I don't have a husky, and never have, although I think they are absolutely gorgeous and I just love looking at them, I think they are too high energy for my lifestyle.

I did want to pipe in here about the shaving discussion though. I think it depends whether it's more a haircut, or a down-to-the-skin shave. The latter, I absolutely hate. I used to see a sheltie that lived down the road from me, that was an "outdoor" dog and shaved every summer to the SKIN. I thought that was just awful. Doggie skin can sunburn, and being exposed like that to every mosquito in the animal Kingdom is awful IMO. It is HOT in southern MO in the summer, and those coats help keep them cool too! I know because I used to feel my collies' skin after they had laid in the summer sun. Their coats would feel hot, their skin cool.

I really personally feel the only time a dog should be shaved right down to the skin is for medical reasons, like some types of mange I know it is necessary.

As for just a haircut, I guess it's more personal taste. I prefer natural, but I know I used a shaver to help me make Cody's hair shorter a few times when he got older. His skin was so sensitive, and his hair was too silky (more than it should have been for a rough collie), it matted and tangled horribly easy. Rather than put him through trying to constantly get tangles out with his ultra sensitive skin, I trimmed up his coat. This picture shows his coat trimmed. As you can see it doesn't even have a shaved look



I know a lot of people used to ask me if I shaved them in the summer to keep them cool. People who don't know about dogs well think they sweat like people do as a coolant system. They compair a long-coated or double-coated dog to be the equivalent of wearing a heavy coat during hot weather. I always just tried to nicely explain the difference to them.