Alaskan Husky

One week ago I adopted a 1 year old Alaskan Husky. Within the last year she’s had 4 homes and been in 2 shelters…plus wherever she originated. Poor girl needed a home where someone is home all the time at least for the time being. (We adopted her because we knew we could provide that) Somehow she seems to only have mild to moderate separation anxiety by this point which we’ll continue to work on.

Problem is…My body is so tired from the last week. The shelter said she was a moderate energy dog, but that must have been completely based off how she behaved in the shelter when she was scared. We go for a long walk daily, run in the yard for 15+ minutes in the yard every few hours (4-5+ times per day, if we stay out over 30+ minutes each time more like 4), play in the house, she has many chews and treat toys, and I’m happy to put dog TV stuff on.

She required a lot of adjustment and extra care at the start which meant that I wasn’t sleeping well. The past two days I have felt like I could pass out at any moment once we hit around 1pm. (We get up between 5 and 6) It’s becoming increasingly physically harder for me to exercise her without sleeping properly. I’m still only getting a few hours and I know it’ll improve soon based on the progress we’re making, but even then I’ll need a few days to catch up on sleep before I’m even kind of okay.

We’re having our first play date at the end of the week, but other than that the two of us are pretty much on our own.

Any advice?

She’s not super destructive when she wants to play and eventually will lie down if I just can’t do it. Right now she’s napping but she would rather be playing. Very glad she went to sleep, lol

Thank you

Edit: I also can not pay someone to walk her because she has 0 leash manners at the moment and is crazy strong. The only thing saving my shoulder is a leash with a bungee in the middle and a real strong padded harness. (The bungee leash is amazing, would recommend. If she suddenly gets excited and bolts for a second the elastic adds the first bit of resistance rather than it just being on her chest and my arm. Until we have better manners, I’m super glad I have something like that.)

Edit 2: she’s chewing happily and laying in front of the TV watching dogs with nice music playing. I think trying to create a calm environment to kind of explain that now is down time to relax is something I’ll need to do daily. :)

Edit 3: oh my goodness, you folks are the best! I’m going to go through this thread with a piece of paper and write down what we’re going to take and implement. Everyone gave such a fantastic and actionable response and I’m very grateful. Thank you 💕

Edit 4: we absolutely have kongs and a few other treat hiders and we’ve started doing obedience training. The only issue previously was that she was nervous and HIGHLY suspicious of treats to the point she had left a kong. The past 3 days (including today) she’s started taking treats which is great! I think someone must have used treats to trick her or something. She was TERRIFIED of them the first few days and then quite suspicious of them a few days following. The lack of food motivation (to the point of aversion) made it difficult to do that sort of thing, but we’ll be able to now 😄

Unfortunately she’s got a few tells that she was likely physically abused, but in this short time she’s gotten to the point that I can tell her “no” in a strong stern voice and she understands she just needs to stop and isn’t in any danger. Doesn’t hide, just stops and looks at me.

We rescued an 8 month old yellow lab husky mix from FNSB Animal shelter in early December after losing another dog.

I've had labs, but never a husky, and I'm learning these dogs have some damned peculiar behaviors.

One behavior I noticed is his poop habit. He is very, very private. He will vanish into the treeline, and dig out a little nest and do his business in it. He doesn't want to be seen.

If I take him out on a trail, he'll vanish for a few minutes, and then pop back out into the trail. I figure he's scouting out his private property, away from prying eyes.

Is this a huskyism, or just this dog?

The wife and I think it's hilarious. Our chocolate lab, or any of my other past dogs never did anything like it.

We adopted a 2-3 year old Alaskan Husky from our local city run animal shelter. She was previously living with a foster family for a couple of weeks, and prior to that was a stray that had been in the facility since November 2022. I picked her up Monday evening after she had been spayed that morning.

Obviously she was groggy and confused on Monday due to the anesthesia drugs and the constant changes of scenery, so her behavior on Monday was quite standoffish but not aggresive.

By Tuesday she was starting to warm up to me and my wife, and by Wednesday she was very sweet and cuddling with us on the couch. She's very loving and will lick our faces if given the chance.

However, there's one concerning aspect of her behavior that I've not experienced in any of my prior dogs.

The other day I left her alone for maybe 10 mins while I went out to run a quick errand. I have a security camera inside pointing at the door and I could see she was sat by the door the whole time until I got back. She hasn't destroyed anything while we've been gone and doesn't seem like that kind of dog.

However, when I came home she came up to me and was showing her teeth at me, like in an aggressive way. I didn’t feel like she was going to charge at me, but she looked pretty mad about something. She didn’t make a growling sound, but then again, she hasn’t made a single bark or noise since we got her haha – I’ve read that that’s a trait of the Alaskan Husky.

Anyway, again, last night, I was out on the porch for maybe 5 mins. She was looking at me through the window the whole time, and when I came back in she did the same thing.

Then today, she was sat with me in my office while I was working and my wife returned home after being out a couple hours. She did the same to her. He back kind of arches up too.

We said “NO” repeatedly in a firm voice, and she eventually laid down on her back a submissive position and was quickly licking us after that and acting sweet again.

It’s so weird because I’ve never had a dog that wasn’t happy to see us come home.

What's going on here? We were told she had separation anxiety but I thought that would just be sadness while we're gone and then extreme joy when we return – not her being pissed at us. Can it be trained out of her and how?

TL:DR – Dog has aggressive expression whenever we return home.

***

EDIT – Before I posted here, I emailed my contact at the animal shelter who has been super helpful throughout this process to explain the issue to her.

She's since wrote back and said of her own accord that it sounded like Submissive Grinning/Smiling and she asked if was it anything like this video…

^^ THIS IS NOT MY DOG IN THE VIDEO. IT'S JUST A REFERENCE ^^

My dog's behaviour is 100% like the video, right down to the licking of the lips and the slight snorting sounds. I checked back on my camera and saw that she was also wagging her tail throughout and her head is slightly bowed in a submissive way.

Submissive Grinning/Smiling also seems to be the opinion of a lot of people here too. Thanks for your help, everyone! I'm new to this sub and will join for future information.

EDIT 2 - Seems like people are not reading the post and thinking the YouTube link above is my dog. I'm not an idiot. Of course that video is not an Alaskan Husky LOL. Added some clarification under the link for people that didn't read the surrounding paragraphs.

In other subs, I've seen a lot of people confused about whether or not an Alaskan Husky is its own breed or a mix of multiple breeds. So, I put together an explanation and examples for anyone to link to/reference if it ever comes up.

1. In more technical terms (and according to Embark) “Alaskan Huskies” or "Alaskan-Type Huskies" are a landrace breed (not standardized, but still genetically distinct enough to be their own breed)—they're sometimes referred to as "Alaskan Village Dogs" (and of course, village dogs not mutts; that is their breed).

2. Colloquially speaking, “Alaskan Husky” is also used to refer to any working Alaskan Huskies or Alaskan Husky crossbreeds (mixing the landrace Alaskan Huskies with other breeds for performance, such as Pointers, Salukis, Greyhounds, etc).

Examples:

* (landrace breed)

* (landrace breed)

* (crossbreed)

* (crossbreed)

vs. Siberian Husky

*

*

You can see that like Siberian Husky, Alaskan-Type husky is treated as its own breed. It’s not a perfect classification system, but basically, "purebred" Alaskan Huskies have no recent cross-breed lineage and are their own breed. Meanwhile, Alaskan Husky mixes do have recent cross-breeding and the DNA results reflect that.