My 3 Sibes

The 3 dogs in the pictures below are my huskies that I have right now. What happened to Lakota and Yahzi????  Well, it's a long and sad story that I will tell at a later date.

 Naya is 5yrs old. We rescued her from the Dekalb County Animal Shelter about 1 year ago after Yahzi passed away. They were so wonderful to work with!

 These two are my boys:) Chief is the black and white and is 2yrs old. Kodiak is the fluff ball and is 3yrs old. These 2 have grown up together and as you can see fight like brothers. Chief is laying on Kodiak to try and get him to move so he can have that sleeping spot:)

Lyme's Disease

We have always taken our dogs out on trails and into the woods. It's what they love and we enjoy watching them have such a wonderful time. One of the worries that come with that is ticks. We live in northern Illinois and ticks are very prevalent in our area. Our first dog, Lakota,was diagnosed with Lyme's Disease shortly before he passed away. When he was diagnosed, we were shocked. We had been treating him with a popular chemical treatment for ticks. We thought we were doing the right thing to fight against ticks and keeping our dogs from getting Lyme's Disease. Well, come to find out, the treatment we were using killed ticks AFTER they have become embedded. When I learned that, I couldn't believe it. I thought "what good does that do?". Why would anyone want to use that for treatment? As a consumer, I felt misled.

Needless to say, we changed our treatment right away to another chemical that is suppose to be a repellent. However, just this past summer we have found 2 embedded ticks on one of our dogs. We treat them according to the directions on the label. So, I am really questioning what IS the best treatment for dogs to protect against ticks. I have done some research on the Lyme's Disease Vaccination. I was seriously considering doing the vaccination but I have found some research that says the vaccine doesn't do a whole lot for your dog against the Lyme's Disease.

While doing my research I came upon a website that had a really informative chart to show you what each tick preventative product does for your pet. You can find the chart at the following website: http://www.tickencounter.org/prevention/tick_control#top 

I would love to hear what method of treatment works best for your dog and if anyone has had similar experiences.

	Whole body protection	Kills Ticks	Kills ticks on contact	Kills Fleas	Rapid tick detachment	Water Resistant	Safe for cats	Safe for dog/cat households
Certifect : Tick Note Fipronil* / Methoprene* /Amatraz* Certifect website
K9 Advantix II  Permethrin* /Imidacloprid* K9 Advantix II website
Frontline Plus Fipronil* / Methoprene* Frontline.com website
Advantage II Imidacloprid* Advantage II website: dogs | cats
Seresto Collar Flumethrin*/ Imidacloprid Seresto website
Preventic Collar Amatraz* Virbacvet.com website

Lakota and Yahzi

The day we brought Yahzi home.

Yahzi

 

Yahzi at 8wks.....So Sweet!

 

 

Oh yeah....did I mention that my brother and his family took 1 home from the litter too!

Lakota, Kenai, Yahzi

 

The Beginning

OK...so here's the story of how I ended up with more than one husky. When we went there initially, I was dead set on getting one that reminded me of MJ (my first husky growing up). So that meant picking out the biggest black and white male with 2 blue eyes. However, when we arrived at the farm there was only one beautiful little white puppy greeting us. Out of all 6 puppies, only 1 would let us get close. The rest were afraid of us. It was obvious they had experienced minimal human interaction.

She was such a sweetheart, but we were dead set on a black and white male so we left her there and picked the biggest, friendliest black and white male. Once we got home we couldn't stop thinking about the adorable little white girl sooooo 2 days later we went back and picked her up. We named her Yahzi. Needless to say Lakota was VERY happy to be reunited with his sister:)

Lakota

Another picture of Lakota when he was about 4yrs old

My First Husky As An Adult

 

This is Lakota. He was my first husky that I got as an adult and I got him shortly after MJ passed away.

It's a Husky Thing

They are not for everyone. They can be difficult to train. They have a mind of their own. These are just a few of the statements you'll read when researching about the Siberian Husky breed. My love of huskies started when my older brother decided to get one during a summer he was home from college. Well...you can probably guess what happened when he went back to school. Yep! He stayed with my mom, dad and I! I was in middle school at the time. I haven't known anything but living with a husky since then.

Now, I am almost 40 and have 3 huskies all under 4 yrs old. I know some people look at me and my dogs and think I'm crazy. (Sometimes I completely agree!) I wanted to start a blog to document the crazy lives of people you have huskies and to help educate anyone interested in owning husky. So please feel free to comment or ask questions!