Got a lady near me with a black lab and it is an absolute horror, she has no idea what to do or how to do it. I have seen it drag her down the steps of her house to get to mine who were sat at the kerb, luckily they obeyed my 'leave it' command. We all have to start somewhere, and we have all had difficult dogs, but I cannot understand why this woman does not seek some sort of help. Pass the window and it is almost through the glass at you, I bet she got a lab because it was 'born trained' I just know it!!! I have actually said to her why doesn't she take it training, and she said she was 'going to' not sure what she is waiting for, disaster to strike one day maybe??? I can see it ending up in rescue, and I really hope it finds someone who can turn it round before it is too late, so sad in my opinion, she is just so inexperienced and yet refuses to help herself, and that is the case so many times.

Your girls are so well trained & I don't doubt that you put in a great deal of time & effort into them I just wondered if you did actually warn people that the pup may end up with more of the sibe traits than the gsd & may not be trustworthy like your girls, despite any amount of training?
From my own experience I've found breeders of this 'type' don't stress this point enough or even at all.

My owners know full well what exactly is in the mix, and the reason I stress they need to go training. I was giving the example of the lab to make clear that even if someone got what is generally viewed as an 'easy' dog without the necessary training that dog becomes a nightmare, no matter what its background and breed characteristics. I'm not say that a lab is 'easy' by the way, just that what the general public view the breed as being. I feel my breed is not for the faint hearted and look for the right type of person, I have some puppies with people that do not, on paper, have the relevant experience, however they have a willingness to do what it takes to bring themselves and their dog through the difficulties they are going to encounter and the strength of character and will to succeed, they do not mind asking advice and asking questions and I do not mind answering their questions and helping them when they need that help. Funnily enough when I was out with Lona and Mabs today I met a guy on a bike who was asking me about them, telling me he had a sibe x mal and that he went biking with her, I asked if he had the seat stem attachment like I do, and he said no she just ran alongside him and never budged, now that was a first cross sibe, yet she didn't have the trait of no recall, so you just can't tar all of them with the same brush, because it just isn't a blanket ruling. One of my puppy owners who has one of Cariad's daughters, she is 3 now, says that when offlead she rarely wanders far from him and has excellent recall, so again you just can't make assumptions what a dog is going to be like, you can explain to people the liklihood of what they may be like but it doesn't necessarily go to follow that that will be so.

Was just saying in my experience the breeders I've spoken to don't mention the possibility that the dog may have to be kept on-lead & I wondered what you, as a breeder, told people that was all. Thanks for your comments.

When these owners of mine go to the training classes they have undertaken to take their puppies to they will learn that no dog should be offlead unless it has decent recall. I will let puppies offlead in a safe area because they will follow me, however once you get over the 9 month mark they will start to want to do what they want rather than what you want. By then you will have attended enough training classes to have instilled a recall in your dog, if you are having difficulty in recalling your dog in class, then your instructor will have had that conversation with you where you are aware that your dog could get you into trouble. It is not only siberian huskies have this trait, there are a couple of GSD's that I know of that go to training that are not 100% with recall. I do understand about the siberian husky trait, one reason why I have never had one, but one of the reasons many people get a Utonagan is that you can train, a good majority have a decent recall in fact. One of Cariad's other daughters is the only registered Utonagan flyball dog, and she has points in the league, so they are no untrainable, it takes longer, no doubt about that. You would be amazed where one of Lona's recent puppies has ended up, I am staying schtum at the moment as they are still young, but many things in the pipeline for that particular youngster who is already showing promise in what we hope will be a long standing career. I think you are generalising too much on the sibe content, maybe due to a bad experience on your part, but I have not had that experience of them because I had already had one of the original dogs so knew what lay in store for me and by getting 2 sisters I was letting myself in for a long uphill climb, but we are getting there, and the view is tremendous. So yes, they are hard work, but not completely without recall, and maybe if no one had trained recall they would be without recall, but I did not let that happen, and I hope by having the conversations I am having with potential owners that they too will not put themselves in the position where they have a dog that is a nuisance and not a valued member of their family, again I think you can say that about many breeds of dogs as well, if they don't know and understand what is expected of them, then they will run amok.

Yes I have one of these. As you say, a good majority. It wasn't that long ago that Sibe was used though so I do think that breeders should address this more.
Bit off topic, won't hijack the thread any longer.

Yeah when I went to Eddy's and got Tawney she had some humungous sibes there, got some piccies of them as a matter of fact, nothing like the little tiny things you see these days. However I don't think there is that much sibe in the Utonagan, not in the lines we have now anyway, much more likely to be MalxGSD with sibe in the background, that is my feeling on it. As you may know myself and Janine have a gsd x mal and he clings to you like glue and the problem with him is getting him to go away from you I really feel that a lot of the dogs that go up for sale or go in rescue at an early age are from homes where the necessity of going to a proper training class hasn't even been mentioned when they have taken the puppy on, and that is the breeder's responsibility. However I do also appreciate you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink, and in the experiences I have had I was assured of everything just so's they could get the dog. I was actually re-contacted by one of these people when Lona had her pups asking for an ink mark as they 'hadn't seen one of those before' they got quite offended when I reminded them what had happened, and said it was the dogs fault yeah silly me, course it was. They then went on to get a mismarked Harley Great Dane, that is apparently 'hopeless on the lead and gets tangled round my legs...' oh yes you said that about my dog as well......

No I didn't know about the MalxGSD you part own with Janine, don't have any contact with anyone, other than what I read on here.

Oh sorry, thought you were still in the loop a bit.