Kita will escape whenever she finds a chance too *glances at broken front screen door* LOL We live in a quarter acre lot subdivision. With that said, the only time we take her off her leash is when we're up at my inlaws. They have 10+ acres for her to roam around. They also have a small dog too, where he goes - Kita will follow.

She does chase after small animals, birds etc but it never gets her anywhere lol She comes back when we call her, then again I keep treats in my pocket so she knows she gets a 'goodie' when she comes to me. I always worry some jackhole might mistake her for a wolf and shoot her :grumble: Our last husky was mistaken twice for a wolf in our last community we lived at (????)

Even if we leave her be, she ends up coming back - guess she likes us! haha

i never left mine off lead except if they are in a completely fenced in area (like tennis courts - ie very very high fenced areas). they always find ways of escaping from low fenced areas. hubby on the other hand has let parker (my mal) off lead - he did come back but spent a good solid 30 minutes running around my neighbors yards. when jazzy (my akita/mal) was a yr old she escaped into the woods and after several hours of searching for her we found her swimming in my neighbor's cranberry bogs (OPPS!)

The winter before I got Shadow I saw an ad on Craigslist looking for escaped Husky...yep it was Shadow, in my back yard he's got free range but if we're out of the yard he's on a leash. One day I was working on the front door and it opened just a little and he ran off. I know how my neighborhood would be so I ran after him and we spent the next hour playing tag...I finally got him cornered and was able to put the leash on him. So no he won't be off that leash.

Rain got out a couple of times (once dug out under the newly installed fence a few days after we moved from Fl to WI....she wandered into a yard two doors down and the neighbors saw her in the back. I had told them that she was a bit afraid of men and the wife went out to 'talk' to Rain and then came over to tell me she was out. Funny enough....Rain followed her back to my house and came back to the door (neighbor was not even aware RRain eventually followed her.....). And twice Rain got out the front door. She 'only' went a couple of blocks but first time it took me 20 minutes to get her to stay in place to leash her and take her home (and treats to bribe her), second time was Christmas night around midnight and I had to jog after her for 2 blocks - she was heading down our 'regular' path to the trail and she eventually stopped and waited for me after she reached her customary 'first pee stop'. I am worried though as people often mistake her for a wolf, I don't want her to go walk about and get shot.........So she is either on leash or in a fenced in yard or dog park. I don't enjoy having to go out to find her. Don't know if she would come home on her own if she was ever out for a while and don't want to find out either

ooohhh i love these stories (of course i'm happy no one was hurt because of their little escapes). i completely forgot there was a time when both dogs got out at the same time because someone forgot to shut the gate. we were on vacation with a group of friends and their children (plus our dogs) and kids being kids one of them forgot to shut to gate after leaving rental house. well, guess who found the open gate BOTH DOGS. we spent the next 2 hours searching the beach, the neighborhood the rental was in plus the main (ie BUSY) road. i spent 2 hours on foot searching and crying, searching and crying. thinking the worst i had both dogs dead on the side of the road. of course to make matters worse it was my birthday. hubby was FURIOUS! he was driving around trying to locate them. finally just as i was heading back to the house just off to the right in the marshy area was jazzy happy as a clam splashing around. i calmly (as calm as i could) walked up to her grabbed her collar AND HAD HER! we walked back to the rental (not even 5 minutes away) and there's parker just hanging out in the driveway. both dogs were soaked and smelled of salt water. come to find out they were down at the beach in the water having a ball while i was a hysterical mess searching for them.

Haha! Reading these has made my morning! Thanks everyone.

The reason I asked in the first place is because my in laws told me that I hadn't trained my dog well enough. She should be able to walk next to me off the lead, like their dog. My jaw dropped. A two year old husky is a little different to their 12 year old fox terrier who doesn't even like going outside for a pee.

I had never thought about them getting shot because they are mistaken for a wolf. We don't have wolves in NZ so it never crossed my mind. I am only worried about them being run over!

you should let your inlaws take her for a day. LOL!!!!!!!

Unrelated we had a Shepard Chow mix dog named Buddy, one night while he was in the back yard a house a couple houses over caught fire and the fire trucks came, the lights and sirens scared Buddy and he got out of the yard. My wife calls me at work hysterical because he was gone. I got off work about 30 minutes later and drove all over my neighborhood, he was good about coming to me if he heard my voice. Nothing that night, so I got up the next morning and did the same thing. I went to our local pound and let them know about it. I posted pics and talked to the local vet clinics, no luck. This went on for a couple weeks. At this point I'm thinking either he was taken by someone or he was hit by a car. Well we were given a new pup a week later from a friend needing to get rid of puppies.

Another week or so later, it's been 5 weeks I'm laying in bed and I hear a dog going nuts out back, I recognize this bark as Buddy's...he was at the back gate trying to get back in the yard. I was in tears I wanted to kill him and hug him at the same time. He had been either in a fight or got caught on something because he now had a scar over his eye. I took him to the vet for a check up and he was clear. He never tried that again, think he learned that the food is free here. So with him back and the new pup we now had 3 dogs, Sheba(shepard.malmute mix), Dancer (Shepard/Rot mix) and Buddy. I tried to take them all for a walk all at once it was more of a pull...so I'd take one or two at a time. I enjoyed having them all but ate us out of house and home. One dog and one cat is plenty. I would like to have another husky though to give Shadow a playmate his own size.