Humping :(

[Tamara & Giada]

Okay, Giada is an 11 mointh old fixed female and she has started to hump the last couple of weeks. I have NEVER had a dog that was a humper, and quite frankly thought it was a male behavior.

I know her exercise has been very little due to the holidays and the terrible storms we've been having, so could this be an outlet to her pent up energy??

What do we do??

[Carla, Lucca and Izzy]

Our female golden retreiver used to hump the cat all the time..and he let her!!! I've been told it's an alpha thing. Lucca humps but he's only 14 weeks and not fixed yet. We'll see what happens after he's fixed.

[Tamara & Giada]

I've heard that too, although she has always been submissive to us and our older dog. Why now??

[Cam & Oski]

De-sexed dogs, male or female, will hump other dogs & it's usually a dominance thing. Oski has never really been a humper, he did it briefly as a puppy around 4-6 months, but lately has been humping other dogs. He was neutered at a little over 4 months & currently is almost 15 months old. I've been told that when they get around the adolescent age they'll start humping & are less responsive to commands that they knew previously--the terrible teens, LOL. What we do is when he's humping another dog (he doesn't try it with us), we make him stop--clap right next to him, tell him no firmly in that I-will-not-take-any-other-response-so-you-might-as-well-stop voice, & if that doesn't work I'll go up to him, make sure he can see me & pull him off the other dog. I'd be really careful about pulling him off another dog from behind where he can't see you because sometimes that can scare them--they think they're being jumped on from behind by who knows who & they can pin the dog beneath them & start barking aggressively out of fear.

Oh, & apparently females can also mark territory just like male dogs too! Talk about equality of the sexes :^)

[Mary, Scrappy, Sully and Olive]

Scrappy is going to be two in March and she has always humped this really huge stuffed grizzly bear that we gave her....never anything or anyone else............quite strange. If she did this to other dogs or people, I'd really have a problem with it. We just let her be, as I figured it was some sort of dominance thing and as long as she sticks with grizzly, no one minds. Grover, at 7 months and neutered will sometimes try to hump one particular gorilla he has and will occasionally take a turn with "grizzly" if he sees Scrappy doing it ;) Makes for some very entertaining evening and like I said, if it were other dogs or people....I'd would try to discourage it.

[Kelli, Fenway, & Dustin Pedroia]

My girl has humped ME three times when I was covered up with my blanket (also evidently her favorite blanket, I think she thinks it's hers!). I firmly told her no and she has not done it any more since then. That was about a month ago when she was about 6 1/2 months old. Hope it's gone for good.

[Wendy]

My Rosie humps both my kids--ages 6 and 8. She's 4 months now, but has been doing it since we got her. I read in a puppy book to pull them off, express your displeasure, and not give them attention for 15 minutes. We haven't done this consistently (the no attention part) and she keeps on humping. From what I have read, and what I know about Rosie's other bad behaviors toward the kids (mouthing, jumping on them, nipping), it is her attempt to dominate them. Does anyone have any suggestions that have worked?

[Tamara & Giada]

We had to teach my son to rol her on her back and sternly say"NO" to her............this worked wonders. Although he is much older than your kids.