I adopted 2 huskies in the past year. The first one (Yuko) was adopted in January 2021 and is approximately 4 years old now and 70lbs. He's a pretty chill and friendly dog. He had some separation anxiety which led to us getting another husky as they are pack animals. He was found on the streets and was severely underweight when I got him. The second one (Niko) was adopted in June. He is approximately 2 years old now and 45 lbs. He is a little more rambunctious. He was initially adopted by another family when he was about 9 months old and returned to the rescue at about 1.5 years old.
They love to play with each other and for the most part get along really well. However, they both have a habit of stealing things from each other and annoying each other like human siblings often do. This is mostly done with their rawhide rolls. They always seem to want the one that the other has. Yuko will have one and eventually Niko will steal the one Yuko had and then later on Yuko steals it back and so on. There can be 4 of them laying around and they will both want the one particular rawhide. This has led to Yuko preemptively barking at Niko anytime Yuko has a rawhide. Niko will be a bit of a brat and keep going right next to Yuko even though Yuko has made it clear he wants space. Of course, Niko barks back at Yuko and then they just bark at each other until they eventually settle down. I usually take Yuko's rawhide and throw it in his crate, but he has crate anxiety and so he just immediately grabs it and goes right back to where he was. This repeats several times and then he gets the message and settles down. I trained them to share, so they will both eat out of my hand together totally fine, so sometimes I will just pick up the rawhides and hold them out and say share and then they each take one and go lay down, but the barking always starts up again after awhile. The funny thing is that at other times they will lay next to each other chewing on their rawhides peacefully.
The other times they get tiffy with each other is if someone is in the kitchen (I have gates because Yuko will raid the trash) or if someone has food. They are basically fighting over who has dibs on any food or treats that might exist. Yuko definitely gives Niko the message that he has dibs, but Niko doesn't just let Yuko boss him around. It's really only in situations of anticipation. Once anything is actually being distributed they are able to sit nicely next to each other and take their things one at a time or at the same time. The dibs arguement is usually just barking and pushing, but it has led to actual fights several times. This happened the week before last and during the fight Niko bit Yuko on the front leg and gave him a gash that thankfully did not need stitches. Yuko is now preemptively barking much more frequently.
Niko does have trouble sharing the attention of people and always tries to push Yuko out of the way any time he is getting pets. We've been working on that and Niko has gotten significantly better about it, but since the fight Yuko got extra care and attention and so Niko has backslid on that and Yuko is having less tolerance for that behavior.
I really want to address this because I would hate for them to become unable to tolerate each other and have to rehome one. They do actually get along and enjoy each other's company, but they also like to bug each other. And the barking is driving us crazy, especially because Yuko has a very loud, sharp bark. Any ideas or help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
