To think that huskies and malamutes have become the new Staffies?

[Rhine]

This is something that concerns me greatly. Over the past year or so I've noticed an explosion in the numbers of people who own Huskies and Malamutes. I live near a block of council flats and there are at least four or five husky/malamute types of dog living there at the moment.

Obviously people can own whatever dog they like, but I have to question the mentality of someone who purchases a large working dog when they live in a pokey flat with no garden? It concerns me greatly as these dogs need a ot of exercise, probably more so than any other breed in fact as they were bread to pull sledges across the arctic. It worries me because it's quite clear people have taken them on without doing their research and realising just how much care they need.

I don't want to sound like a massive snob, but these new owners seem to be the kind of people who a few years ago would have opted for a Staffy instead. Animal shelters are full of them, give it a few years and they'll be full of husky type dogs instead...

My pal had a huskie Alsatian mix and it was literally impossible to tire it out. It got regular normal walks but it was nowhere near enough. She took it to a rescue centre when it reached 4 years old. I wasn't suprised it was really stupid and a bit cruel of her to get the dog in the first place.
I think huskies are stunning dogs but they shouldn't be owned by just anyone.

I love all dogs but these dogs arent suitable for the vast majority of people. Certainly not people in flats. There are some very stupid people around who think they are.

Its nothing to do with having a small house or council accomendation or even being on benefits. Its to do with being an unsuitable owner.

YANBU - I do voluntary work in a shelter and the number of Huskies, Malamutes and Akitas we've had coming in has vastly increased over the six years I've been working there. They're definitely not novice dogs (Akitas are guard dogs FFS!) and reading their body language is much more complex than many other breeds, such as staffies.

As much as possible we try to make sure that the staff and volunteers handling them have specific training and experience with these breeds, and make sure they're only rehomed to experienced owners who understand the breed. Unfortunately many people complain that the centre 'makes it too hard' to rehome a dog that, in the wrong home, could potentially do a lot of damage.

Many of them are bought by people who vastly underestimate the dog's needs, then give up when it reaches 18 months-2 years and gets destructive or kills the neighbour's cat. Frankly, I wouldn't say they're the right dog for anyone with children under the age of about 14. I'm sort of dreading what the next trend will be (Ridgebacks? Anatolian Shepherds?) as we'll have to pick up the pieces.

YANBU. They are completely unsuitable to be pets, unless in exceptional circumstances. I used to work with a vet nurse who had two, but she used to exercise them running alongside a bike during the week then race them pulling a cart at weekends,and they were still bonkers. A stroll round the park is not going to cut it.
They are also a 'spooky' breed and prone to being fear aggressive IME.
At least Staffies, if socialised correctly, are mostly nice dogs suited to being pets and most of them are potentially rehomeable.

Sadly YANBU at all. There are absolutely loads of them around here all of a sudden. To be fair, the most 'unsuitable'-looking owner locally, who has a tiny house and garden, walks/cycles absolutely miles with his two every day, rain or shine, and has them beautifully trained, so you can't always judge by appearances. We've encountered several that weren't so lucky though - we felt very threatened last weekend by two who came over and would not leave our dogs alone, with owners miles away calling feebly while making zero effort to actually come and get them. Our dogs are elderly and much smaller, and wouldn't have stood a chance if it had kicked off.

There is a bloke in our town who has two, he walks them down the High Street with one off the lead.

You're right and it's likely to be much worse than with Staffies. Huskies and Malamutes need more in the way of training, exercise etc.

Agreeing with the YANBU. Almost always, people who buy a dog because its a fashionable breed shouldn't have them at all.

Interesting reading about the exercise needed. I'm normally on dog-hating threads (ducks) because I grew up with the smelly things and wouldn't dream of having one now, but we did have a husky until I was about 12 (he was about 15 or so when he died) who was a lovely dog but was a real couch potato and hated going out for walks. Very obedient, but incredibly lazy.

I blame tv and movies for that. Huskies are so CUTE, so everybody wants them. Same happened to Jack Russel terriers years before

I don't want to sound like a massive snob, but these new owners seem to be the kind of people who a few years ago would have opted for a Staffy instead

Makes you sound snobby. I had a staffy and lived in a flat. I took her for a walk in the morning, on my lunch break from work and after dinner as well as getting let out for the toilet in between.

I agree that some people who get these dogs do so for the status but there are lots who don't. They get them because they are lovely affectionate dogs.

YANBU and tragedy has already struck with the Mal re homed from the pub killing that 6 day old baby in wales :(

They are beautiful and would be my first choice of dog but there is no way I could commit to what they need so we won't grt one. People are so selfish.

Yanbu. I saw an advert on a facebook selling page: "1 year old husky - 50 quid if gone tonight." Crackers.
I'm a dog groomer and we foolishly booked 3 huskies in from the same family at once - Oh my word... The noise! We had people passing on the street coming in to see what was going on. Never again!

I've noticed this too. The sad thing is that when we were trying to get a dog, the shelter was packed to the helm with staffies, malamutes, lurches and collies (usually ex workers). It's the same breeds over and over again that are mistreated and mishandled.

I would hazard that very few people are able to effectively look after a malamute (or indeed, other larger breeds such as wolfhounds, Alsatians, Akitas etc etc). Most people I know with them have only had problems because they just can't look after them properly.

And a flat is no place for a large dog.

I live in an area where most if not all the houses are flats, from converted semis to huge tower blocks. There are I think about 15 houses in the 7 streets along my row (grid fashion) where there might actually be a house and not a pokey flat. Yet every single time I walk to the shop someone walks past with a dog.

We are a mile from any green space, a mile from a proper park and a mile from the beach. They end up walking the dog in busy inner city streets between grey buildings and along very busy roads. It's ridiculous and highly unfair to the dogs that quite rightly want and need to run, play, be exercised, socialised, have green grass to run on etc.

People in villages, farms, maybe suburban areas I can understand having a dog. In the inner city? I hate to say it but I do think most people do it for status and protection.

I always want to say to people in the area that if they must have a pet then get a cat or preferably something that needs a cage and doesn't care whether it's outdoors or not, like gerbils or fish!! Of course I'd never say it but having in 3 days met two beautiful dogs who've been run down in my block... Ok dogs and cats can be knocked down anywhere but it would be a whole lot less likely in a rural quiet area as opposed to on the corner of a busy A class road!

YANBU, but I would ask people not to judge those who own huskies! The people I know who have huskies have them because of the reasons given on this thread - they are rescue dogs. They know they are being put into shelters because unsuitable people are buying them as puppies, so they take them as rescue dogs. The people I know with huskies know they are not a good breed to keep as a pet, and would get more personal enjoyment from owning another breed, but as they can competently look after a resuce husky, feel that they should.

YANBU my friend had a husky, we have massive back gardens and live 30 seconds away from the river Thames and at the time she was a single parent that dog needed hours of exercise everday! They can't be let off the lead because they run and run and run...... I know because I have had to hold up traffic on a fast main road many of times when the bleeding thing got out! Once her kids started svhool she went back to work and after a few months she had to rehome him it broke her heart but she just couldn't give the dog the excerise it needed! Sadly these dog can go mental without the exercise and that can lead to problems with things like the dog becoming aggressive! They are working dogs and they need the right care, a little flat in a high rise is not the place for these types of dogs

Yanbu
We are considering getting a dog in a year or so nd they are so beautiful that I researched these breeds.
From what I found out I think that they are not really suitable for families with young children or cats and need lots of exercise and to be well fenced in of let into the garden.
A friend of mine has 2 but both her and her husband are runners, however they had one and then got a puppy and the older dog almost killed the puppy ( another Husky). The vet said that Huskies are great in the right hands but can be difficult.
Lovely dogs but not for novices

I'm not a dog person (I like them, we've just never lived anywhere we could have them), but this chimed in so much with what a friend of mine was saying recently. She has two staffies, the older of whom is a rescue, and they often taken in fosters temporarily. Hers are lovely dogs, so when there was so much bad press she was very involved with people trying to point out that it's not the breed but the training.

She is now finding people will say staffies aren't seen as 'hard' any more, so they don't want them (not that I think she was planning to let the fosters go to those people anyway!). But it's telling, isn't it? People made an effort to say staffies could be great family dogs when well trained and the effect was simply to make people decide that staffies weren't a status symbol any more.

LRD, I agree with what you are saying about staffies, but I don't think it is the same for huskies. Staffies, before they became associated with some kind of hardness status, were known as good family pets, easy to train, loving etc.

The problems of huskies are made worse by bad owners, but even with a good owner, they have really poor recall, are prone to seeing other domesticated species as prey and are difficult to manage. They really are not an appropriate pet for the vast majority of dog owners. Although I wouldn't ban them, I think that it isn't right for the welfare of the dogs for them to be bred as pets in the UK.

YY there is a fashion with dogs.
It was dalmations at one stage, demand was huge and BYB were churning out sub standard animals . Dalmations also need a lot of excercise and stimulation

Border Collies
Rotties
Dobermans
Dulux Dogs

Even years ago when I was a child in the 1970s every other house had one of those long haired 'Lassie' types called Bonnie. Lassie or Laddie.

You are not being unreasonable! They are working dogs, there's a lady near here has five (!), but she is out with them all all the time and walks miles and miles and miles with them. We've owned dogs forever and would never own one, they are too energetic for most people and as for keeping them in a flat! Never, never.

Sadly I think this will always be the case. I remember when I was a kid Rottweilers and Dobermans were considered the "hard" dogs, then the fashion changed and Staffies became all the rage. Now it's arctic type dogs, and no doubt they will eventually fall out of favour and get replaced by another breed.

almond - absolutely, I can believe that. I didn't mean to suggest there are no differences between breeds, simply that I have a worry that as people explained that staffies could be very good pets, the types who want a dog as a status symbol lost interest.

I live in a poky two bed mid terrace with no garden, work full time and have two Siberian huskies.

Only I also have a couple of acres of land for the horses, securely fenced and husky-proofed for free running every day. I work in a veterinary practice so they can come to work with me and have frequent walks throughout the day in addition to their 2-3 hours of 'proper' walks a day (on leads, never off except on my own land). October to April they are in training three times a week and competing once or twice a month in dryland mushing races, pulling a rig with my heavy arse on it up to five miles a time, including in the national championships and world qualifiers (no, we didn't qualify, but we weren't last )

One of them competes in dog agility for which we also train twice a week and compete most weekends in the season - AFAIK the only one of the breed in this country to do so with any success. Dog #1 is obedience trained to not far off a competitive level (might explore that when we retire from agility, no time for anything else at present!) I volunteer for the breed rescue carrying out home checks, temperament assessments and transporting dogs to new homes. We are out and about almost every single week doing a sport, training, exercising or educating other people about the breed.

I find them easy peasy, if you do all of that. I am bonkers though.

Both of mine were rescues and both were given up between 6 and 18 months of age because their owners could not cope with their exercise needs and the resultant behavioural problems. Same story every single time. Record numbers are coming through the rescue and to be honest we are struggling to cope, there are not enough suitable homes out there for these primitive, stubborn, high-energy working dogs.

They need to be run. There are groups which will take dogs and make them part of a team to sled run and the dry equivalent.

They are not suited to the summer weather at all and still need to same amount of exercise but giving it to them is difficult because they can't be exercised flat out above 18C due to overheating.

Their vocalisations can be heard for miles.

They have been bred with intelligence and independence in mind. So being sled dogs and knowing the human at the back can't see what they can they at times make the final decision as to whether its too dangerous to continue or not.
Which is why a lot of them without the proper training listen to no one and just disappear as soon as off lead.

All of this makes for a disaster in inexperienced hands. Also can you imagine all of those heavily selected and bred for traits mixed in with another breed who has been heavily selected and bred for guarding. Just for looks no regard to temperament.

I know it comes down to individual dogs, but there is also a long history in breeds of dogs for only those showing breed desirable traits to be bred again. Therefore while there is individuality there is also a breed identity too.

toboldlygo. You do indeed sound bonkers but also a very responsible and loving owner. I wish there were more like you.