[ddjfletcher]

I have a 7 month old Husky named Shadow, every morning around 6 AM he barks. For a while I figured he just needed to go out which was our norm, he'd go out, do his business and then come back inside. Now instead of going outside to do his business he either walks around my living room or goes outside and eats my banana plants or walks around trying to find lizards to antagonize. I'm kind of under the impression he's only doing it now because he knows I'll get up and let him out, any ideas on how to stop it? If I don't let him out he just whines for a while and it's driving my husband crazy.

Part of me thinks it's stemming from when we initially adopted him and he had crazy separation anxiety, he was surrendered at barely 6 weeks old and we adopted him from a rescue at 8 weeks so he had changed hands a total of 5 times (from initial owners to their local rescue, they gave him to our local rescue, they then gave him to a foster family, then he went back to the rescue and came home with us 48 hours later) so he really struggled with being alone in the beginning which broke my heart so I'd sleep in the kitchen on the floor with him so he wouldn't be alone. Probably a bad idea but I love this boy, when we got him his lips were swollen and bloodied from biting the gates at the rescue.

Thank you for any input, I have had dogs before and my husband has raised Huskies in the past, just never one that was from a rescue which he thinks actually made a difference with his attitude. He gets great exercise since I'm sure that will be a question.

 

[LeoRose]

Is he crated? If so, I'd take him out on a leash to potty when he does that, and then pop him back in his crate.

 

[ddjfletcher]

He's not crated but he has an area he goes to at night, kind of a breakfast nook off the kitchen. I tried to leash him at one point to go outback but maybe I just need to try again since he was very resistant initially.

 

[silk.spectre89]

Maybe the guy was used from previous places to be left alone around that time, and it has become a routine for him to start barking; it's almost as if he's thinking he's alone when he's actually not.

I'm not a professional, but I'd say it would be probably better to desensitize him to being alone first, and then crate-train if necessary. Highly anxious dogs like that tend to destroy crates and freak out even when they're trained to like the crate because they don't understand absence of humans. Once your bud is okay with being alone, then the crate might be even his safe haven, and he might even learn to love it.

You'd have to start leaving the house often throughout the day even for a few seconds until he no longer cares. I would honestly even start by feeding him frozen Kong Classic (stuffed with mushed up moistened kibble- the easy way) in a separate room on his bed. He would start associating solitude with food, and dogs love food. It's important for him to eat alone in a room, and eventually he'll get used to it and begin to realize being alone is fun.

Kongs (and this is not any sponsorship, I promise) have significantly mellowed down my crazy puppy indoors. It takes him around 50 minutes to eat his breakfast, and since your dog is bigger, it'll take him even longer in a larger Kong.