Siberian Husky Azja Is Extremely Neurotic when outside.

[Jayrone]

Hello!

So I own a little two year old siberian husky female named Azja and I think she has some sort of mental problem. To understand it I'll have to tell a bit of her story.

I adopted her when she was five months old from a breeder who lives far away from my home. On the long drive home we stopped off on the side of the road to let her go to the bathroom. However it turned out the collar I had for her was too big and she slipped out of it. Since she didn't know me or my family she just started running. The terrain of the area was high mountain desert. Me and my brother and my mother spent the next six hours trying to get her to come back but it was no good. She just kept running and running further and further away into the frozen desert. We eventually had to give up for the day since it was sun down in January and we didn't want to get lost and freeze ourselves. Over the next few weeks though we kept looking for her with drones and tracking dogs but she was gone. We thought she was gone forever.

But miraculously 22 days later she was found by a women and brought to the dog shelter who then informed us. That was over a year and change ago now and she is my best friend in the world. However I think that the whole experience left mental scars on her. Whenever she is on a leash outside of her yard she starts going crazy. She goes into what we call four wheel drive mode and starts bolting around trying to sniff everything and investigate ever little object, not in a playful way either. She almost seems to be in a sort of panic like she's trying to figure out the area and scan it for dangers as quick as possible and it doesn't go away even when we've walked the same path many times. I've tried various ways to correct her with training but she acts like she can't see me. She doesn't respond to her name, she doesn't look at me or anything. Which is strange because inside the house or her yard she is a model citizen.

I think maybe she has some sort of survival instinct that got kicked into high gear while she was lost during the formative age she was at. Also it's important to note that my family primarily keeps wolves and huskies as our companions so I am familiar with what is normal in their behavior and I have never seen one act like Azja.

Does anyone have any suggestions for training methods that could help snap her out of this neurotic state she gets into whenever outside? Any help will be appreciated.

[wolfpup]

I am so sorry for Azja -   I would seek out an animal behaviourist.     Which country do you live in to allow wolves to be kept?   Here in the UK it is illegal to keep a wild animal.     Also what is she like when in the yard and not leashed?   i.e.  free to move around?

[Jayrone]

When Azja is in the yard she is usually very calm and responsive. I was wondering if it was a matter of familiarity but I've walked her on the same part of the road for a while now and she hasn't calmed down when outside of the yard. It's almost like the fences give her a certain amount of comfort or something. As for where I live I live in the US. When I was a kid we got a dog who was 80% timber wolf and  20% husky. She eventually had puppies and we ended up keeping them all. It was the experience of a lifetime caring for and keeping that many wolf hybrids. Most of them have passed by now though. The mother only just passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 13. a very respectable age for a wolf.