goes into the crate, completely ignore her when she's in there. Don't pet her or talk to her, or even look at her if you can help it, whether or not the door is open or closed. This isn't a bad thing or a punishment at all, because her crate will become her own private space that she can go to be alone. I'm sure we all can relate. Secondly, NEVER use the crate as a punishment, for obvious reasons. Crate training was the best thing we've done for the dogs and it works really well, just stick to your guns and stay compassionate and consistent!

Its your dog, your responsibility. I've never had too much trouble walking mine off the leash, but I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

I just bought a Weslo Cadence 55 and my husky fits just fine on it. Don't remember what size band it has exactly. It wasn't as hard as I thought getting her to use it. All I did was set it up and let them sniff it and get used to it, then I used treats to get them to stand on it. Finnaly, I got the walking leash out (I have a different setup for running) and put Laika on the treadmill and gave her the "let's go" command before turning it on. She wasn't too crazy about it, and jumped off a few times, which I just let her do. I didn't want to turn it into something she wouldn't enjoy. I let her relax for a few minutes and then put her back on, and she got the hang of it eventually. She was walking along at about 1 mph, not looking too happy about it, but hopefully shell get used to it. My beagle thinks its the coolest thing in the world though. I got the treadmill because when I'm away on business, my wife doesn't walk or run either of the dogs, and so my husky has started to dig out under the fence. I buried some chicken wire and strung an above ground electric fence wire about an inch off the ground, so hopefully that will help. It will only work if we can keep her occupied though.

This is a pretty hot topic now. As I've said before, I like to walk my husky off the leash especially in hot weather as it let's her regulate her internal temperature better than I can. However, you must keep in mind the area -what distractions there are, what other dogs or animals may be running around, and of course possible hazards like busy streets. I walk mine on the beach when its deserted because its pretty narrow (40 ft wide or so) and I can see where she is all the time, and there's nobody there in the off season. There is an empty housing development nearby that works well for the same reasons. The point is, only you can decide if and when you can trust your dog and, more importantly, if its worth the risk.

LOL rum and coke baby. Or cosmos. Nobody messes with a man drinking a cosmo

LOL i need one to turn my beagle into a ferocious pit bull. Random side note: has anyone ever told you guys they were afraid of your husky? 90% of people love my dog whenever we go out and everyone wants to pet her, but Ive gotten a few who seem to think they are vicious wolves or something. Not sure why or where that stereotype even came from. Just curious to see if you guys have gotten the same reactions.

Laika has to tell me all about her night every morning! Not sure whats so important cause she was asleep in her crate the whole time lol. She goes nuts when I come home after being on the rig for two weeks! Wish I could see things from her perspective just once.