I've never owned a single dog, even as a child we always had at least two, usually three. Stuart and I started with three Siberians and a GSD. I keep a pack; a pack of a difficult breed; huskies aren't the easiest dog to keep one at a time!

We have been as high as 26 dogs. In a group of 26 people, there will be a couple I don't like! Same goes for the dogs. Not every dog gets along with every other dog. If I had two or three dogs, I would expect they would get along without issue. I have one female who has her own pen and is not allowed near other dogs. Kayleigh has mellowed with age and actually tolerated Bandit, as long as no food was around. She was starved by her first owner and it's left her with lifelong issues.

Over the last 12 years there have been a number of fights. Most of them end with a loud "KNOCK THAT OFF". Serious injuries are very rare; they usually go for the ears, tail and back legs when they fight, not areas that would be fatal if bitten. We've never had an intent to kill fight before. 99% of the time within a few hours the dogs are buddies are again. I can almost always identify a trigger that started the disagreement..."he took my bone; I am still the boss of you; stop bugging me you little punk; we need some exercise". I can also usually see a fight coming and prevent it. The dogs rarely go straight into a fight. There's almost always some posturing, growling, grumpiness first.

The reason I have so few female dogs is that their fights tend to be much, much more serious. Girls are 100 times harder than males to keep in a pack. They will fight til they kill each other and they never forgive. I keep my girls apart all the time when unsupervised. The males move on pretty quickly. My pack is aging. With Mac and Ozzy gone, only Tehya is under 10 years old. Everyone else is in double digit ages. Any kind of disagreement has become increasingly rare as they age...they just don't care that much anymore about the things that used to trigger fights

I don't tether my dogs, ever. Most sled dogs are kept chained all the time. The injuries, fights, ect would be non-existent if I chained. That's a large part of why most sled dogs are chained..it's an easy way to keep a large number of dogs. It would also change everything about my yard and my dogs' lives.

All of my dogs, except two, are rescues. Most spent more than a year in our local shelter. Prolonged confinement causes serious issues in even the most well-balanced dog. Add that to abuse, hunger, lack of socialization, etc and you're bound to have some issues.

What happened to Bandit was not normal behavior. Mac & Ozzy hunted him; they meant to kill him. There was no fight; there was no warning; Bandit had no chance to defend himself; he was dead in seconds and Mac & Ozzy stopped immediately. I've had people tell me that it happened because Bandit was an old dog and starting to show his age; that Mac and Ozzy were culling the weak from their pack. I don't believe that. Even wolves rarely do that; they usually leave the sick, old and injured behind, but don't kill them through a fight. Mac & Ozzy had lived peacefully for many years with dogs that were older and much sicker than Bandit. I believe there was something genetically wrong with them(they were littermates). We had issues with them from day one, although nothing like this. Genetics combined with a truly crappy start in life made them dangerous dogs. I will never know what triggered them that night; I will never understand it, but I hope they are free of their demons wherever they are now.