Tuesday, May 13, 2008

When do Husky's stop growing?

A few days ago I measured Keisha. She is 18 1/2 inches tall at her shoulders. Female Siberian Husky's are suppose to grow from 20 to 22 inches tall. This would be a great height for a service dog for me becuase she would be high enough to hold her harness without having my arm resting on her back.

Sophie is 20 1/2 inches high, which is pretty short for a Lab, but the perfect height for me. I'm getting a bit concerned about Keisha's height though. Even though she is not that much shorter than Sophie, because she is smaller around her body she seems a lot shorter. Lab.'s are a lot more solid than Huskies in their body.

I'm hoping Keisha grows taller than 20 inches. Although if she stops growing at 20 inches and she is at a good height, that would be ok too.

She's had a couple of major growth spurts so far, but her growth seems to be slowing down now. I'm not sure at what age they are suppose to stop growing, and when their growth slows down. If anyone knows this, and feels like leaving a comment that would be great!

She's running in and out of the living room right now playing tug with the extra leash that is connected to the door handle. It's great that she's interested in playing tug because it will come in handy for a lot of tasks she will do later.

It's funny because her breeder said that Husky's are usually not interested in retrieving and I'd be lucky if I could get her to retrieve things for me. Then awhile before I got Keisha the breeder said she had been playing fetch with her!

She';s so much like a Lab.! I guess it's because she's been around Sophie since she was 9 weeks old and a lot of Sophie's Lab. ways have rubbed off on her. It's great because Lab.'s have so many great qualities for guide and service work.

3 comments:

Anonymous May 17, 2008 at 10:14 AM  

Keisha is a beautiful looking dog with nice markings. Her coat looks soft and shinny like you've taken good care of her. It's great that she's also learning lab ways from Sophie and they get along well together. I've been wondering, why do you have two dogs? SisterNan

Kim May 17, 2008 at 1:27 PM  

I have two dogs because Sophie is my guide dog. She's still working, but is getting older and will retire eventually. It's totally up to her to do as much or as little work as she wants right now.

I'm training Keisha to take over Sophie's work. I'm training her myself because none of the guide dog schools will train a dog to work with a manual wheelchair. I had no choice really. I could start using a power wheelchair and loose a lot of the strength I have built up in my arms causing me to become less independent, or I could train my own dog. Of course you know which option I chose.

It involves a lot of work, but in the end you have a dog that is taught to do the things you need, the way you want and you can teach the dog the commands you want.

I guess it's kind of like buying a condo. You can buy one that is exactly the same as all of the other ones in the building, or you can customize it to be exactly the way you want. You still end up with a condo, but you can choose to have one like everyone else, or one that is customized especially for you.

Anonymous June 12, 2008 at 12:34 AM  

I just stumbled across your blog and this is awesome! I live in Northern BC, and am also training my own guide dog... I can't wait to read more posts! Oh, and by the way, from what I understand, Huskies should reach their adult height around 10 - 12 months of age (though it slows a lot after the 8 - 10 month mark), and their full weight around 18 - 24 months.

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