Can a house-wrecking
husky be trained?

The full narration of the video.

A husky that wrecks the house every day: can it actually be trained? You come home to a hole in the sofa and stuffing everywhere, and it's wagging its tail at you. Your heart sinks: is this dog just dumb?

A popular ranking of smart dog breeds puts the husky in the lower half. But that list came from obedience judges, scoring how fast dogs learn commands and how well they obey. It really tests one school subject: sitting still and doing what the teacher says.

To see why huskies flunk that subject, we have to visit their homeland. In the far northeast of Siberia, the Chukchi people raised these dogs to pull sleds across the snow for long distances. In today's long-distance sled races, a team can cover more than a hundred kilometers a day.

When the ice cracks open, the driver may not see it, but the lead dog can sense the water and stops on its own. Thousands of years of choosing left dogs that run far, handle the cold, and make their own decisions. Doing whatever a human shouts was never their strong suit.

Shutting a dog like that indoors all day is like making a star athlete sit in a classroom for eight hours. With nowhere to spend that energy, it finds its own work: chewing, digging, ripping, and the sofa is right there. So the wrecking usually comes from boredom, not from being dumb.

So can it be trained? One huge survey compared well over a hundred breeds and found breed explains less than a tenth of the differences in dog behavior. Even on obeying, dogs of the same breed differ a lot.

Scientists call that trait biddability, breed guides often have a line for it, and huskies usually score low. But that is an average for a whole breed, not your dog. Whether it learns depends on how you teach. Teaching a husky is like coaching an athlete: gym class first, then the classroom.

Before you leave, let it run and sniff its fill; a tired dog is the one that hears commands. Reward with what it truly cares about: a bit of meat or a game of tug works better than a 'good boy.' Keep each session to a few minutes, so it wants to come back for more.

If it howls and wrecks things the moment you leave, it may be separation anxiety; ask a vet or a trainer. Try this week: before you go out, run with it for half an hour, hide a few treats for it to find, and see if the sofa survives. What's the most expensive thing your husky has ever destroyed?