Depending on how you look at it, you can train a husky to be a guard dog, and essentially morph them into the breed of your guarded dreams. Huskies have attributes that could be strengths for one person and weaknesses for another. It all comes down to what you need in a guard dog.
You can train a husky to be a guard dog, but it will be difficult. Huskies are people lovers, stubborn, and are hard to train to begin with. However, huskies are smart, strong, and loyal. With the proper conditioning, huskies can certainly learn to be a guard dog.
If you’ve got your sights set on training a husky, read below to find out what makes them and breaks them in regards to being a potential guard dog.
Disclaimer: The Can My Dog articles contain information based on the individual research and opinions of the author of the site – who just so happens to be a dog. How you utilize the information given is completely up to you. Proceed at your own risk.
Strengths of Huskies as Guard Dogs
Let’s start off with how huskies can fit the bill for being a good guard dog.
- First of all, huskies are excellent alarms for strangers. It is possible to teach a Husky to bark when someone knocks on the door or sets foot past a designated boundary. They can also be trained to be quiet on your command.
- Because they are pack animals, huskies respond well to dominating behavior. The influence of a human alpha correcting behavior throughout the day helps make a huskies a good potential guard dog.
- Huskies are high activity dogs. This is great if the need to chase away any intruders, animals or other pests. If you have a large amount of land to protect, huskies will enjoy covering the entirety of it while getting their daily exercise in.
- Huskies have a wolf-like appearance that makes them look the part of a guard dog. This may be helpful if your intruders are wild critters or the uninformed. Coupled with the howl this can provide a perimeter that few will want to find out whether they’re dealing with an actual wolf or not.
- Huskies will be able to withstand cold temperatures ensuring they can stand guard in cooler climate conditions and through cold nights.
Motivating a Husky When Training Them to Be a Guard Dog
Tools of motivation develop the bond between you and your husky and reinforce the more difficult aspects of training. These tools lend a helping hand to obedience training by focusing the energetic nature of huskies with promise of a reward.
Some tools of motivation include:
- Petting and affection
- Playtime
- Exercise, especially in forms you know your husky will enjoy
- Treats, of course!
Huskies are friendly dogs. This may seem contradictory to the idea of a traditional guard dog, but their ability to see both friend and foe can be an awesome benefit.
If you are trying to keep certain animals or pests away, you can train them specifically for those critters and to leave certain ones alone. If it’s unwanted people you’re protecting against, get them comfortable around friends, family, and casual guests, and then train them to identify and protect against intruders.
Many of these aspects could be considered beneficial in one scenario and debilitating in another. It’s up to you to decide what’s best for who or what you are trying to protect against.
The Challenges of Training a Husky to Be a Guard Dog
Huskies have a unique, self-motivating learning style and they don’t have much of a desire to please their owners.
This means training them requires patience and consistency. However, the need for constant training makes them lifelong learners which enables their guard dog potential.
They have a knack for memorizing signal and whistle commands.
- For your husky to be a guard dog, it’s important that your training emphasizes obedience. This will help separate instances of work and play in your huskies daily life, and help reinforce their situational awareness, especially if you need a guard dog that also plays well with others.
- Huskies are howlers. This means it may be hard to tell when true peril is afoot. Huskies bark too, which is different from its howl. It may be beneficial if your unwanted guests are sensitive to loud noises in the area like smaller critters, but it may also accidentally alert potential intruders to the location of your guard dog.
- Huskies are natural investigators; they are easily bored and will chase down every noise and smell that sparks their curiosity. This is a necessary trait of a guard dog, but huskies have a mischievous side that leaves them vulnerable to chasing things off your property and getting themselves lost in the process.
- Their inattentiveness can cause problems if strangers come through while they’re off chasing something else. This makes it important to train their focus and make sure they are tied to the task at hand. Use tools of motivation to help curb their attention.
- Their stubborn nature makes them tough to train for a first-time dog owner. If you are trying to train a husky from adulthood, you’ve got your work cut out for you, it might be too late to change their innate tendencies.
Deciding to Train a Husky
Here’s some questions to ask before deciding to train your husky as a guard dog:
- How much time can you consistently dedicate to training them?
- Have you trained a pet before?
- What sort of danger are you trying to protect from?
- Is a husky the best option to protect from that danger?
Weaknesses of Huskies Used As Guard Dogs
Now that we’ve covered the challenges during training, let’s talk about the things that might make your husky the wrong fit to be a proper guard dog—and the characteristics you might not be able to train out of them.
- Huskies are lovers and since this aspect is built into their DNA, they’re not suspicious dogs. This makes me think of the classic tale of the bad guy giving the guard dog special treats to get by and steal the treasure the dog is supposedly protecting.
- Trying to make a husky aggressive from a young age goes against their nature. Attempting to do so may cause behavioral problems that impede their ability to be a guard dog. This might be the toughest aspect to get around when assessing a husky’s guard dog potential.
- Huskies are troublemakers, they like to chew on things, destroy property, and dig their way out of your backyard. So be careful to train your husky in the environment that you want guarded and make sure you can fulfill their exercise needs within those parameters.
- Huskies cannot be left alone for long periods of time; their pack mentality produces cravings for socializing. If your guard task is a solitary one, it might be something you want to reconsider. After a while alone, a husky just might welcome any company at all—intruder or not.
- Huskies are possessive of their owners. This means they often get jealous when they have to share affection. This idea opposes that of protectiveness, possessive dogs aren’t necessarily wired to be on high alert for aggressive situations.
Bottom Line: Can Huskies Be Good Guard Dogs?
These attributes seem like deal breakers for guard dogs and many husky owners would laugh at the idea of their sweet wolf-like dog baby doing anything besides licking intruders to death.
The bottom line is:
- Huskies are friendly
- They’re loud.
- And curious.
- They enjoy doing what they want to do, but only when they want to do it.
- They COULD be a guard dog. But they might not be the best one for the job.
It would seem the cons outweigh the pros, but that doesn’t make it impossible to train a husky to be a guard dog.
Some of these aspects can be seen as both negative and positive. It’s up to you to determine whether or not a husky could meet your specific needs.
The better question might be, is it worth your time, and is a husky truly the right breed for your home patrol?
I’ll leave that up to you, humans. But as always, continue to Live, Love, Laugh, and Scratch our bellies often!
Love you guys,
JTB
P.S. If you’re new to this world, you may want to check out my Ultimate Guide for First Time Dog Parents. It’s a great reference to get you started on this journey.
This article has been reviewed by our Editorial Board and has been approved for publication in accordance with our Editorial Policies.
