Humping only in the backyard during "stay" training

[Chamo]

This might have been discussed in the past, but I couldn't find any.

Chamo is a 6 months old, male labradoodle. He was neutered about two weeks ago. He doesn't hump anyone inside the house, but when we do training outside, he humps on me. More specifically, it's when we practice "stay" and I go out of his sight. He stays good up to a minute and a half as long as he can see me. I can walk 50 feet away, picks up branches, makes noise with squeeky...he stays like he should.

I walk away and go out of his sight for more than 5 seconds or so...Chamo dashes toward me. I attempt to bring him back to the same spot to repeat this exercise, but on the way back, he humps me from behind. I raise my knee up while saying "no." It lasts about 5-10 seconds, and he stops.

My husband does not really do training, and he hasn't done any in the backyard, so he's never been humped in the same situation.

Before getting neutered, he humped on both of us when excited. The first time was on my husband when he was playing Band Hero and rocking like a rock star :P He did hump on me once in a while when playing fetch outside before neuter, but he hasn't in the past month.

Any theory on why Chamo does this? And how can I stop this?

Oh, I don't know if this is relevant, but his "lipstick" comes out mostly during training with me (is my training method too sexy?)

I'd appreciate any comment! Thanks!

[Adina P]

Haha...my dog Rosco's lipstick would come out during training too.  I don't thing the fact he is humping 'means' anything or that you have to figure out what it means.  The point is he broke his stay and he needs to be corrected back into position.  So theory or no theory on 'why' -- I really don't think it matters one bit.  He still needs to learn to sit and stay until released.

Can you explain more specifically where you go out of sight and how far away you are when you are out of sight?  Also do you use physical corrections like collar pops/leash pops or do you just walk him back to where he started?  What about if you walk around behind him, will he turn toward you then?  Might just need to break down the exercise to even smaller parts that you can praise and build on.

[Chamo]

You're right---no need to really figure out why. It just seems like his thing comes out when I am acting more authoritatively, like a tough boss. I thought he might stop humping on me if I tone down on my training approach.

I walk away maybe 70+ feet away from him to go around the house. I am still in my property (not walking across the street or anything). There is a tree in the backyard, and I can hide behind the tree while Chamo sits 10 feet away from the tree. I'm guessing it's because he knows I'm behind the tree, he stays there fine.

He's on a 50 feet leash whenever he's in the backyard because our yard is not fenced in, so he's on this leash during training as well. I walk away out of the leash zone (or the leash is on the other side of the yard), so I don't get to correct him when he breaks his stay. After all, I go to a place where I can't see him, either, so I can't catch him in the moment he breaks his stay. When he comes toward me, I walk him back to where he was (meanwhile, being humped by him a couple times).

When I walk behind him, his head turns around so that he can keep me in his sight, but he doesn't move his position.

At every meal time, I place him on stay, and I walk to the other room with the door almost shut. He can't see me, but he holds his place. It's probably because he can hear me getting his food into his bowl..etc., letting him know that I am there.

Can you explain more in detail how I can break down the exercise?

[Adina P]

I agree with Carol, you are doing particularly well! But I would not do out of sight stays yet. Try to increase the duration of his in sight stays. Whenever you increase one aspect of difficulty make it super easy in other ways. Stand just a walking leash length away and move to 2 minutes one day. 2:30 the next and so on. No distraction for those, just building time/endurance. I'll write more on an easy way to teach out of sight stays later.

[Adina P]

Another thought is keep working in-sight stays till you reach 5 minutes.  Finally do you have a leash on him during stays?

[Chamo]

I definitely need to work on a longer stay for sure. Even inside without any distractions, he can keep his stay only 2 minutes at his best, and that is not always so.

This is the first dog in my entire life. Do you know how long we can reasonably expect a six months old doodle to hold a stay?

[Adina P]

As long as he's been trained to hold it :) So probably with continued work 5 min by end of January with some distraction!

[Carol Brand]

I think your STAY work is going very well, but you are jumping the gun at this stage by moving to out of sight stays.   The fact that he breaks tells you that he is not ready.  I'd increase the duration of your on leash, in-sight stays and ad distractions like other dogs and thrown toys etc.  A fun proofing exercise is to put your dog in a SIT on your bed and make them hold it for 5 minutes.  Almost every dog will try to lie down at some point.

As far as the humping goes, it sounds like the humping is a response to being excited.  He gets worked up when you go out of sight and the humping comes out.  If it happens, I'd correct him HARD and let him know that it is totally unacceptable.

[Chamo]

Adina & Carol,

Thank you for advice. I will work on longer stay without distraction first. Good to hear that I was on the right track with the stay training. I hope the change in training content stops him from humping altogether (fingers crossed)!

[Adina P]

Let's see if I can describe it accurately. I have a video somewhere in the training group...I'll try to find that too.

This is how I train out-of-sight stays.  At the point we are ready to start this in training my dog has already learned to 'heel' correctly (albeit not perfect or 'done' refining it) and will stop and sit automatically in heel position when I stop walking.  And he will do this out at a park with moderate distractions around.

I use a building or fence to for this.  So I will walk along the side of a building with dog in heel position between me and the building (dog is on my left side, building is on left side of dog).  When I get very close to the end of the wall, I stop.  I give my dog the 'stay' command, I walk around the corner of the building still holding the leash.  So at this point the dog can NOT see me, but I am JUST around the corner and only a 6 foot leash away.  I wait 10 seconds then return to the dog.  I heel him along the next wall and repeat at each corner.  If he does all four corners well I will increase to 20 seconds.  Then 30...over the course of several days I will make it a minute or two.  In that time I might add in a distraction or use a distraction already out there in the park or wherever I may be working.

Now in that first time you're doing this since you're holding the end of a 6 foot leash, the dog really can't get too far away.  You can feel or hear the MOMENT he gets up and can jump out there and correct.  If at the end of the 10 seconds you return to find your dog still sitting, you genuinely praise your dog and repeat at the next corner. 

I use his method of training and it works REMARKABLY well if you follow it precisely.  It provides a wonderful systematic step-by-step way of getting to both excellent on leash obedience and off leash obedience.  Each step builds upon the previous step and comes together for a very well trained dog if you finish the whole program.  As long as you don't add or subtract or elaborate much, it is unmatched in my opinion.  Plus there are tests all along the way to guage the dog's readiness for the next section so you only move at your dog's speed. 

In any case the method of training I use involves a choke chain and corrections given with the leash.  Early on in stay training the dog is taught how to understand each correction and how to avoid each correction by doing the right thing.  I would highly recommend  this program if you are doing it on your own or prefer to. 

[Adina P]

Here is a video of Boca learning this:

Ideally you would also set up a mirror in a tree or have a friend watching who can signal you if your dog breaks the stay.  I didn't have that option readily available so I didn't use it.  But one thing you want to be is consistent.  And you can see in the video Boca angled herself and bent down a bit far early on...but I couldn't see it so I didn't correct it as I should.  And I say "should" because when I train stay I don't allow the dog's head to dip below the shoulders...this prevents sniffing and turning around, etc.