So I have a husky who is a very nice dog but he has a obsession with tennis balls. If i ever throw a tennis ball at him, he gets it and lays down and starts chewing on it. If any dog/human goes near him whilst he is doing that, he either bites or growls. How do I stop this? I want to teach him to fetch

Does he love fetch? Have you tried playing with 2 balls? Does he bring back for treats?

My adive would be this.

#1 The growling when you come near him to get the ball is guarding. It's a bad possessive behavior and your going to need to work on that before u play fetch honestly. Does he guard his food if you try to take it away while feeding? You need to establish that you can take things away and he needs to understand its not a bad thing. Try baiting him away from the ball by exchanging another toy instead, or baiting him with a treat and taking the ball away to give him the idea that it is GOOD to release the object. If the food is also an issue, take away his bowl mid feeding, calmly and assertively, until he gets u can take it away but he will get it back.

#2 Fetch. Huskies are notorious for being hard to train to play fetch, sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't, sometimes they don't even go get the ball. We trained nova with HIGH value treats, treats your dog will do anything for and begs for. You need to find out what that is, every dog is different.After that, you give them a high value treat, then slowly over time train them to get the ball, and call them back with a recall command, then give them the treat again when they bring the ball back. That's how we did it. It's not perfect, but it worked well for us.

Here is a video of Nova doing fetch - we used boiled chicken as our high value treat. *Note he is only 9 months and we have been training fetch since he was 4 months.

It sounds likes he's being possessive, before even going to fetch I would work on trading games and getting him used to letting you take things, none of my dogs growl or bite when I take anything from them, even food or high value treats. I think your first step is getting him used to taking things away.

How do I make it 'calm' when I take his food away?

First I would perhaps take him on a walk or do some mental stimulation to tire him out a bit and get him a bit more calm. In my opinion it's easier when they're not over-flowing with husky energy. Give him the ball, and have a treat or another ball ready. Then distract him with the treat/ball, and take the first one away. Repeat with this trading game a few times (mind you, this probably won't resolve in one day, multiple sessions will be needed) and just do these trading games until you can take the ball away without him snapping or growling.

My puppy started guarding a bit recently and I have found something that works pretty well with him. It seems to have pretty much nipped it in the bud with only a few training sessions. Although, I plan to continue to make sure I don't have any issues down the road, and because its fun. I first noticed the guarding with a pig ear. For our first session, I did what Megan suggested and wore him out a bit, so he was content to lay down and chew. Then I gave him a pig ear and left him alone for a few minutes. When he was just getting into it. I sat down on the floor in front of him and had a handful of his favorite treats. He shifted his body and head so he was guarding the pig ear and didn't growl, but I know if I had reached my hand out, or pet him, he would have growled. So anyway, I just toss one of his treats in front of his nose. He saw it bounce and sniffed it, and froze for a second. He let go of the pig ear and reached out to eat the treat, and then went back to chewing. I did this a few times, until he basically abandoned his pig ear and was giving me the "I'm a good boy" look. Each time, I waited until he went back to the pig ear before I tossed another treat his way. This way, he knew he would always get to go back to the thing he wanted. After he started ignoring the pig ear, I got up and ended the session. Then once he got back into chewing, I sat down in front of him again and put his favorite treat in my hand and held it out to him. He growled and shifted his body to guard again, until he realized I had the treat and then took the treat. Over about 5-10 min I worked up to taking the pig ear, treating, then giving back the pig ear. He also knows the command 'off' which is basically let go, or spit out what you have. I also worked on petting him while he was chewing in the same way. After that he would tense a bit, but doesn't get defensive or growl when I would pet him or approach when he's got something he really likes. Now he looks up to see if I've got anything, or sniffs me when I start to pet him, and goes back to chewing, thankfully staying relaxed. I think its important to always give back the item he's guarding because he learns that you taking it isn't the end of the fun.

Just came back to this thread to check. wpskier is right, this is a good way to get rid of the trait, by distraction, and eventually they will look to you to let them have something or not. It needs to be reinforced alot, as with all husky training. Reading body language is really a big part of husky ownership. Spend time, adopt a routine, and reinforce the good behaviors. This pretty much goes with all things you want to accomplish, not just guarding. They get bored and tired of doing the same thing over and over often times, so if you keep them busy learning, even if its something you arent really focused on yourself, it helps overall. While working on the guarding issue, you can always establish a baseline of "alpha" or dominance, by rewarding, learning new tricks, teaching new things. This all helps strengthen the bond and gets them to feel comfortable with knowing that you can give them what they want, at anytime.

thanks guys. I'll try it next time I get a tennis ball