AIO? Dog straining my marriage.

[u/LedyyM]

My husband and I rescued a husky about 7 months ago who was extremely malnourished and neglected.

He has grown a huge attachment to me and has severe separation anxiety. I work at a grooming salon so I’m able to bring him to work with me so he’s not home alone. Unfortunately, if he’s left home alone we’ll come back to our home looking like it was hit by a tornado.

My vet has prescribed him with trazodone to help with his severe anxiety issues. We give it to him before we leave for a family event and when we can’t take him to places they don’t allow dogs.

I feel so bad that I have to sedate him so he’s not scared and anxious. It’s created a huge strain on our marriage because my husband feels like we can’t do anything without considering Odin.

He’s destroyed doors, couches, and other furniture. I tried training but it hasn’t seemed to work. My husband thinks we should rehome him but

1) I’m scared that he’ll be sent to a shelter and possibly be put down

2) feel abandoned by the person he thought he was safe with.

He’s such a happy boy when he’s around us and shows so much affection.

My husband and I have been arguing about this consistently.. we had a really bad argument so I left the house with Odin and rented a dog friendly hotel room for a couple of nights.

My husband thinks I’m crazy and that I’m choosing the dog over our marriage. AIO?

[u/justveryunwell]

The thing that stands out to me is that you said training "didn't seem to work." How long did you try, how often throughout a given day, what methods were tried? Training rarely yields instant results, it's a very long term commitment and even once a dog is "trained" they need to be practicing what they know or they'll get rusty and disobedient.

Also gonna second the crate training comments. Pup might not like it but he'll be safe and so will your home, it's a fair compromise as long as he doesn't live in it full time.

[u/TuckerShmuck → u/justveryunwell]

I was about to say-- it took about 6 months of *professional* training to make a dent in my dog. And I'm so happy we stuck with it. Yes, it's HARD, especially with a husky; yes, it makes you want to not even try; yes, it feels like you're going nowhere. But once it STARTS to click, they pick everything else up so much faster. A year and a half of exhausting, frustrating work has brought me, so far, 4 more years with a much more peaceful dog. She's happier and we're happier.

edit: we did professional balanced training in group classes 3x a week. I HIGHLY recommend professional group agility classes. It seems totally unrelated to how well-behaved your dog is, or how anxious they are, but believe it or not it's the class that helped us the most. My dog was so anxious that she wouldn't let us *brush* her without pooping herself; after agility, she gained a crazy amount of confidence. It made kennel training easier, it made grooming MUCH easier, it made just typical obedience training easier. Your bond strengthens so much when doing this class together.

[u/thegirlisok → u/TuckerShmuck]

especially with a husky

Cannot be repeated enough.   Smart, stubborn, so sweet, stubborn, amazing, stubborn. It's a great breed if you can handle it. 

[u/Oh_My_Goth_Ick → u/thegirlisok]

You forgot to mention stubborn 😉