I have posted this in 2 other groups but figured I'd see if anyone here also had some sugestion.

[Leah Hickman]

This was the post I made yesterday to the Northern Breeds group and the night before to the General Topics area. I have already gotten some great advice from some of the members, and would like to see if I could possably get some more.

I posted earlier on a DOG forum site about some concerns I had with the dog that we had just recently gotten for my children. Instead of advice all i got was critisim, a bunch of people telling me that my boyfriend and I were incompetent dog owners, and basically that we had no business owning a dog. I'm hoping that I can find people on the ASPCA site that can give us some sound advice.

We have only had Shiro for about 3 or 4 weeks. We had found him in the local Bulletin Board advertised Free To A Good Home. Once we saw him we could not say no to him. Shiro is a 3 yr old white Siberian husky with beautiful crystal blue eyes that almost appear to be white as well.
He's great with the kids and does nothing but pace the apartment whining when they are at their dads. He never barks and only howls when he is out at my boyfriends.
His previous owner gave us no information about him other than that he was good with kids, very lovable, that he had papers that she had never managed to get from the original owner, and that she no longer had the time to take care of him. Come to think of it she never even told us what she had named him.
When we first got Shiro we assume that he had never been let inside. He was tied up outside and you could see the crescent moon that he had wore into the ground in front of his dog house, and his fur was no longer white, and even though it was the end of August he still had his winter coat from the previous winter. He was terrified of walking up stairs and getting into cars. He had no problems getting out of cars or being in cars, or even of going down stairs. But you had to carry him up the stairs and pick him up to put him in a car. We are no longer having problems getting him into the car (he just still isn’t fond of jumping into my boyfriends blazer, but he is fine with the car itself), it the going up the stairs that he still try’s to fight. Best part was that even though we assumed that he had never been allowed inside, he never once tried to relieve himself inside.

About 3 or 4 nights ago I was coming home for the evening with Shiro, like we always do on nights I don’t have my kids. I got him out of the car and had my hands full with items from the store, my laptop, and his leash. I had made it to the top of the stairs and he stops about half way up and decided that he isn’t going any further. Before I knew what was going on he was pulling me backwards down the stairs. Ever since that night he is back to refusing to walk up the stairs. We have again gotten him to where he is going back up them again but hesitantly.
Out of nowhere a couple of nights ago he squatted in front of my refrigerator and relieved himself, #1 and #2. We thought maybe it was our fault because we had gotten busy and hadn’t taken him out recently. It had probably 3 hours or so since he had been outside. So we scolded him telling him Bad Dog and put him out on the porch while we cleaned up his messes.
Yesterday, since it was a holiday, we had all been home with him all day. The kids didn’t have school and my boyfriend and I didn’t have to work (you have got to love those 3 day weekends). We've spent all day with Shiro playing with him and taking him out for his walks. Right after one of these walks, we had all sat down to eat. I looked up and Shiro was squatting in the middle of the kitchen relieving himself again. He had been inside for no more than maybe 10 minutes.
I am concerned about the apparent regression and the display of behavior that was not there before. We love Shiro and are trying to find ways to overcome these problems.

Earlier last evening he was laying on the floor with his rawhide bone that we had gotten him, and when my daughter came in she grabbed the bone and he got very aggressive very quickly and growled and actually barked at her. I don’t know if it was just the way she did it or if it was something else.
My children are 4 (almost 5) and 6 (almost 7). I honestly think that my 4 yr old scared him more than anything. She was doing what she could to avoid bed time. And that included this time around running in to the living room where Shiro was sitting with his bone. She had decided that she needed to give Shiro a hug good night, which she usually does, but this time instead of walking over to him like she had been she ran to him, and dropped to her knees in front of him with a thud. I think it just more or less startled him. Mainly because once he saw that it was Anna in front of him he leaned over and licked her cheek. She never grabs his food from him so I don’t know what prompted her to reach for the chew bone that night.
I made it a point to see how he reacted to having someone pet him or brush him or even move his food bowl away from him while he was eating. I did this all the first weekend I had him cause it was a weekend that the kids were at their dad's and I was able to work with Shiro one on one. I would like to add here that he has NEVER displayed such behavior and my children as well as myself have petted him, and brushed him while he has been eating. Never once did he bark or growl, or whimper or make any type of a noise, instead he leaned over and licked my face. Since I do believe that this was the fault of my daughter, she got into trouble for trying to take his bone and was told that you do not EVER run towards a dog like that or try to take their food.
I was just wondering if there might be something I could do with Shiro to discourage his growling at the kids.