The Truth About Humping

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

http://www.michaelbaugh.com/?p=347

Lots of dogs hump.  For people who live with those dogs, it can be embarrassing and upsetting.  We humans aren’t comfortable talking about things related to sex, especially when our beloved dogs are being indiscreet in front of guests.  For many of us, dogs are cute innocent “babies.”  I guess now is a good time to remember they’re also animals, and animals routinely practice behavior related to their own survival.  That includes sexual behavior: humping.

From: Houston PetTalk Magazine (October 2011)

What baffles a lot of people is that dogs hump in situations that have nothing to do with reproduction.  I have a client whose 4 month old female puppy humped a stuffed animal.  We caught our dog Stewiehumping his bed.  Dogs hump human legs.  Doggie daycare professionals deal with humping dogs all day, males and females, neutered and spayed.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.  What’s going on here?

I asked trainer educator and author Jean Donaldson (The Culture Clash, Train Your Dog like a Pro).  She zeroed in on Fixed Modal Patterns.  Those are the behaviors all dogs share related to fighting, fleeing, feeding and reproducing.  She said, “All of the Fixed Modal Pattern categories are present in play.  That’s what play is.”  Social animals, including dogs, routinely play fight and play chase. They even pretend to stalk and hunt, so we shouldn’t ignore the idea that humping might be play sex.  However, that may not be the whole story of humping.

While humping is common in play groups and day care settings, it also occurs in other contexts.  Some dogs hump people and inanimate objects.  Sugarland Veterinary Behaviorist Dr. Lore Haug says most of the time humping is “merely a nonspecific sign of arousal.”  Trainers and day care counselors agree.  Dogs get wound up or nervous and they hump.  Pamela Johnson is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer in San Diego.  Her dog used to hump her leg during training sessions.  She videotaped the behavior and noted that the humping was caused by excitement over training and frustration when the lesson got difficult.  Still, identifying what sets off the behavior doesn’t fully answer the question: Why humping and why not some other behavior?

We should keep in mind that anything our dog does regularly is reinforced behavior.  The dog is getting something out of it.  For example, dogs who wrestle or chase during play are reinforced by other dogs who enjoy wrestling and chasing.  Similarly, dogs might enjoy the attention they get for humping.  Humping may also relieve a dog’s anxiety in an uncertain social situation.  It may just be pleasurable.  That pleasure, says Dr. Haug, “obviously would come under the sexual category.”  So, we’re back to that uncomfortable subject.  Regardless, all of this information leads us to some good ideas about stopping humping.

Make humping no fun and not a big deal.   This really means we need to control our own behavior and not react when we see our dog humping.  Don’t accidentally reinforce the behavior by freaking out.

Control the Dog’s environment.  In the case of the client’s dog who was humping the stuffed toy and in the case of our own dog humping his bed, we simply removed the objects of their affection.  People who work at doggie day care facilities calmly and gently remove a humping dog from its playmate.  In all cases, the dog can’t practice the unwanted behavior anymore.

Teach the dog a better behavior.  For the client’s dog and Stewie we replaced humping objects with more appropriate enrichment toys (Kong Toys and other treat puzzles).  In daycare, counselors might direct a humping dog to a less disturbing play behavior.  Trainer Pamela Johnson greatly decreased her dog’s humping by interrupting it and taking a short break from training.  She held and petted her dog until he calmed down, then she returned to training less-frustrating tasks.  In all cases, the handler is teaching the dog to do something other than hump.

That’s the bottom line really.  Stay calm.  Interrupt the humping.  Encourage the dog to do something else, anything else.  I might choose some of those other Fixed Modal Pattern behaviors, like a game of tug, or fetch, or even some nice quiet time with a chew toy.  The humping one – not many of us really want to see our innocent little dogs doing that.  Sure, it’s normal animal behavior.  But don’t forget, we’re only human.

Houston Dog Trainer Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC is the director of training and behavior at Rover Oaks Pet Resort. 

Originally published in Houston PetTalk Magazine, October 2011.

Watch Michael’s interview on Fox 26 Morning News on “Humping.”

[Adina P]

Sounds reasonable.  Although I wouldn't stop my dog's training that moment for fear he might learn that humping gets me to quit demanding anything of him.  I'd work through it, correcting if the humping is about him refusing a command and then end on something successful and THEN call it quits for the session.

[F, Calla & Luca]

In other words we really don't know why dogs do this. I still think dominance may be part of it , Kuca humps Calla but rarely and never vice versa. At any rate I tell him firmly, "No humpty dumpty" and he stops. Works for me.

[Adina P]

If dominance were taken out of the equation, couldn't it be possible that Luca just LIKES it more and it's more his thing?  Also he's still a male even if a little less than he used to be ;-)  I guess I still have trouble with it being a sign of "I'm the dominant one here" as much as "I'm more interested in taking over in this way".

[Christine & Camus]

I'm still not clear on the issue of humping.  Some dogs seem  to hump to show dominance and/or in response to a dog showing fear.  Camus has never been a dominant, but he recently started to exhibit the humping behavior towards one dog and only this one dog.  I don't know why, but the owner told me that it happens to his dog all of the time.  Is it possible that pheramones have something to do with the behavior, even in the case of altered dogs?

[Barbara B., Sasha & Oliver]

Interesting..... The article says remove that item... well what do you do when it is you that she humps????  Sasha does a very strange thing with humping.  She is 2 years old, spayed and every single time I sit down at the dining room table she jumps up, puts her arms around my waste and humps !!!!  I always calmly push her off and say NO !!!  At times throughout my meal she will quietly walk by and then jump up and start humping again, and she really holds on tight too !!!  I always just push her off.   This is so strange becaue she does not do this to anyone else just me.  I always thought it was to dominate me.  She has never humped Ollie or anything else just me when I sit at the table, this has been going on since she is like a year old.  I had Shih Tzus, both spayed females and they would hump each other, toys, beds etc. but never humans.  Ollie has only humped Sasha maybe twice, he is 18 months old, neutered, when he humped her I just told him to stop and he did.  I can't figure this one out !!!

[Adina P]

I would probably give a firmer/stronger correction to deter her.  Sounds like she has developed a habit of this and it will take her really wanting to avoid the consequences to get her to stop.

[Barbara B., Sasha & Oliver]

Thanks Adina, yes Sasha has developed a habit of this ...arrrgghhh.  Any suggestions on what I can do to make her stop?  99% of the time when I sit at the dining rm. table it is to eat and I know she is not after the food b/c I never, ever feed them anything from the table and most of the time they just lay at my feet but before Sasha settles she gets in a few seconds of humping-LOL.   What would you do in this situation?  I am at a loss except for telling her a firm NO which she listens to that but then the next day she is right back doing it.  Sasha is extremely smart and catches on to commands and training really well except for this :( 

[Chamo]

I'm new to dog training/behavior correction, but if she's good at following commands, how about giving her a command (ex. sit and stay) "before" you sit down at the dinner chair? If you haven't done any training in regards to this specific behavior, I would start from doing a 10 minute or so session of you sitting down and standing up. As with any training, treat her for staying away from you.

I've been working on teaching Chamo to give us space when we are eating. If Sasha can't get close to you at the dinner time, then she can't hump you!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Thanks for sharing this.....Guinness is my "humper" and I realize I may be making too big of a deal out of it.

[Pat and Traveler]

Trav exhibits humping behavior only with his blanket or occasionally some other piece of material, and only if the blanket or material is held up.  This doesn't really bother me--if he hauls his blanket over to me and I hold it up, he hugs it and humps a bit then goes on to something else.  I'm just glad he isn't interested in humping other dogs or a person's leg!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

None of my dogs humps as a rule.  However, when we were fostering Sundance, both Ned and Gordie (our Springer) would get so excited at Clancy and Sunny's wrestling that they would jump into the fray and hump Sunny.  So I think their humping was totally related to extreme play excitement.