Trust - A Deadly Disease Discussions

I always used to think that if you crossed Huskies and Mals, you would get double trouble! Maybe this is not the case ... I am thinking of my cross Tai, the Huskamute in the village, Hal (my previous Husky/Mal/Wolf Cross) ... all had at least a basic recall (Hal), and the other two excellent recall.

Comments please from the pure's AND the mixes!

I cannot with hand on heart make the same statement about Jacub but he would have certainly joined Tai in a good old howling session

Take care Gnasher.

Seoniad.

but yours are not straight crosses of the two breeds..utes are not huskamutes (whatever that means ) :? :?

It makes perfect sense! One of the things I struggle with regarding this whole lead business is that no wonder dogs leg it if they are never allowed to run off lead, and then suddenly manage to escape, slip the lead whatever. Of course they will run and run and not come back. I still find it hard to accept that if you train your husky right from the start at 8 weeks not to leg it, you should have no more or no less a problem than with any other breed regarding recall. We got Hal at only 6 and a half weeks, and immediately started training him in the garden to come when he was called. Whoever trained Tai, his recall is excellent. Our Huskamute friend is if anything more obedient than Tai, and the Sibes we know who are allowed off lead are all good. I keep coming back to this issue of how, if you never let them off, you can expect them to stay put should they ever "escape".

The point I have been making is that it isn't dogs which have never been let off lead, but those which have been let off lead and whose owners have been lulled into a false sense of security which tend to end up under a car or shot by an angry farmer.

Mick

I know, but I am asking the question of Huskamutes and merely using my two mixes as examples. The huskamute in our village is extremely obedient, so I am just curious to know if the mixes of Mal/Husky, Mal/Husky/Wolf, whatever mix you care to think of are somehow less likely to leg it. No need for the sarcasm at all, it was a serious question. You have never met either Hal, or Tai, if you met Tai you would think he was a Huskamute, there is very little wolfiness in him in comparison to Hal, so I like to think he is at least relevant in this discussion!

I wonder how the stats work out if you compare the Husky to other breeds , ref RTA and shot by farmers due to worrying farm animals.

This to me says more about the common sense of the owner the whole of a breed. My dogs are on lead anywhere near roads. On one of our fave walks there is a lane we have to cross that goes up to a golf club. Its very quiet and we never see cars but they all still go on the lead when we get close to it.

I would be interested in this as well and the number of dogs spotted and those shot to see if the numbers show that farmers get a bit more trigger happy with northern or less familar breeds. I have a theroy that a farmer seems more likely to pull the trigger with a sibe/Mal/NI and Ute then say a lab or collie or gun dog breed as they see these more often and so are perserved as less of a threat.

Yes, I understand this, but I think the trouble I have is that if you never start training your pup right from the word go to have a good recall off lead, then how do you know that he will leg it? I have a real job accepting this. I put in a huge amount of effort with Hal trying to improve his recall, it took me years and years, but I did it eventually. And i started when we first got him at 6 and a half weeks.

The analogy I would use is me training Tai not to chase and kill chickens. We have a neighbour who allows his chickens to get out onto the set aside. The stupid birds hide under the massive and very thick Lleyandii hedge that surrounds his large garden. So you are walking across the field along the set-aside, and scan the horizon to make sure there are no chickens. No, there are no chickens, so you continue with Tai off the lead. You keep a wary eye on the hedge, still no chickens ... but Tai knows if they are there and I can pick up immediately on his body language, a slight tensing of the neck muscles, and a more rigid hold of the head gives him away. He tries to appear noncholant, but I can read him like a book. I immediately bark "No!" at him followed smartly by an "Oi" because just the No is never enough. This brings him back to me, and prevents him from making that break. Once he has made that break, he goes deaf and can no longer hear my commands, so I have to them interfere physically by gaining his attention by running straight at him and getting between him and the chickens. But provided I can stop him from making that break, I can control him, off lead, with those stupid birds running beserk all over the set-aside squawking "Its the Wolf-of, its the Wolf-of!" The point I am making is this. The first time we walked Tai up there off lead, the chickens were out and he grabbed and killed one before i could even stop him. So, he was taken home whilst I rang our neighbour and apologised for the fact that Tai had taken one of his hens, and then took him straight back out on the lead. I spent a good hour getting him to walk up and down past the garden on the lead, and ignoring the chickens. We then did it off lead. It took time, and he had to stay on the lead every time we went past that garden just in case I was off with the daisies, but I did it. I can now walk him up there and one word from me and he "comes away" ... not physically, but mentally. He knows that he is not allowed to chase those dang birds, and although he is dying to, he won't.

So, if I can train my Tai who has a really huge prey drive to ignore the chooks, I think you can train your huskies not to leg it! I am not talking about a pack ... I quite agree that taking out more than 2 huskies together off lead could be a problem ... one goes, they all go, a bit like horses ... but a single or two huskies, you can do it Mick!!

Well, for what it's worth, our local sheep farmer told me that the worst breed for worrying sheep were collies!

Bitter experience! - Luckily that of others not me and the consistant cry of the distraught owners - "I don't understand, he/she'd always come back before" underlines everything I have said about this issue.

One example from (sort of) personal experience. Quilla was a beautiful bitch we bred many years ago. She was sold to a lady who was heavily into obedience and agility, and had had significant success with her BC/Husky cross. She started training Quilla in obedience and soon had her competing at a high level. She similarly introduced Quilla to agility with similar results. If there was ever going to be a "one-off" husky which rewrote the rule book, Quilla was that dog. Her recall was legendary - much better than any dog of any breed that I have ever seen. Her owner, however, always had her safety at the forefront of her mind and tried not to put her at any risk. Then one day when she was in the garden playing, she suddenly jumped into the neighbour's garden (something she had never done in four and a half years) through the neighbour's open gate and into the road. The owner called her to return (again - something she had always done on every other occasion). Quilla ignored the command, ran into the road and was killed instantly by an oncoming car. An unfortunate combination of circumstances, not directly relevant to the on/off lead discussion, but the significant point is that even this amazing example of a highly trained dog could not always be trusted to obey a command which she had always obeyed without question in the past.

Mick

Is there a breed of dog you would let off the lead in an unenclosed space (not meaning by roads or livestock?)

Example - we have miles of dunes near us where I have my dogs off the lead - out in the stick no close livestock...

Would you risk it with any dog?

i let my collie,csv and n.i off in those situations ;-)

The HUsky/Mal people are not saying they can't be trained..as Mick has said and many Mals I know have fabulous recall...it can be trained..
BUT they can still choose not to listen and be dead within seconds..

Its not that they can't be trained..they can..but its not worth the risk..

What I do wonder is how the "yes let them off" brigade would react if a Sibe/Mal owner came onto Dogsey and started a thread of
"My dog killed next doors cat"
I always let him off the lead, hes never done this before, I dont understand, he just went and wouldnt listen!!

I bet you would all be on the "they should be on a lead" band wagon then! I can hear the moans of irresposible husky owners being uttered now LOL!!

But thats not what happens -and incidents like this are certainly not specific to Northern breeds....this is what I cannot understand.

really.... someone found 2 Sibes today roaming about, luckily a responsible husky owner had taken them in. They were 6 miles from home, guess what! They had been let off the lead, and always had been!!

I really dont understand why people who have never met or owned the breed seem to think that people with years and years of experience and more "I told you so's" than we care to think of would lie about this???

Dont let you Sibe off the lead! ....Simples!

But that still can happen to any breed :?

Yes but sibes/mals have a higher tendency .. thats the point!