Are Huskies Good Guard Dogs?

Do Huskies Make Good Guard Dogs?

Huskies have a lot of resemblance with wolves. For this reason, most people tend to think that huskies can make good guard dogs. But are huskies good guard dogs? In this article, I’ll cover everything you need to know including what makes a good guard dog. 

Can huskies make good guard dogs? In one sentence, huskies can’t make good guard dogs. Their friendly and less aggressive nature makes them unsuitable for this kind of demanding task. 

Table of Contents

Why do people mistake Huskies for guard dogs?

Huskies have a number of similarities with wolves, which can easily make you think that they would behave and act in the same manner. The first is their physical resemblance. For a person who doesn’t know much about dogs, it might be hard to tell apart these two animals.

The shape of their faces looks somewhat the same and this is indeed confusing to many. However, besides the physical appearance, there isn’t much that can enable the husky to function as a guard dog. 

Also, as I wrote in my previous post, many people think that the husky has a mean and angry face. Without proper understanding, they end up using this baseless belief to conclude that huskies are fierce.

However, that can’t be further from the truth. The first thing I need to clarify is that huskies don’t have angry-looking faces. Their appearance is due to some markings on their faces that make them look as though they’re mad or angry at them. 

Can Huskies be guard dogs?

In this section, let’s explore the reasons that disqualify huskies from being the perfect guard dog. 

1. Huskies aren’t suspicious or aggressive

One of the defining characteristics of a good husky dog is aggression and suspicion. Guard dogs will treat anyone stepping into their territory with aggression and nervousness. If you had any ill motives, you wouldn’t move anywhere near the dog. In fact, it would dare you to move near it. 

Huskies are anything but that. If they see an intruder or stranger coming toward them, their typical behavior would be to run toward them. They’ll jump up and down as they lick the person while displaying other forms of playfulness. 

You can’t blame that on them. Naturally, this breed is friendly and affectionate. It will want to show everyone love to the extent that it would trust even the person that might have the intention of doing harm to it. 

That’s not something you want in your guard dog. Without such instincts, it’s impossible for the dog to be a good guard dog. 

2. Huskies don’t possess great protective instincts 

A good guard dog wouldn’t let you move anywhere near its property or family members. Before we proceed, let me clarify the difference between protectiveness and possessiveness.

Huskies are possessive and that means they can get jealous if they realize that you aren’t giving them the attention they want.

They’ll let you know that in ways that aren’t aggressive. For instance, if you’re playing with another pet, they’ll not show aggressiveness by fighting the other dog. 

3. Stubborn and independent 

A good guard dog must demonstrate the ability to obey commands and follow instructions at all times. Of course, I’m not saying that huskies don’t obey commands, but they can sometimes be quite predictable.

What if the dog decides to have its way when you need it to cooperate the most? That’s just the thing about huskies. You don’t have the assurance that it will obey your commands. 

Naturally, huskies are divas and they sometimes want to have their way. For that reason, it’s not easy to train to be obedient. That kind of scenario might not be so good especially if you find yourself in an emergency. 

What other dog owners think

I’ve shared my opinion based on my experience with my three huskies, Laika, Nova, and Leki. I wanted you to have a different perspective, so I asked other husky owners to give their personal experiences as to whether or not they can make good guard dogs.

What would you say about your dog as a guard dog? That’s the question I asked my friends who have huskies. 

Let’s now look at some of the responses I received: 

Feedback 1: from Amy

I’ve never even thought of my husky as a guard dog. He’s everything to me except that. In the first place, that wasn’t my inspiration for getting the dog.

As such, it will be cruel and unrealistic for me to expect Jayda, my husky, to play that role. Whenever Jayda sees visitors at the entrance of our gate, he’s always the first one to run toward them.

And it doesn’t run to bark at them or repulse them. He’s constantly licking and jumping up on visitors whether strangers or regular visitors. 

Feedback 2: Mark 

Guard dog? My Moss? No way. He’s too friendly. I’ve seen my husky angry or irritated at the sight of intruders. The worst I’ve seen is him chasing around small animals like cats.

But even so, it doesn’t chase them with the intention of causing harm. It’s just that they grew together and that’s how they spend their time together running up and down as they play.

Even when the dog is at its worst, I can’t really say it can ever come close to harming a human being. As such, you can’t really expect that kind of dog to make the ultimate guard dog. 

Feedback 3: Andy 

My two huskies are too soft to be guard dogs. They’ve got more love to share with everyone that comes their way, so much so that I doubt they would show any form of aggressiveness toward people, even intruders.

At some point, I tried training them to be guard dogs. Needless to say, it was a frustrating process that didn’t even last a single week. From that time, I learned to accept my dogs as they are and train them in other areas that are more realistic.

Feedback 4: Johnstone 

I’ve got three beautiful huskies but I can’t really tell for sure if they’re good guard dogs since they’re still puppies. However, I’m currently doing socialization and obedience training for them.

I can tell you for sure that training them to become guard dogs has never been a priority for me.

As a matter of fact, I did my research before adopting the dogs and found that one of the things you can’t expect are huskies to be aggressive.

So, I knew exactly what I was getting into when I made up my mind to go for them.

Feedback 5: Audrey 

It’s unfair for anyone to expect that a husky can be a guard dog. I come from a military background and so I know quite a bit about guard dogs. I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that in my training and experience, I’ve never encountered this breed anywhere on the list of potential guard dogs.

I have several breeds of dogs that I keep and for me, a husky serves more of an aesthetic function than anything else. The region in which I live demands that I have serious dogs to provide security.

For that reason, I have several German Shepherds who seem to do well when it comes to this function. I can confidently vouch for German Shepherds as good guard dogs but not huskies.