Hello, this is my first time posting about my 3 month old lab puppy, Hendrix. He is generally well behaved (for a puppy), although in the last 3 weeks he has started to jump on and or hump at other dogs. I know at his age it is most likely down to how excited he gets at meeting the other dogs, but I wanted to know if anyone else has had a similar problem? I was also wondering if this is likely to mean he will be quite a "humpy" dog when he reaches maturity, or whether this is a totally unrelated puppy phase (quite an embarrassing one). I should point out that it only tends to be bigger dogs, but I'm not sure if that is simply because they tend to tolerate puppies more than smaller ones and so he is naturally around them more. And so far it is only dogs that he humps, except for one lady who had 4 dogs at home (we thought the smells of them may have encouraged it). He has also recently started "displaying" his privates quite frequently over the last week or so, which again is probably down to excitement (though when it occurs seems fairly random). It is far from the end of the world, but it is an embarrassing and unwanted behaviour and not one I expected to have to tackle this early on! Any advice from an experience with a similar case would be really helpful.
Welcome to you I discourage any humping by luring my dog away with treats, just so that it doesn't become a habit. Kara at 11 weeks was a leg Humper! ...
I was very lucky had to mature dogs in home already. They policed this behaviour, he was informed by them that you don't do that so never developed the habit. He does hump but only 2 dogs Poppy the love of his life who is so beautiful so when he gets to excited we have to leave. I just take him away from the excitement until he realised if he did this we would go home. Rollo just plays and gets him overly excited so he is only allowed to play with him for a short time. Getting over excited seems to trigger it so I am careful not to let him get too silly
Willow humped her bed and a certain toy as a young puppy; I just distracted her from it and she stopped pretty quickly. Shadow went through a phase of humping Willow a couple of times a day, but, again, I would just interrupt the behaviour and he stopped with time. He's done it once in about the last two months now, when he was over-excited. He's only ever humped one other dog, their GR friend Judy, who has hip displasia, so I got him off sharpish and apologised profusely. Her owner said that loads of boys had been doing it recently; even though she's been spayed, she still seems to give out "come get it" smells at certain times of the year. If that's why Shadow did it, it's his first sign of any sort of sexual behaviour, so I'm keeping an eye out for the next time we meet a girl in season...
I've met a few with Rory now and hes very gentlemanly and I've been able to get him away and on his lead . A rather masterfully and very chubby Roti scared the life out of him with the come on the other night he lay down and wouldnt move. she was not demure at all a woman mountain of a dog we left the park and ran home
Shadow's met a couple of in season bitches and hasn't had any interest in them "in that way". This is the first time he's done anything like that, so I wonder if he's finally grown up...
So far Ted has only done that once, when we had a visit from a lady trainee guide dog. She was not impressed and he didn't try again. Now when he encounters other dogs outside he's very submissive in a playful way.
Thanks all for your advice, he still does it occasionally but we just stop him and discourage it and hope for the best.
Our has been a humping fiend the past week or so. Didn't know we should discourage it, just thought it was normal. Yikes, don't want it turning into a habit! Right now it's a particular bed, and other puppies he's met socialising at the vet's (he humped each and every one...not going back for next week's socialisation, don't think it's doing him any good, and he's already plenty confident - too confident!). Plus he was getting cheered on by the crowd
Bailey has only ever humped his soft toy (Eyore) which is always left at home - he does it when he's tired. When we first started walking him in a local park - he was about 12 weeks old then, a large black lab who was a year old tried to hump Bailey and it took the owner and both my OH and I to get him off Bailey - he was huge and very strong - Bailey was a bit shaken by that so I ended up carrying him for a while. Since then he's been wary of any other dogs (apart from ones he knows well) going round his rear end. He's only tried to hump one very old setter - who's owner was very sweet (as was the dog) and said it was just a rude way Bailey wanted to get the other dog to play - but that has only been once and he sees Bramble quite often now. As Eyore is at home it actually doesn't bother us, but should his affections move into unwanted areas we will distract him and discourage.
Some other dogs and some owners don't like humping and will tell your dog off in very strong ways if he or she humps them or theirs. Humping could hurt a small dog or one with a bad back, I mean the humpee could be hurt. I bought Oban his own humpee toy when he began at 9 weeks old and encouraged him to "Get Poppa." He has never, ever humped anything else. We don't mind him humping Poppa (a big teddy bear) but if you do mind it's still worth considering as some will encourage on an object like this, then fade the object. Or at least hide it when company comes.
