How can I help my dog safely survive the holidays?

Watch your dog carefully during holiday celebrations, especially picnics, 4th of July celebrations, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and New Year's parties. Many of these celebrations involve easily accessible foods and dangerous objects that can lead your dog to trouble. Here are some tips to help your dog stay safe during the holidays:

• Don't leave food unattended on tables and counters where your dog can reach these tasty morsels. Some dogs will take full advantage of the festivities and may ingest large quantities of human food they are not accustomed to, causing stomach upset. Unchecked, this stomach upset can lead to serious complications. Please, prevent an emergency trip to the vet and keep human food safely out of reach!
• Fourth of July celebrations can be fun for humans but very scary for dogs, who are very sensitive to the sounds produced by firecrackers and who may try to escape these loud noises by trying to run away. Keep your dog inside and try to retain as calm an environment as the dog is used to during this time. Click here for more tips for helping your dog cope with July 4th celebrations.
• Tinsel can be deadly if ingested. Many curious dogs have knocked ornaments off trees or even nibbled on a few branches. If you put up a tree in your home during the holidays, especially with a young untrained dog in your family, consider putting the tree in a room you can keep the dog out of. Avoid using tinsel, glass ornaments, and other decorations that can punture or get caught up in a dog's digestive tract.
• During the holidays, try to maintain your dog's normal routine (for example, if your dog is used to going for a walk every evening, continue that ritual through the holidays). Dogs are creatures of habit and sometimes do not adapt well to the changes that holidays bring, such as more visitors to your home than usual. A routine will help your dog feel things are still somewhat normal during these exciting times and will help avoid stress.

For more information and tips on helping your dog survive the holidays, visit the American Dog Trainer's Network.

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Should I use a crate?

We STRONGLY recommend the use of a crate, as both a training tool and a safe haven for your dog. We cannot stress this enough. All of our foster dogs are crate trained, which helps accelerate their housetraining, gives them a secure place to call their own, and makes traveling with them easier.

Some people think that crates are "doggie jails" and that locking a dog, especially one that loves its freedom as much as a Siberian, in a crate is cruel. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Crates are NOT cruel; in most cases, a dog that has been properly introduced to one will seek it out when tired or needing a break.

All dogs are den animals. In the wild, they seek out a cozy den with one easily defended entrance as a place where they can be safe from their predators. They can sleep soundly there because they feel secure. To them, a crate is simply a den, which is a place they want to be.

Think about the alternative, allowing them to roam freely around your house or yard without human supervision. It is well known that Siberians are highly intelligent and easily bored, and if left to their own devices, will often find ways to relieve their boredom of which you may not approve. The crate allows you to determine in advance what your dog can and cannot chew on, and prevents escapes from a yard toward imminent danger.

Using a crate not only protects your home from your Husky, but also protects your Husky from your home by preventing it from getting into something that could be dangerous—like household chemicals or electrical wires, for example—or even worse. We have first-hand experience with the negative aspects of NOT using crates, some of them tragic. Best case, not using a crate can result in damage to your house as your young or non-housetrained dog relieves itself in the house or "plays" with household goods because it does not yet know the difference between a toy and a human possession. Absolute worst case, not using a crate can result in serious injury or death for your dog; we know of dogs that have required surgery because of objects they've ingested while unattended, and we know of dogs that have died because they strangled themselves while tied up alone.

There are many resources to help you learn how to introduce your dog to a crate. When you adopt a dog from TOTTSHR, the adopter's packet you will receive provides some tips on crate training.

After your dog has been with you for a while, you may feel you can begin to trust your dog alone in the house. Whether this can happen depends on a number of factors—the age of the dog, the dog's temperament, and how slowly you grant the dog certain freedoms. Some dogs prove trustworthy fairly quickly; others never do. Even those who no longer need a crate in the house alone may choose to use one as their bed or hideaway; each dog is different. In the meantime, PLEASE use a crate to protect your dog when you're not around!

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Can I trust my dog off-leash?

Keeping your dog on a leash, or supervised in a closed area, is imperative. Huskies, especially, are nomads and are extremely curious. With no fear of cars and no homing instinct, a Husky that is allowed to run loose can easily become prey to serious injury, or worse. Even if your dog's recall is reliable in most instances, no dog is 100% reliable. Why take a chance? Read one family's sobering story about their off-leash dog.

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What should I do if I've lost my dog?

Here is a checklist of things you should do if you have lost your dog (check out our tip sheet for more information):

1. Check every shelter in the county. 
2. Call the animal control officers (if you're not sure how to contact them, call your local shelter). 
3. Are there state dog wardens? Call them. 
4. Often, radio stations and newspapers allow you to post free ads for a certain number of days for lost pets. But also be cautious about phone calls that offer to return him/her to you. Keep some information out of the ad that can be used to identify the dog if phone calls about him/her are received. That can screen pranksters and con artists. 
5. Post a "lost" ad in Petfinder.
6. Post fliers in mini-markets, laundromats, vet's offices, grocery stores, grooming and pet shops. 
7. Contact your mail and newspaper carriers. These people are out and around the neighborhood and see and know an amazing amount about what's happening.
8. We hate to add this, but also check places where leg-hold traps or other traps might have been set. 
9. Leave items with a familiar scent in places where he/she might return. He/she might stay there long enough for someone to find her.
10. Consider taking the companion dog along when searching. Sometimes they will come to their buddy when they won't come to people.
11. Contact school bus drivers and get them and their charges on the case. This is a crew that sees all, hears all, and tells all.