Now
these people and organisations don’t take this line for fun, or to "big
up" the wild nature of their dogs, or to try to keep the breed exclusive.
They take it because it accurately reflects the bitter experience of thousands
of owners worldwide over a long period of time.
However,
this obviously is not enough because there are still a steady stream of people
who just don’t believe this unanimous and ubiquitous message.
When you give examples of Siberians which have been killed, caused
accidents or been shot by farmers for killing/savaging livestock, the doubters
come back with, “But you could say the
same about any breed!” – and to be honest, in many respects they would
be right. Too many irresponsible owners of all kinds of dogs let their dog off
lead with little thought for their dog’s safety, the safety of other animals,
or the safety of the public. That is not for discussion here though. I want to
explain why, in my opinion, it is never safe to let Siberian Huskies offlead in
unenclosed areas.
So, Why is the off-lead thing such a
big deal with huskies? What makes them different from other breeds?
There are two major
factors, both embedded deep within the history of the breed. The dogs we now
know as Siberian Huskies were originally developed by what are known as the
“maritime” Chukchi people of North East Siberia who relied on dogs for
transportation during the frozen winter. Other Chukchi groups relied on Reindeer
for both food and winter transportation. The
maritime Chukchi lived in fixed summer villages along the
Bering Sea
coast, but during the arctic/sub-arctic winter, became nomadic – following
and hunting whatever game was available. The Chukchi would load their whole
families on their sled and using teams of up to 20 dogs, would hunt all winter,
sometimes covering 100 miles a day in their search for food. It was originally
estimated that the Chukchi’s dogs had been in existence for some 3000 years,
but recent archeological research has found the remains of sled-type dogs going
back well over 10,000 years. Indeed, the Siberian Husky has been recognised as
one of the oldest dog breeds known to mankind, so they have had a long time for
their instincts and behavioural traits to become hard-wired into them.
The two major factors
I mentioned above are:
- An
extremely strong
Prey Drive
; and
- A
fiercely independent intelligence.
Prey
Drive - The source of their prey drive is
simple. During the summer, when they were not required as transportation, the
Chukchi dogs ran free around the summer villages, rarely being fed by their
owners, but existing (if not prospering) on what they could steal or catch. As
winter came and food became scarce the dogs once more became sled dogs (of
course not all the dogs returned - accidents and natural predators accounted for
some, but at least there were no roads for them to be killed on). This pattern
of behaviour was built up over a period of time which has been estimated as long
as 10,000 years.
As a result of
millennia of such behaviour, these dogs now have a fearsome prey drive and the
hunting skills to match. It is very common to hear that someone’s huskies have
killed cats, rabbits, squirrels, birds (ours have taken birds out of the sky as
they fly over our garden at low level) and even sheep. It is rare that they
regard even small dogs as “prey” as they seem to be able to recognise a
fellow canine.
Independent
Intelligence – You will occasionally hear dog
trainers complain that huskies are not “trainable,” and you will
consistently see them left out of lists of “The Ten Most Intelligent Dog
Breeds” etc. The problem with such trainers and such lists is that they
confuse obedience and “biddability” with intelligence, and, in reality they
are not at all the same thing. Train a Border Collie to fetch a ball and it will
tend to retrieve the ball time after time after time. Train a Siberian Husky to
fetch a ball and it will do one of two things – either eat the ball, or bring
it back once. The next time you throw it the sibe will look at you as if to say –
“You threw it! YOU get it back! Do you think I’m that stupid?”
When you give a
trained Border Collie a command, you usually get instant obedience. When you
give a command to a Husky, the Husky actually thinks about it before deciding to
comply or ignore the command. This may sound like bloody-mindedness, but it is
in fact a deeply ingrained survival trait for arctic sled dogs. Think about it.
You are the lead dog on a sled team pulling your Chukchi owner and his family
across the frozen sea ice. Your owner shouts for you to turn right down a trail
between a line of ice seracs as he knows this is the way to get to a safe
camping area for the night. As lead dog, you can see that a right turn leads you
to the edge of a deep crevasse and you refuse to make the turn. It is this
intelligence and independence of thought which has been bred into Siberian
Huskies over thousands of generations.
An example of this
came from Leonhard Seppala’s famous lead dog (and hero of the 1925
Dipheria Run –
Togo
. One day, Seppala was running his
team, led by
Togo
, over the sea ice of the notorious
Norton Sound
,
“Togo
had been leading his sled across the sound during a northeastern gale on
another occasion when, a few miles from shore, Seppala heard an ominous crack
that let him know the sea ice was breaking up.
Togo
headed toward shore even before Seppala could give the command, but drew up
short so fast he nearly flipped backwards. A yawning chasm of water had opened
almost at
Togo
’s feet, but the dog had reacted quickly enough to avert immediate disaster.
Seppala looked around and realized with dismay that he and his team were
trapped on an ice floe and headed out to sea.
They
spent more than twelve hours on that raft of ice, waiting as it drifted in the
icy waters. Finally it neared land, but ran up against another floe that was
jammed against the ice still connected to shore. they stopped moving, but there
was still a five foot gap of water that Seppala couldn’t hope to cross. He
tied a lead onto
Togo
and heaved the dog across the water. Togo landed on the ice and sensing what
Seppala intended, the dog began pulling with all his might, narrowing the gap
between the two ice floes. Then the lead rope snapped. Seppala thought he was a
dead man. Then
Togo
, showing himself to be possessed of more intelligence and resourcefulness than
most men could expect from even their lead dogs, leaped into the water and
grabbed the broken end of the lead rope in his jaws. He clambered back onto the
ice and continued pulling until he had narrowed the gap enough for Seppala and
the sled to cross safely.”
As
it was with Seppala’s Siberian dogs, so it is today with our Siberian Huskies.
No
matter how well trained your Sibe is, there is always a part of his/her mind
that, when he/she hears an instruction thinks, "Is it a good idea to follow
that order?" and also, "What's in it for me?" - When you combine
that independence of thought and keen intelligence with the high prey drive, you
can see that obedience when offlead is a
very dodgy prospect indeed.
Huskies don’t help themselves in this regard. It is often found that husky
puppies will act in extremely obedient ways for the first few months of their
lives. I have lost count of the number of owners who have told me their Sibe is
the exception that proves the rule and is ultra-obedient.
Upon further discussion, it almost always transpires that the dog is a puppy –
4 or 5 months old! Sibe puppies can
lull you into a false sense of security - then puberty hits, they realise that
they don’t need you, and all bets
are off!!!
We
have been interested in Siberians for 20 years and have owned them for
17+. During that time we have personally come across at
least one owner each year whose “highly trained” Sibe has "gone
deaf" for the first and last time and ended up dead under a car, shot by a
farmer for savaging livestock or having caused a major traffic accident. The
common theme is that all these owners quite genuinely believed that they could
train this trait out of their dogs; that their relationship
with their dogs was so good that their dogs would always respond to the recall
command; and that the recommendation of every
husky related organisation IN THE WORLD was
nonsense and that they
and their dog were
somehow special. Unfortunately, these owners learned the hard way with tragic
consequences for themselves and their dogs. The plaintive, “He/She’s
always come back before” is a common refrain in these tragic cases.
This
is exactly the naive "I know better than every Siberian Husky organisation
in the world" attitude which unfortunately leads to the deaths of too many
Siberians each year. My wife is an
expert dog trainer. I have seen her achieve things with Sibes (and other dogs)
that I would have thought pretty near impossible. All our
adult dogs have excellent recall and obedience and are often a source of
amazement to people who regard sibes as untrainable. Yet neither she nor I would
ever let our dogs off lead in an unsafe/unenclosed area because we know that
their recall can never be 100% and they are much too precious for us to risk.
Having
said all that, we believe strongly that all
Siberian Husky owners should train their dogs in recall. We
always recommend that people train their Siberians to recall IN SAFE ENCLOSED AREAS to as high a level as possible.
Even
in the best regulated worlds accidents sometimes happen – dogs slip their
collars, snap their leads, escape from cages etc etc – and if you have trained
your dog to recall, at least you have a chance of getting it back.
Such training cannot be guaranteed, but at least it’s a form of
insurance.
Talking
about insurance – a message to all those who, despite all the evidence and
arguments, still insist on letting their dogs go offlead in unenclosed areas –
get some public liability insurance. If your dog goes offlead and causes an
accident or kills livestock – YOU
are liable. On second thoughts, maybe it’s not worth it! The fact that every
single Siberian Husky organisation in the
world advises against letting them off lead, the owner whose dog caused the crash
or killed the livestock could be liable for huge damages, as in legal terms, it
could be argued that by acting against such universal informed advice, they had
been incredibly negligent in letting their dog off lead in an unenclosed area
and that this obvious negligence would invalidate their insurance.
Just a thought!
Mick
Brent
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Dogs
adopted through SHWA(UK) should never be let offlead in unenclosed areas.
Failure to abide by this may result in the dog being taken back by SHWA(UK)
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