Hi, How normal is it for my 8 month old lab to constantly want to hump his pillow bed? I hope it's a phase.... He was humping his plush toys but we took those away. He seems to always find something to hump. I hadn't planned on having him neutered until he is fully grown if at all ....besides I've read that it doesn't solve the problem..... Thanks
Rhaegar humped everything at that age. It was really annoying but he kind of just stopped all of a sudden.
It's definitely not uncommon and isn't necessarily sexual behaviour. Girls do it as well as boys. If you don't want it to continue, just distract him every time he does it so he doesn't get to practice the behaviour.
My girls all hump toys and each other from time to time. I distract them so that it doesn't become a habit. The only pup I've had that didn't hump at all was Bruce!
Snowie has never humped anything other than other dogs. He is not neutered -- will be 5 years old soon. He was more "humpy" until two years old (humping other dogs in play and when his excitement levels went up, humping when he caught a scent of a bitch in heat/come off heat), but as he has matured, he has become dramatically less "humpy". His brother, when a puppy under 6 months old, humped his owner's leg, and her arm if she was lying down to the point where she decided the only way to deal with it was to neuter him. I only know this via email -- I never met her or Snowie's brother. She said that it was night and day: he didn't hump her after being neutered. I have absolutely no idea if she did any training with him (I am guessing not given my vague memory of how busy she was with her children at the time).
Mine, a girl and a boy, both started much younger than that. I bought the boy, Oban, a big teddy bear, Poppa Bear, and actually encouraged him to hump it, when Oban was 9 weeks old. Now, still intact at 9 years old, Oban has never humped anything other than Poppa, not other dogs, furniture or people legs, nothing. We don't mind his humping, which is most likely now after a meal or a good walk. Poppa is washable and can hide in a closet when company comes.
I wonder if humping is good for the abdominals? If so, I'd think it's a good thing - thinking of my Snowie's slipped lumbar disc. @Snowshoe what was your reason for encouraging humping the bear?
Thank you everyone! Distracting him from this behavior seems to work. Like Snowshoe, when we first brought Beau home, we had a little stuffed puppy complete with a battery run "heartbeat" to keep him company. We worried he'd miss his litter mates and mother and the puppy was there to console him. I had visions of him cuddling up to it during his naps. Wrong! He carried Puppy around, chewing and shaking it vigorously. We had to remove the batteries for safety. It only took a few weeks before the shaking also became humping. We thought it was very entertaining! To see this little guy vigorously humping a stuffed animal his size...well it was comical! But as time passed and Beau grew and continued to hump and generally terrorize Puppy (I had to sew him up several times) I began to put Puppy away and only brought him out once in awhile (he's currently on top of our fridge awaiting stitches). Beau is now 8 months old and he is 12 days post surgery for both OCD in a rear hock and elbow dysplasia in a front leg. We've had to keep him very confined...which has been very difficult on all of us. He recently has taken to humping his bed which we worried would be hard on his healing limbs....so we took his pillow away and that prompted me to contact this forum for a few ideas. His pillow is back and I now shake a little cup that contains a few coins whenever he humps the pillow. The sound seems to distract him enough for me to offer him a chew toy. So far, so good!! I really appreciate this forum! Everyone is so helpful
It's similar to something I read to do with cats about their need (some of them) to claw things with their back feet. Some like to wrestle quite aggressively, bite, shake and dig in with their hind feet and I don't like it on my hand and arm. So you give them a cat sized toy and encourage them to do it on the toy. Seemed a reasonable jump to give puppy a toy to hump. Oban does have a nice trim tummy.
I'm sorry then that Snowie never humped an inanimate object! I'm sure he has weak abs given his sagging tummy (not terrible, but his ribs show yet his tummy seems large) and slipped disc.
