OK I think I might have jinxed myself when I responded to a post this week about puppy blues, saying how settled everything was now. My boy has (for want of a better word) always been humpy, from when we got him at 8 weeks old! He is an easily excitable dog and despite all appearances not very confident (it took me far too long to work that out). He still has a tendency to hump any new dogs - boy or girl, although this has be decreasing rapidly and he hasn't tried to do it to our Springer girl since he was tiny. But just this week he's tried it twice, the first time I put it down to excitement as we I was doing some indoor clicker training and both of them got very giddy. But tonight all was calm I was lighting the fire with my Springer girl stood calmly next to me and next this he leapt on her. So my question is do dogs have a second rush of hormones at around 2, I could swear I'd read that somewhere but I can't now find anything about it. I love him to bits but in all my 20 years of dog owning I have learnt the most from the big daft boy.
My dog (who is desexed) humps things when he's excessively tired or bored. Thinking about the times when your dog does this do you think that's a possibility?
My neutered boy humps when he's overexcited in play. We discourage it. He was humped by his one year old, intact playmate last week. He doesn't care.
My boy Shadow humps Willow when he's over-excited - normally before or after a walk, or if they'e been playing. It's not sexual, just excitement.
Dogs hump because they have learnt that it makes them feel good - think about it . As we know with our training what gets rewarded gets repeated. Humping is self rewarding. They are in an aroused state when they perform the behaviour so excitement etc can trigger it.
I read a wonderful article on why dogs hump. If you google words to that effect it should come up. I forget who wrote it. It presented different reasons for humping - was very enlightening for me. I'm pretty sure dogs go through developmental phases due to physiology - I've not read studies but logically it makes sense based on what humans go through. I don't know if there's a surge of testosterone at two years. But I'm finding of late that my 5-year-old intact boy is mounting young intact males. And it's not in play or over-excitement; I think he wants to dominate them, which is a brand new phase for us. However, if an aggressive male has a go at him, he backs away and does not take the male on (had that today on our mountain walk: a husky with battle scars on his face and an angry owner who shouted at him for being aggressive towards Snowie, and thankfully Snowie came back to me and then ignored the other dog when we passed, while the owner was restraining him). Does your springer tell your Lab off? If a dog tells Snowie off, he listens. I wish they'd all tell him off; would make my life easier instead of having to physically haul him off.
My intact boy (2.5 yrs) also humps when he's overexcited. And it does seem to come and go in phases. He'll be very humpy for a few weeks, and then nothing for a month or two. I wonder if even as an adult his testosterone levels fluctuate. But, if neutered dogs and even bitches hump, it might have nothing to do with testosterone. Mine also listens to dogs who tell him off, and remembers which ones will put up with it...
Sorry for the delayed response, - he'd been fine since and hadn't bothered her at all, unfortunately she doesn't tell him off that's why we have to step in, if a dog does tell him he always backs off and won't try it again - WELL that was the case but this week he's apparently been a pain for his dog walker, she's just dropped him off with the words 'when are you having him done!' (I don't know any more details as I'm at work but I'll ring her tonight to find out). It's knocked me back really I thought we were over that and really didn't want to have him done yet as he's been a lovely boy otherwise. Also he does it to boys and girls and it's always been in excited situations with new dogs, once he meets them again he gets over it and is fine. I think I'm going to talk to my vet about it (Sue Armstrong - a holistic vet) and see if she has any ideas, I would consider using the implant on him but we have only just sorted out an immune problem he's had so I'm loathe to introduce a load of chemicals to his system. OH what a worry they are. Thanks everybody for your responses.
I feel your pain. Neutering is not a quick fix I hear all the time. I wouldn't know cos Snowie isn't neutered. But I was often asked - with judgemental tones - when I was neutering him. You will hear on this forum that it's all about training training and more training! Snowie's brother was neutered at 10 months and I believe he is still a crazy puppy (he's five years old!) although I believe he's never mounted another dog - he's submissive but also very friendly and adventurous. Don't feel forced into a decision. Give yourself time to think about it, weigh up your options, and get opinions from people you trust.
All my pups have humped - except Bruce who is the only boy. Zaba - an entire boy who stays with me a lot never humps. All four girls have been humpers! Mollie has just started I discourage it by distracting them. ...
I've just found an old thread from it would seem, 2009, that has some excellent advice. It confirmed that I'm going to have to work out the reason for this behaviour first. Unfortunately I think it's because of reason 2. As below, which makes me a bit sad, the bit I've highlighted is true of him and my Springer is a naturally timid dog, she's a rescue that was terrified when we got her and wouldn't interact with other dogs, she come out of her shell completely now and ironically it was him that's helped her with this and we certainly have never allowed him to behave like this to her or any other dog, but a nice prat sort of sums him up. I still have my suspicions that day care didn't help with his early interactions with other dogs as well! Dominance/Pack place Confusion - Goodness me this is a very variable reason. Truly dominant dogs do not hump other dogs. The reason being they do not have to, they KNOW where they are in the scheme of things, top of the tree. I stress this is amongst CANINES. Their place in the human pack is another topic completely. Dogs are sensitive creatures, they *sense* a lot from an approaching dog even when a rumbustous *teenager*. A truly dominant dog will either be ignored or submitted to by a little token sniffing, usually with ears and tail down as soon as they realize they are in the ‘presence of greatness’. For a truly dominant dog to hump another or BE humped is generally a very bad sign indeed as this is a dog challenging him which could well result in a fight. However the truly dominant dog never wishes to fight because anything that might show weakness is a very bad thing and any fight is there to be lost. SO what we have in ‘Mr-Hump-A-Lot’ for THIS reason is a confused soul who really does have a touch of the village idiot about him. By walking up to a strange dog and leaping on, male or female, he risks being attacked immediately. This is an immediate admittance that he doesn’t have much of a clue about dog behaviour. It also shows he IS trying to be ‘dominant’ as such but is failing miserably and therefore is only a ‘wannabe’. He is WAY too ‘open’ in his actions and desire to dominate the situation to ever remotely try and be a pack leader. This behaviour just wouldn’t happen in the wild because he would be shot down in very serious flames hard enough by any dog he tried this on higher in the rankings than him to be memorable. Any dog LOWER, which is WAY more likely from ‘Mr Wannabe’ because when all is said and done its ‘easy’ to pick on the ‘little guy’, would just submit to the humping, but he would only be DOING it to selectively challenge, NOT pointlessly to a dog randomly met of any old ‘ranking’ as occurs in the park in domestic dogs. ‘Mr Wannabe’ on paper, needs to try and hump ‘Mr Truly Dominant’ to give him the clearest of clear ideas this is a B-A-D I-D-E-A, but firstly they rarely DO go for MrTD, and secondly ‘Mr (domestic dog) Wannabe’ doesn’t really understand about ranking or he wouldn’t be humping. Something you often tend to find is the ‘Mr Wannabe’ is either a single dog or the only entire male in a household. Multiple dog homes tend to expose pack and natural behaviour enough to have all dogs very quickly understand it. The second sort of household that ‘Mr Wannabe’ lives in is one with poor human leadership and/or a dog within it that is a real lightweight pushover who literally BEGS to be regularly humped by his fellow dog-mates by way of his very submissive nature. Mr TD is a dog to respect and generally a joy to live with, Mr ‘Wannabe’ is a bit of a pratt that often you can’t help but love because he tends to not mean any harm by it, but can create a LOT of bad feeling on his humping great journeys outside the home ;-) Sorry for the long post.
Thanks snow bunny, I'm glad you said that because that bit made me feel really sad, I'm not perfect but I do think after having dogs for the last 20 years I'm not that bad. I've just heard from his dog walker he's seems to have reverted back to his terrible teens, jumping two stone walls to see another dog today! so we are all taking it back to basics, long line for him and more work on recall etc
I agree with snowbunny. It's based entirely on the idea that everything a dog does that we don't like or is a bit rude is because they are trying to be dominant, and in this example, trying be dominant but not very good at being dominant. In what situations does he hump other dogs? I think there are three sorts of humping, there's 'omg I'm so excited so I'll hump you this is such a fun game' and 'ahh this girl is really interesting'. The third I've noticed between my dog and other entire dogs is a strange interaction where their bodies are stiff, the other dog puts his head over my boys shoulders, both are very still and then the other dog starts to hump. The stiffness of it all, to me, shows that this interaction is a challenge, not play or over excitement. Mine doesn't do this to other male dogs, he avoids them if they approach him slowly with their whole body stiff. If your dog is wiggly and excitable, which from the sounds of it he is, then it doesn't have anything to do with "dominance". Humping is totally normal behaviour for dogs. I know how annoying it is when you want to go for a nice walk, and your dog is totally rude and humps someone else's dog, and you have to apologise and get your dog! But you haven't done anything wrong by not being a good leader, he's just being a normal dog.
Perhaps I haven't done the thread I took that from justice by quoting that one bit but it was actually a more balanced article and the bit I've quoted is only a tiny bit of a huge piece. When reading the whole thing what did help is that it actually talks of it being a combination of different things, as you've said lucky dog. Yes he is a highly excitable dog, his vet described it as going from 0 to 100 in seconds (apparently his immune system is the same) and coupled with that he isn't very confident, despite him seeming to be, so for example when training if he makes a mistake he can't cope - so if he runs in on a retrieve then realises his mistake he just go loony running off with item doing huge circuits then dive bombing me - changing to our lovely trainer has stopped all of this and things have been calming down nicely. But just in the last fortnight and even more in the last week he's been reverting back to his hyper behaviours the humping being the one that I've noticed. And just this morning on questioning my OH has said that he's bogged off a couple of times on walks, I wish he'd tell me these things when they happen. So now I've started to put all this together it doesn't seem to be just a problem of humping it's a problem with his whole behaviour - I'm guessing we've let things slide in training, which makes sense I've had an injured foot for 4 weeks so haven't been able to take him out on walks (really training with a bit of a walk) so although he's not had less exercise, my OH I'm guessing has reverted back to what he always does ambling along leaving the dogs to do their own thing happy with the occasional check in. And his trainer hasn't been available since Jan. I've rambled again but writing it down and discussing has helped me see a bit clearer, it's back to basics now I think we might have this training lark cracked by the time he's 6
Your dog sounds a lot like mine!! Our trainer said that some dogs don't cope well with stress, and stress can be positive things or negative things. So, a really exciting event causes release of the same hormones as a stressful event. Then when stressful or exciting events come close together, the body doesn't have time for the hormone levels to come down, and the levels of stress hormones keep increasing. It's called trigger stacking, and is usually used to describe dogs who are fear-reactive, but it also applies to dogs who get easily overexcited. I was told that if he is overexcited the best thing is to just walk him on the lead, and play calm games like hiding treats for him to find. We also practice stays when he's feeling excitable, because it helps him to relax. I also try to limit how often he gets to play with other dogs, and have found that this helps with his excitability with dogs. Usually if we meet dogs I let him say hello and then leave straight away. He gets a chance to have a proper run and play a couple of times a week. He's nearly 3 now, and in general his behaviour is becoming more steady - but I also joke that we won't be able to relax on a walk until he's 10!
