Are Pomskies Aggressive: Your Pomeranian Siberian Husky Personality Questions Answered
A number of urban legends exist regarding the origin of the dog now known as the Pomsky.
According to the Berkeley Patch, the breed craze began when mislabeled social media photos announced the Pomsky as a new dog breed.
The dog was cute and the name was catchy and that was all it took to begin building demand for this hybrid dog breed that did not yet exist.
Today, the Pomsky is a real hybrid or designer dog breed – a cross between the Siberian Husky and the Pomeranian. They are just as cute as you might imagine such a cross would be. But there are also increasing reports that Pomskies can be aggressive.
Are Pomskies aggressive? If yes, are they more aggressive than other breeds? This article gives you the latest updates so you can decide if a Pomsky is right for you.
Are Pomskies Aggressive?
The short answer is that any dog can be aggressive without proper training and handling.
The Pomsky hybrid dog breed can be somewhat more aggressive than other breeds. There is a special concern when mixing Pomskies with small children who may be too young to grasp how to play gently with a dog. Pomskies are not recommended for families with young children for this reason.
See a Pomsky and Learn About the Breed
In this short owner video, you can see the beautiful Pomsky dog up close. You can also hear firsthand information from the owner about what it is like to select and live with a Pomsky.
You will notice in this video that the Pomsky dog lives in a condo and has a single adult owner. The owner shares that he did a lot of research before choosing a Pomsky and that he went through a complicated process to obtain his dog.
This is as close to an ideal setting for a Pomsky as possible. There are no children in the household and the owner and dog do everything together by the owner’s own admission, which is ideal for the Pomsky dog’s temperament.
Why Are Pomskies Aggressive?
Not all Pomskies are aggressive. However, there are some personality and temperament traits that can be contributed by either parent dog – in this case the Pomeranian and the Siberian Husky – that may predispose a puppy to a more aggressive temperament.
To more fully answer this question, it may help to explain more about how hybrid dog breeding works. This discussion can also help you target your search for a Pomsky puppy or rescue dog so you choose a dog that is a temperament match for your family.
Pomsky Hybrid Dog Breeding: An Overview
As Northern California Pomskies breeder explains, the Pomsky is what is called a hybrid or designer dog breed.
Hybrid dog breeding isn’t as foreign as the name might indicate. Actually, the vast majority of all purebred dog breeds today got their start as hybrid dog breeds.
Hybrid dog breeding involves crossing two different purebred dog parents to produce puppies. In the case of the Pomsky hybrid dog breed, one parent dog is a purebred Pomeranian and the other parent dog is a purebred Siberian Husky.
It doesn’t matter which parent is which breed. It only matters that the breeder is crossing two purebred genetic lines to create a new dog breed-in-process – a hybrid dog breed.
What Happens When a Breeder Crosses a Pomeranian and a Siberian Husky?
All you have to do is head over to the immensely popular website for Norman the Pomsky to see exactly what happens when you cross a Pomeranian and a Siberian Husky – cuteness!
And this is exactly what created artificial demand for a dog breed that didn’t even technically exist!
But there is more than just cuteness going on behind the genetic scenes in any hybrid breeding program. Whenever a breeder chooses to cross two distinct genetic lines, uncertainty is created.
This is because there is no reliable way to predict how each parent dog’s genes will influence a given hybrid puppy.
Every trait and attribute is up for grabs, from temperament and personality to size and weight to coat type to energy level to longevity and health. Let’s look more closely at this to see how a Pomsky puppy could wind up with an aggressive temperament.
Pomeranian Versus Siberian Husky
The Pomeranian is the 23rd most popular purebred dog breed and the Siberian Husky is the 14th most popular purebred dog breed registered through the American Kennel Club (AKC).
What this tells you is that, out of 196 registered purebred dog breeds, both the Pomeranian and the Siberian Husky are very popular dog breeds in their own right!
But they are also quite different dog breeds.
Meet the Pomeranian
A fully-grown Pomeranian may weigh just three to seven pounds and stand just six to seven inches tall. These dogs are all hair – when in full coat, their famous fur looks like they just stuck a paw in an electrical socket.
They may be tiny in size but as Pom owners will attest, they don’t seem to know it. Long a favorite lap dog breed to royals, most famously Queen Victoria of England, Pomeranians are vocal, imperious and demanding dogs.
Meet the Siberian Husky
The Siberian Husky, in contrast, can weigh 35 to 60 pounds and stand nearly two feet tall. These dogs have short, thick coats and come from a long line of endurance sled dogs.
Siberian Huskies are intensely high energy and cannot tolerate being left alone. They need lots of exercises every single day and can never be let off-leash safely in an unfenced area.
Meet the Pomsky
So this gives you a much clearer picture of how much genetic diversity a breeder is playing with by combining two such different dog breeds together to create a new hybrid breed.
Since both the Pomeranian and the Siberian Husky have intense and demanding personalities and no tolerance for being left alone or for playing second fiddle, there is a real danger of aggression if the handler is inexperienced or absent.
How to Reduce Your Risk of Choosing an Aggressive Pomsky
As the Pomsky Club of America points out, there will always be dog breeders that are quick to capitalize on a passing breed popularity fad by breeding dogs just to make some fast cash.
While these types of breeders may or may not fall into the category of true puppy mills, when making money is the primary objective you can be sure the health and temperament of the puppies will be found much lower down on the list.
Pomsky breeders can choose to focus their breeding programs at a number of levels. These levels are called F1, F1b, F2, F2b, F3, F4, and so forth. Each level indicates the parentage of the puppies.
F1 litters will always have one purebred Pomeranian and one purebred Siberian Husky parent. These litters will produce the most visible genetic variation in the puppies in every way, from size to coat, the temperament to trainability.
F1b litters will have one purebred parent, either a Pomeranian or a Siberian Husky, and one F1 hybrid Pomeranian-Siberian Husky parent. You will see slightly less genetic diversity in these litters.
F2 litters will have two F1b parent dogs, so two Pomsky parent dogs. It is at this level of hybrid dog breeding when you will start to see more uniformity in the puppies.
F3 and later generations will provide sufficient genetic diversity in the basic attributes that you can start to see how a new potential purebred dog breed could be in the making.
It is much easier in later litters to predict coat type, size, personality, energy levels, health, lifespan – everything that is important to dog owners.
True hybrid breeders will place the health of their new breed first over any other attributes. They will do genetic health testing on parent dogs and they will be knowledgable about canine genetics to select parent dogs with desirable attributes.
How to Overcome Pomsky Aggression
However, even if you select a Pomsky from a reputable hybrid breeder, there is always going to be a risk that your puppy may be genetically wired at some level towards aggressive behavior.
Here, the best way to overcome this issue is to work with an experienced canine trainer to help desensitize your dog to their aggression triggers.
Often by simply changing a few variables in your Pomsky’s daily schedule and home environment, you can ease stress for your dog and introduce more positive outlets for energy and interaction.
If you have a Pomsky dog and are experiencing any problems dealing with aggression, you don’t want to wait to deal with this issue. It won’t get better on its own. Working with an experienced dog trainer can help your Pomsky acclimate to family life.