Ok, a couple of things.
-My wife owned the husky before we met. They’ve been through so much together I’d never ask her to rehome her. She’s almost six now and she was three when we were first introduced.
- when we bought the malamute he was far younger than he was purported to be and they told us he was pure bred husky. The lies did not stop there, but yawl are right that we were not prepared for his different behaviors, but that’s because we didn’t know what breed we were being sold. He’s now four months old.
- we raised seven birds indoors, before we had the malamute, and we had the husky engage with them face to face nearly daily in an attempt to familiarize her with the ‘friends, not food’ mentality. Any signs of aggression or hostility were tamped down. She responded well to this. When we got the malamute, we walked him around the adult chickens on a leash, trying to work on his impulse control around them. Both responded very well to this training.
- the first bird that the husky got, I had been free ranging the chickens daily and I left her unattended for less than ten minutes, as I had many times before without issue. We know how that went down. I from then on have only free ranged the birds two or three times a week and the dogs went out on leashes on those days. To this day I have not figured out how the husky got the second chick. The birds were away for the night and locked up, they hadn’t even been free ranged that day. I still have no idea how that happened.
- so the second fence went up in response. I am still making adjustments and changes to it to make it as safe for the birds and the dogs, while limiting the impact to the human lives that reside underneath our roof.
-I am also making changes to the coop to make them safer inside as well.
I admit that I was emotional and irrational. I don’t really hate my dogs, I did in the moment, but I do love them and I have forgiven them at this point. Sometimes I just need a minute to get back to center. Anyways, thanks for hearing me out.
