I don’t actually remember how I found out about this Husky cafe in Melaka, I think it might have been via social media, but I made a note of it in case I ever had the chance to visit Malaysia. The Huskitory is more than a Husky cafe though, it is home to a number of Siberian Huskies (and a couple of honorary huskies) from a mixture of backgrounds. Some are best-of-breed show dogs and others have been rescued as part of the Huskitory’s vision of building awareness of the breed and the bond between dogs and humans in a country that traditionally doesn’t view dogs the way we might in the UK.

As the Huskitory is about a 20-minute Grab ride out of Melaka, I booked ahead earlier in the day to make sure I wasn’t going to be turned away. They have a cool booking system via WhatsApp that made it very quick and easy.

The first part of the Huskitory experience is meeting the huskies in their dedicated room. This isn’t the cafe which makes a lot of sense when you have a pack of very energetic dogs that would end up either stealing your food or knocking it all over the place. The sessions begin and end at given times so that the huskies have a good routine, and we were given a short briefing before the dogs were let in to the room. As soon as the doors opened they came bounding in to the room running around everyone and knocking into each other and the tables, a phenomenon the staff like to call the “Husky Tsunami” – a very appropriate name! Then we had about an hour and a half to meet them, learn about their different personalities, feed them some snacks and enjoy plenty of lovely cuddles. The staff were great at making sure everyone felt comfortable with the dogs and you could tell that they have a very strong bond with them and discipline them fairly, not letting things get out of hand.

After the huskies were taken to have their dinner, we had time to go upstairs to the Champions Gallery where there were displays with more information about the Siberian Husky breed as well as the various awards that their show dogs have won. There was also a little shop selling plenty of Huskitory themed soft toys, t-shirts and more.

The entry fee for the Huskitory included a free drink and a small discount on food and drink in the Akira cafe just a short walk away, so I decided to head there for my dinner. I enjoyed a lemon tea and yummy carbonara and afterwards I spent some time with the two dogs that were relaxing in the cafe.

The Huskitory was a highlight of my visit to Melaka – everybody needs cuddles once in a while and travelling solo can be pretty cuddleless as you can imagine and so I loved getting to hang out with these beautiful furry friends. It was totally worth making the trip to Melaka!