How to keep your husky occupied

If you have a husky or you’re thinking of getting one then you’re probably wondering how to keep it occupied.

So, how do you keep a husky occupied? The first thing to do is to make sure that it is getting lots of exercise daily so that it becomes easier to keep it occupied. You can exercise it by walking it, having it swim, playing fetch with it or you could have it drag you along on something. To keep it occupied you can give it toys to play with, puzzle games to play with, chews to chew on or you could take it to doggy daycare.

There are actually a lot of ways that you can keep your husky occupied. However, if your goal is to prevent it from misbehaving then the best results will come from training it and giving it a lot of exercise.

Start by giving it exercise

Huskies were bred to drag sleighs for hours on a daily basis in freezing temperatures. This means that they require a lot of exercise to be properly stimulated. If you’re looking for ways to keep your husky occupied then you should actually start by looking for ways to give it more exercise. This is because by doing so you will be able to get it to calm down considerably and it will be able to stay occupied with whatever you give it for longer.

Be aware, however, that it will likely take a lot more exercise than you would expect to properly wear your husky out. Vets will typically recommend that you exercise your husky for at least one hour per day.

Below I will mention some ways that you can give your husky exercise on a daily basis.

Related: how to keep your husky happy.

Walk it

The first and most obvious way to give your husky exercise is to walk it. You might find that just walking it for an hour won’t be enough for your husky so you might need to find ways to wear it out a little bit more. Some ways to do so would be to walk it in a hilly area, to let it loose in a dog park (if you can get it to come back to you) or you could put a dog weight vest on it that weighs less than 10% of its body weight. Walking your husky will also be beneficial for your own health since walking daily has been shown to improve health.

Teach it to play fetch

You could teach your husky to play fetch.

Fetch is a good way to give your husky exercise since it will get your husky to do a lot of sprinting without having much rest in between. This will help to wear it out more quickly.

Teaching your husky to play fetch will likely be quite challenging at first but I have written about how you can teach it to do it step by step in the past here.

Teach it to swim

Teaching your husky to swim can help to give it a lot of exercise since it will be needing to move its legs around a lot to stay afloat. This can help to wear it out quickly and it is especially good in the summer months when you need to help your husky to stay cool.

Some huskies are naturally cautious of water at first but there are ways to get it to like the water that I talk about here.

Walk it with other dogs

One good way to give your husky a lot of exercise quickly is to walk it with other dogs. By doing this you will be able to wear it out faster since it will naturally do more exercise by playing with the other dogs. Be aware though that huskies have a strong prey drive and they do not tend to get on well with smaller dogs.

Have it pull you

Huskies are bred to pull so why not have it pull you along on a bike or a skateboard? By doing this you will be able to get it to do a lot of running while burning even more energy by pulling your weight along. If you do try to do it make sure to make it wear a harness and not a collar.

Dog walker

If you do not have much time to exercise your husky then you could get a dog walker to do it for you. There are apps that you can download on your phone now that allow you to book local dog walkers directly within the app.

Ways to keep your husky occupied

Once you have figured out how to give your husky lots of exercise then you can consider ways to keep it occupied when you need to. Below I will mention some things that you can do to keep it occupied.

Lots of toys

The first thing that you can do is to give it lots of toys to play with. By doing this you will be able to keep its attention on something that you are ok with instead of having it focus on things like sofas that you don’t want it to. Giving it lots of toys to play with and chew on is especially important when it is still young and going through the teething phase.

Puzzle games

There are puzzle based toys that you can get for your husky that are designed to make it think about how to get to the treat inside. They can be very good at keeping it focused on something for a while and are good ways to keep it occupied. The only problem is that once your husky has figured it out it won’t be as effective in the future since your husky will be able to figure it out much more quickly. If you do decide to get one try getting one that is a bit more challenging so that your husky needs to take more time to figure it out.

Give it training

One way to keep your husky occupied is to spend time training it. Obviously, this isn’t something that you can do when you’re not around but it is very important that you find the time to do it.

By training your husky you will be able to get it to be more well behaved and you will be able to improve your relationship with it.

You should start out by teaching it the basics like to sit and stay in an easy environment where there are not many distractions. Then you can try teaching it harder things or to teach it to do the basics in environments where there are more distractions.

Play tug of war with it

One way to keep your husky occupied would be to play tug of war with it. Most huskies love to play it so you probably won’t find it difficult to have it play tug of war with you when you want it to.

Give it chews

One way to keep your husky occupied would be to give it chews to chew on. There are actually chews that you can buy that are designed to calm your husky down. So, you might want to have these available for when you think your husky might be about to start misbehaving.

Doggy daycare

If you don’t have the time to keep your husky occupied and you are worried about leaving it at home alone then you should consider doggy daycare.

Things to consider

Huskies require a lot of effort

If you’re thinking of getting a husky then you should know that huskies are a breed that will require a lot of effort on your part. This means that you will need to devote a lot of time into walking it, training it and giving it attention. If you don’t think that you will be able to do that then you should consider getting a different breed of dog.

Age

You should also consider the age of your husky. If it is still young then it will require more attention and it will have more energy. However, because its joints and bones are still developing it is not recommended that you give it a lot of exercise. Generally, it is recommended that you gove your husky 5 minutes of exercise per month of age.

How to entertain a husky home alone? If you will not be around to entertain your husky then you could give it lots of toys to play with, a puzzle to figure out, some chews to chew on and you could consider crate training it if you’re worried about things getting damaged.