Bella is the 4th husky I've had. She is 3.5 months old. She loves eating napkins and paper towels. I've never had a problem with this before... I need to remove these from her mouth before she shallows them and as of recent she has started to growl. We have now been very careful and not let her get any as of late....Last night she took the sponge from the sink and went under the table and I went to retrieve the sponge, she growled, showed teeth and snapped at me. I don't want this behavior to continue. Please help us!!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!  

Sierra is a paper hog and loves all forms, the DROP IT command really works for her. I can not really tell you how i started doing it, maybe i would say DROP IT and pull it out of her mouth?... anyways something to start on. she is growling cause she does want it and knows she should not, do not put up with it.

and as you know, try your best to keep it out of reach!

Welcome to the forum. First a lot of huskies love paper products, I think they like the sound it makes when they shred it, ha. You need to start the commands "Drop It" and "Leave It" then praise when they do. It's a form of food guarding, redirection to something they love toy or treat will help as well. as Jennifer said I believe I would take away and redirect while giving command. Good luck

Renee is right, she is resource guarding because every time you take it away, she gets nothing in return prompting her to guard her new fun toy. Just find something MORE fun or yummy to get her attention, use the Drop It command and replace the paper with the new appropriate chewy.

Thanks everyone!!! I appreciate the quick responses! We are in the process of teaching her tricks and simple commands. I tried the suggestions immediately when I got home from work today. She is being a brat and it's taking a lot of convincing to make her drop it and leave it. She wants the treats so bad but the stubbornness in her like all huskies makes it difficult like no other. Any suggestions what to try as far as training goes to help speed this up? We are worried about this and need to fix this quickly to not have an altercation with other dogs.

Start with drop it and at the same time take it, if she drops it give her a little treat. As far as training use a toy she likes and start with sit give toy, while in a sit say drop it, if she does give little treat, you may have to help her drop it, if she lets go in a nice manner give little treat. Are there still huskies in the home? If so they will teach her to eat out of her own bowl, haha. Just kidding, you may need to feed her separately for the time being.

I'm also a big fan of hand feeding. Sit at her level and hand feed, this builds trust and respect. It also gives her the idea that you're in control and not her, pack leader. Trust me when I say my girl had every husky issue known to man and has turned out a great girl. If you're not familiar or need more understanding, just give us a shout.

Renee

There is no such thing as a quick fix, you just need to keep up the training of drop it and leave it, it is a husky after all!
Do not give in to her at all.

Well said Jennifer   

The first command Dizzy learned was 'off.' Essentially for him, it's the same as leave it and drop it combined, it translates to 'get your mouth off that.' You will need to set aside dedicated time to working on this command. Trying to train it after she has already snatched a napkin will not work, and only make her resource guarding worse, it will also completely undermine her trust in you, which will pop up in other issues down the road, especially related to grooming or vet care. You have to make it a game for her.

Here is how I trained it:

1. Use her dinner time/evening meal for this at first. Put the kibble in her bowl as usual.
2. Take her to the area you normally feed her, but put the bowl on a table or somewhere out of her reach but easily within yours while kneeling on the floor.
3. In one hand reach into the bowl and grab a handful of kibble (if she's anything like Diz was at that age, she will be acting like a nutty land shark at this point).
4. In your free hand, take a couple pieces of kibble, let her get a whiff, and then make a fist. She will be licking, biting and mouthing your hand at this point.
5. Don't make eye contact with her, don't say a word, give her zero input and just wait while she tries to figure out how to get the kibble out of your fist.
6. Eventually, she will get to a point where she gets confused and takes her mouth off of you. The millisecond she does, calmly and quietly say 'yes' and give her the kibble, still no eye contact at this point. Even if she just takes her mouth off to try and get a better angle to gnaw on you, the moment the contact between her mouth and your hand stops, say 'yes' and zing her with the kibble.
7. Continue this until the time it takes her to stop mauling your fist starts to decrease to just a few seconds before she takes her mouth off of you, or she stops all together and looks at your face (still no eye contact).
8. Once she is at this point, add the command word you want to use (leave it, or off), so she sees the food in your hand, noses or licks your fist, you say 'off' she stops licking, you say 'yes' and zing her with the food. Feed her all of her meals like this until she makes the connection between the command word and getting her mouth off of you. Hand feeding also builds trust and helps with bonding.
9. Next step is to work on putting the kibble on the floor and connecting the command word to leaving the food on the floor alone and only eating it when you say 'yes' or 'okay.' The next step is to do the same with toys, bones, and other objects, working up to the paper towels.

As both Renee and Jenn said, this process takes time, and until you focus on this each experience of having something taking away will only add to the resource guarding issue. You need to give her something great every time you take something from her. When Diz was at this stage, I had little dishes of tiny treats all over the apartment, and treats in my pockets so that if I had to take something from him, there was always something within reach to give him. If you don't it will just create a bigger issue down the road.

It also sounds like you need to do a better job of puppy proofing your home. Think of her in the same way you would a human toddler. Would you leave out shiny marbles, or magnets and expect an 18 month old not to put them in her mouth? Hopefully not! Think of your puppy in the same light. Yes, she need to be trained not to do those things, but you also need to cut her a little slack and limit her access to everything. If she can't go in the bathroom without eating the TP, keep the door shut. If she gets in trouble every time you leave the room, tether her to you and take her with you.

She will outgrow a lot of this puppy stuff, but you have to be patient with the rate she matures. Some puppies are awesome at a young age, and some are devils. Diz was a devil. When I accepted that he was just at a certain stage, and stopped making an issue out of everything, he began to naturally mature and leave those puppy things behind.

At this age, training needs to be focused on trust building and calmness. As she cognitively matures, you will be able to change the rules and increase your expectations and she will grow and adapt to become the dog you want. She must learn to walk before she can learn to run.

In the sponge under the table situation, the best thing to do would be to get some cheese (or something she loses her mind over) and toss it under her nose without making eye contact. Once she realizes what you have something way better than a sponge, she will most likely totally forget the sponge exists. Squeaky toys help in this situation too. They have the attention span of gnats, so it should be pretty easy to lure her away from the sponge. This way she learns two lessons over time, 1. lady has best treats/toys ever 2. i have no reason to protect things because no one else wants to take them away. This way, she is walking away from the item and it loses its value to her. It's just a boring old sponge but you have that yummy/squeaky/fun/entertaining thingy she loves. Try not to actually take something from her unless it's actually a danger. I wouldn't let her eat a sponge, but a napkin or two won't kill her. Eventually you can work on trading games, but she's a little too young cognitively for that and she doesn't trust you yet.

Thank you Jen for giving the step by step hand feeding. I curbed a lot of Miya's bad behavior doing exactly what Jen illustrated. Unfortunately Miya would go for harmful items beyond sponges and paper, they are fast and will eat anything, i.e. staples, I had to grab and give her something else. We were building our house and she would find building material all the time no matter where I put it, unless it was placed high enough and in a spot she couldn't figure out how to jump and land. The hand feeding is a life saver, the other day she found a dead mouse and husband went to grab it from her and the guarding and growling ensued, he yelled for me, I instinctively said Miya drop it, she did, Miya leave it, she ran to me and sat on my feet, husband disposed of mouse. The hand feeding aspect has built such a bond and trust between her and I she will do anything I ask, not so much for hubby.

I'm so glad I found this site!!! Thank you for all your suggestions and we appreciate all of the responses so much!!!! We started hand feeding her tonite and it worked great. Trust, time, patience, and dedication is the right way to start with her! All of you know so well that they look so innocent and adorable to the general public and they have no clue how smart they really are and mischievous pets!

If now she would just leave the cat alone and not think the cat enjoys her tail being pulled by her razor sharp puppy teeth lol

We're here to help, just ask. We'll try our best. Trust me your hard work will pay off. My girl is the love of my life, We have so much fun together, and still has manners. lol