A few days ago The Highwayman returned home from work requesting my help with an item in the car. Item turned out to be a gorgeous Siberian Husky (she appears to be purebred) that he found wandering out in the desert by a very busy street. She was nearly hit by a car before he grabbed her. We put up fliers and etc. but have received no calls, so we decided she’s ours. We’ve pretty much fallen for this dog. There’s a hitch, of course.
That being our three cats. Miss Bitey has been around dogs in a limited fashion - she grew up with my in-laws’ Chihuahua. The other two cats are somewhat ambivalent towards the Chihuahua but sometimes give him a sniff or two and then decide he’s uninteresting. I fear though that a Husky will be a bit much for these three.
So far she’s been kept in the other house (we rent a small guest house from the in-laws) and is getting along swimmingly with the Chihuahua and my in-laws’ female Dalmatian. I took her out for a walk yesterday and she did bolt at a cat in the neighborhood, although a firm “no” and a slight tug on her leash brought her back to heel. She also plain bolted when I let go of her collar for all of two nanoseconds, leaving me to run down the dirt road wearing my flipflops.
Research into the breed has shown to me that a natural prey instinct and wanderlust/running instinct is inherent to the breed. I can deal with the last item; it’s the first I’m worried about. Is there any way to bring Nika (yes we already named her, the die is cast) into my house and become packmates with my cats?
Obviously if this can’t be done I’ll have to find her another home (or she can stay where she is - my MiL seems to be very fond of her already) but I’d really like to have an integrated pack/pride, as it were.
Any advice is greatly appreciated and I thank contributors in advance.
P.S. this is the first dog I’ve had in my adult life, so I’m a little clueless in general.
). He definitely had the running instinct. If we didn’t watch him when the door was opened he’d bolt, and we’d spend lots of time and energy chasing him down. He was great with cats and small dogs though. Mostly just layed around and let them check him out, sometimes gave them a sniff, but that was about it. It was kinda cute because the cat or small dog around at the time (family sometimes brought their pets over) would eventually get so bold that they’d jump on him, and he’d just look at them like “do you SEE how much bigger I am than you?” He’d just walk away, or let them play and amuse themselves for a while. So there is hope. Hopefully your new Husky will be the same way with the little ones. Good luck. And post pics when you get a chance, Huskies are so beautiful. 