Our almost 12 year old lab has recently increased humping our puppy that just turned a year old. What does this mean and why would now. I mean he has always done it once in a great while but over the last few weeks it's been way more. Our older dog is neutered our puppy is not yet does that have anything to do with it? Our puppy doesn't like it and will growl at him when he tries (mostly when he has his ball). anyways just curious why he would be doing this more?
Hi @mom2labs could be a manifestation of frustration (young dog moves so quickly and humping is a way of subduing her), boredom or attention seeking (has the young dog been getting attention? Do you give attention to the older dog when he humps?.
It is probably a way of the older dog 'reminding' the up and coming young dog, that he better not get ideas above his station - generated by his increased hormones and oncoming adolescence. People often assume humping is sexual, but often it is not. My old Weimaraner (female) used to hump our (younger) dogs - especially at times when they got too exuberant or took an item off her or did zoomies near her and didn't notice she was sleeping there...
Thanks that makes total sense. We feel bad because we know our older dog can no way keep up with our puppy. He has weak back legs but about 7 weeks ago we started rehab with him where he works with a therapist and he goes on a tread mill in water, we have seen improvement in his daily life and that is about when we noticed the increase, he's up more interacting more exploring more ect.
