Can You Give Your Husky Too Much Attention?

[Chula]

I don't mean when she's barking or being bad, but we are back to arguing about whether or not the reason she is "bad" is because I pay her too much attention. I'm sorry in advance for this being long and for coming back with the same issues, but I feel so lost, frustrated and tired.

 

5:45 am - Chula gets up (though today it was 5:30 and she was barking, ugh, tired) and OH feeds her and takes her for a short potty walk. I so want to cut out that 6 am feeding, but she throws a FIT because she's expecting it now. 

 

Then he leaves for work.

 

6:20 or so until 9 am - she literally does not leave me alone for that 2:45 minute period. Constant yipping, jumping, nipping, etc. I know she's got all sorts of energy because it's morning, but I don't know how to NOT give her attention since she is literally bouncing off the walls.

 

7:15 am - I give her a bit of kibble in her treat ball at around 7:15 (just a small amount to keep her occupied long enough to let me drink a cup of coffee)

 

8:00 am - I take her for about a mile walk. Sometimes the walk and the treat ball are reversed, depending on how obnoxious she is being.

 

9:00 am - In the crate she goes.

 

1 pm - She gets a break at lunch. I throw the kong in there with her when she goes back in the crate.

 

5-5:30 pm I get home. She gets a short potty walk, then inside. I try to play a bit with her, let her have her toys, etc I try to cook dinner sometime between 6 - 7 and she'll sit nicely in the kitchen with me. She gets her meal around 7.

 

7 pm - she gets another 20 minute walk

 

OH gets home. Now this is when things get bad. She is so much crazier when we are both at home. She runs, bites, zooms, barks, etc and nothing we do seems to stop the biting. I try to play nicely with her, but she just wants to nip. Timeout, ignoring, leaving the room - they work for 10 minutes then she's back at it. It is really hard not to pay attention to something that is BITING you. This goes on (on and off) until around 9 pm. She will sit under the dining room table quietly while we eat. Then she goes potty.

 

10 pm - bedtime.

 

I realize that my life right now is pretty much 100 percent about the dog. Is there anything I can do differently? Everything else around me (my job, my relationship, my friendships) is suffering as a result, but I don't know how to do it differently. Will having a yard I feel safe letting her out in help significantly? I think we are upping our moving date to April because I'm going nuts. I know doggie daycare will help but right now it's not in the budget.

[CARRINGTON]

Does he discipline and play with her as well? If you do all the discipline she could be seeing that as she can push with him there because he won't discipline her. Does he also do commands with her? He needs to be in on feeding her, playing, taking her out, doing commands or she could get the idea that she doesn't have to listen when he is around.

[Chula]

He makes her sit and lay down when he feeds her in the morning and he takes her out for potty walks. But he doesn't really "play" with her or work on commands the way I do. He isn't really around enough to do it. He comes home and wants to lay on the couch and gets annoyed when all she does is bite so he yells. Well, he says it's not yelling it's just his regular voice, and he does have a "yelly" voice, but the dog still sees it as yelling and then gets excited and barky. She doesn't bite his legs or clothes like she does to me, but she bites his hands and tries to bite his face.

 

He's a brick mason and also does foundations, so I get that he's truly physically exhausted. I am just upset that I am trying my damnedest to train her, tire her out, etc and every time she does something bad it's "my fault" because I give her too much attention. I think he believes she should just want to sit there and play quietly with her toys after being cooped up alone in a crate all day, or jump up and sit next to him on the couch and just want cuddles, and that I've "trained" her to expect someone to entertain her. Can a 3 month old husky that is in a crate all day really be expected to entertain herself all the time?

 

But he doesn't want to spend $$ on the tools that will help us. Shrugs. I don't know. I love my dog and I am really, really trying.

[CARRINGTON]

Huskies are pack animals so they want to be with you playing all the time. Balto always wants to play with us or be near us as well. Puppy classes truly do help a ton, but if he is not willing to pay the money for it then I am not sure what else there could be to do. Is there a puppy park you could take her to so she can socialize and play with other dogs?

[Storm Angel n Auroras Mum]

shes a puppy, they are nuts.

SHes crated for a chunk of the day so naturally shes hypo when she is out of it as her batteries are charged so to speak.

[Chula]

shes a puppy, they are nuts.

SHes crated for a chunk of the day so naturally shes hypo when she is out of it as her batteries are charged so to speak.

 

This is exactly what I try to tell him! I don't mind the crazies, but I don't want to be blamed for them! It makes me feel useless and like a failure. 

[LittleLuka]

My year old husky is a lunatic when i get home from work. When they're crated, they're HYPER. lol honestly nothing helped me until I got another dog. LOL i'm sure you aren't ready for a second right now so all i can say is take a deep breath and just remember: IT DOES GET BETTER. i promise lol you remind me of how tiring having a puppy is. keep up the good work

[Chula]

My year old husky is a lunatic when i get home from work. When they're crated, they're HYPER. lol honestly nothing helped me until I got another dog. LOL i'm sure you aren't ready for a second right now so all i can say is take a deep breath and just remember: IT DOES GET BETTER. i promise lol you remind me of how tiring having a puppy is. keep up the good work

 

The house next door to one of my best friends is up for rent and I'm considering it as an option because she has a dog and they could bother each other during the day. 

[Storm Angel n Auroras Mum]

This is exactly what I try to tell him! I don't mind the crazies, but I don't want to be blamed for them! It makes me feel useless and like a failure. 

Show him this forum and our replies.

mines 9 weeks old and like a physcho puppy

[LittleLuka]

The house next door to one of my best friends is up for rent and I'm considering it as an option because she has a dog and they could bother each other during the day. 

 

it helps i swear. lol

[ponder85]

Sounds like my puppy at that age. Psychotic. At ten months she's still psychotic. I have an older sibe for her to play with which helps a lot. My GSD doesn't "play" much. We also have a fenced back hard the trio can run around in.

I agree with your OH that it's important to teach the dog that it gets to play with you and get your attention when you allow it. At only three months of age, however, it's an unrealistic expectation. All three of mine now know "ah! Move, go on." Some people will tell you that you should always be the one to initiate play, but I disagree. IMO, it's ok for the dog to want to engage you in play. However, the dog must understand you have veto power. Again, at its age it can't be expected. It's like asking a toddler to understand logic and reason, and to politely ask for toys. That doesn't happen. When small kids want something, they go about getting it in a different manner than an adult would. Similarily, a small puppy is going to behave differently than an ideal adult dog. As annoying as it can be, it's a reality that all the frustration and wishing in the world can't change. A three month old puppy still thinks the world revolves around it. Kinda like how you've never heard a three year old say " oh, sorry, I didn't realize you had a tough day at work and now I see you're busy gathering income tax documents. I'll go play by myself for a while".

Why doesn't she bite his legs or clothes? I let my puppy bite at my hands. Once she was 4 months old she knew what she was allowed and not allowed to do to me. It's one of the ways we play. I kinda use one hand as a mouth, and she uses her paws and mouth and we kinda attack each other, lol.

[Chula]

I don't know why - I can only guess that it's because he yells at her and she's sort of afraid of him because he's pretty loud and just has one of those voices that is kind of scary.  She does bite his hands though and will try to bite his face/beard if she's close enough to it. 

 

When we first got her, I would get down on the floor and play with her at her level. I learned pretty quickly that playing on the floor wasn't going to work very well, so now I sit on the corner of the sofa. He never really "plays" with her with toys, so my guess is that she just has me tagged as the one she can play with. The first week or so I also played a lot of chase with her outside, and tug inside, so that she'd get worn out and sleep, but I stopped doing that when I realized the biting was getting out of control. So in that sense, yes, I guess I've trained her to need my attention. But if I don't play with her, she chews at the coffee table, tries to eat the chairs, jumps up on the couch and tries to nip that way. If I redirect her to a toy instead of chewing, she expects to be played with or else she'll just go right back to whatever household item she was chewing on. So I feel like my options are to either let her chew on things, or play with her, or take her out for a walk.

 

He also rolls his eyes at the toys I buy her. But I buy toys so that she can entertain herself. I'm so confused as to what he expects this dog to do. Maybe my problem isn't the dog!

[ponder85]

Have you read anything about bite inhibition, and how to make the puppy understand that biting hurts? You should be able to play at her level, and not have your face bitten. My concern is that by not completely addresssing it, it will continue as she gets bigger.

[Chula]

I have. I don't pull my hand away. I yelp. I have gotten up and stood still. I have walked away. She doesn't seem to care that it hurts. I have done these things over and over and continue to do them. And I will continue to do them.  We got her at nearly 9 weeks and she had litter mates, and the guy who we got her from obviously handled her and loved her, so it's not like she was an abandoned dog with no previous bite inhibition education. 

 

I think the problem is that I feel like a failure, and that's being reinforced by someone I love. She's so good in so many other ways. She's house/crate trained, she can sit, lay down, shake, stay (sometimes). She walks pretty well on the leash. It's just the biting that has totally taken over our lives. 

[CARRINGTON]

Just keep looking at the positives and not so much at the negatives. Plus keep working with the negatives and eventually she will get it. I didn't think we would ever get Balto to stop nipping. Have you ever tried a squirt bottle and squirting her in between the eyes or no the nose? Balto was doing that with a previous trainer and she squirted him and he never nipped her again. I think every dog is different and what may work wonders for someones dog isn't going to for another, so just something for a while and if nothing then change it. I have heard things from time out, flick the nose, put them on a leash, squirt them with water, spray dog bitter on a glove, alligator their mouth shut, stand up and turn away, etc. Just find something that works for her and stick with it

[ponder85]

Not successfully breaking a 3 month old sibe puppy from biting in four weeks time DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAILURE! Puppyies bite. If that makes you feel like a failure, your expectations of yourself and your pup are far too high. You seem to have made a lot of progress with your pup. Be happy about that.

[Chula]

Not successfully breaking a 3 month old sibe puppy from biting in four weeks time DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAILURE! Puppyies bite. If that makes you feel like a failure, your expectations of yourself and your pup are far too high. You seem to have made a lot of progress with your pup. Be happy about that.

 

Thank you. You truly made me cry. I just needed to hear that. My OH is so impatient. I don't know if he previously had mysterious angel dogs or if he just doesn't remember the puppy stage. 

[ponder85]

Thank you. You truly made me cry. I just needed to hear that. My OH is so impatient. I don't know if he previously had mysterious angel dogs or if he just doesn't remember the puppy stage. 

You're welcome. He's being hard on you. Sometimes us guys tend to do that; we want our women to just make things right without understanding the problems or it's nuances ourselves. He's directing his frustration with the dog onto you, and taking it out on you. We are all human and make mistakes, but for him to continue to do it is not ok. In fairness to him, he works a very tough job (and it looks like a lot of hours at that job), which would make the most patient people a little edgy.