Mad Max & Veggies

Mad Max is his registered name - a purebred Siberian husky with one ice blue eye and one half blue/half brown eye - who just turned 11 years old. Max was purchased by a family as a pup and for eight years lived in a kennel without regular exercise, nor was the kennel regularly cleaned and sometimes the family forgot to feed him. He wasn't neutered, so he had a big desire to find a mate. When they took him out for exercise, they put him on a tie out that was within reach of a fence, and Max would try to dig under the fence. Rather than shorten the tie out, they hot wired the fence and when Max tried to go under it, he got zapped severely. Max won't allow you to touch his neck in the area of a collar. If you do, he will bite.

Of course, no one told us this when they dropped him off. Only that he hates the vet and water. After I got bit, the truth came out. He had bit the vet and only the family's youngest son could walk Max. He also had severe food aggression when we got him.

We have had Max for three years, and I can put flea preventive on him, even run a brush over him, and no longer is he food aggressive with me. We have actually taught him to "sit" on command, and use it as a gauge to see what his mood is. He is very much an alpha and he has turned on me twice when he didn't want to follow instructions. Max will live here till he dies of old age, and we have a routine and a mutual respect for each other. I make sure he gets plenty of exercise, toys to play with, food to eat, and a clean kennel. Max is losing his sight, but he knows when treat time comes along, and he will sit politely and wait till I get to his kennel, and then find the treat with his nose.

I give the dogs a small quantity of wet food every day - usually chicken flavored something every other day, beef on the other three days, and lamb and vegetables on Friday. It keeps dry food from getting purely boring, and since we have quite a few seniors, like Max, it's like feeding a few prunes at a nursing home - keeps everybody regular.

Max doesn't like lamb and veggies - he sorts through and spits out the peas and carrots.