A question for Husky owners...

[hobish]

We never owned a Husky, but we did have a Samoyed which is kind of similar in many ways.  She always smelled good too.
They have two different coats of fur.  The longer waterproof hairs on the "outside" and shorter, softer, fluffier, almost downy, hair next to the skin.
They really do not get dirty.  Even if they play in the mud, you can usually just let the mud dry and it falls right off those slippery outer layers of fur.  The br ee der and the veterinarian both admonished us not to bathe her unless it was REALLY necessary because it harms their skin.
Huskies are beautiful dogs.   ;-)

When I was growing up we had a dog with a coat like that. Rain would drip off of his outer fur almost as if it was oiled, and underneath his hair and skin were warm and dry. I didn't know huskies had that kind of thing.

[hobish]

Great...at a quarter til midnight I'm out on my porch sniffing Huskies. Good thing I don't have any neighbors close enough to see. 

Anyway, neither of mine smells like grass or flowers or anything - not too surprising, since I live in the desert. They do, however, smell a lot less "doggy" than the rest of the dogs.

And I agree with a PP that this thread is useless without pictures, so here is one of Dmitri, Ivan, and Brittany. (Brittany is an American Foxhound, not a Husky. But it's not like you can see her anyway.)

You have two? Cool! Didn't you post a pic of Brittany before? I remember a foxhound pic that looked a lot like a more muscled version of my Jayna-hound.
I don't have any pictures at the moment but i'll work on it. I'm still getting used to my new computer, even though i've had it for two months now.

[Surianne]

Bansidhe your huskies are gorgeous!

My parents have a mutt that's party Bernese Mountain Dog (we think) and he smells a lot better than most other dogs I know.  Ditto my uncle's Malamute.  Definitely something in snowdog coats that makes them smell nicer.  My childhood Golden Retriever stank to high heaven and was always banished by the family to my bedroom if she'd been swimming.

[cwm]

My friend's late husky always smelled like grass, but she used natural oils on him rather than traditional flea product, so I always attributed it to that. But I was very familiar with the smell, every time I'd show up at her house, he'd be by my side or on my lap. He wasn't like that with anyone else, but he absoultey loved me.

My uncle's Great Pyranees dogs always smelled good too. And boy did they ever have hair. I remember blowing coats and pulling out handfuls of hair. Rodney loved it, Karla tolerated it, but they both had a spring in their step when Sis and I got done picking out chunkies.

I second the velocity dryer comment. At the salon, we'd have huskies and malamutes that would come in once a year for de-shedding treatments when they were blowing their coats. The groomers would wear towels on their heads for the pre-bath blow-out and new towels for the post-bath blow-out. There was one giant malamute and we'd be able to collect enough hair to make a pomeranian every time he came in. The thing is, I don't remember short of being skunked that any of the double-coated breeds like that ever smelled really bad. Even the ones who lived outside all year, they'd just have a faint odor to them. It wasn't bad, it was just like the smell of outside, if that makes sense.

[hobish]

My friend's late husky always smelled like grass, but she used natural oils on him rather than traditional flea product, so I always attributed it to that. But I was very familiar with the smell, every time I'd show up at her house, he'd be by my side or on my lap. He wasn't like that with anyone else, but he absoultey loved me.

My uncle's Great Pyranees dogs always smelled good too. And boy did they ever have hair. I remember blowing coats and pulling out handfuls of hair. Rodney loved it, Karla tolerated it, but they both had a spring in their step when Sis and I got done picking out chunkies.

I second the velocity dryer comment. At the salon, we'd have huskies and malamutes that would come in once a year for de-shedding treatments when they were blowing their coats. The groomers would wear towels on their heads for the pre-bath blow-out and new towels for the post-bath blow-out. There was one giant malamute and we'd be able to collect enough hair to make a pomeranian every time he came in. The thing is, I don't remember short of being skunked that any of the double-coated breeds like that ever smelled really bad. Even the ones who lived outside all year, they'd just have a faint odor to them. It wasn't bad, it was just like the smell of outside, if that makes sense.

.

Really? Great Pyranees dogs smell good too? I did not know that, and it's good to know. I've gotten used to great amounts of dog hair everywhere already and I love being able to have big dogs.