In the Broadway musical The Producers, meek accountant Leopold Bloom sings about the “urge to merge.” As many chagrined dog owners know, canines also have the desire for deep, meaningful relationships. No, that’s not true. They really just want a quickie. Or at least, an attempted quickie.
Young dogs and old dogs. Male dogs and female dogs. Dogs that are spayed, dogs that are altered, and especially dogs that are intact (not neutered). It doesn’t seem to matter. It could be another dog, a throw pillow, or your mother-in-law’s leg. Some dogs just want to get frisky with it.
My dog, Todd, a neutered male Pomeranian mix, likes to hump my other dog Nellie’s little plaid dogbed, usually after he has had his evening meal. Not long after he finishes eating, he runs into the living room, does his thing with the bed, and then returns to the kitchen looking smug and slightly disheveled.
Some dogs – like brother Labradors Paul and Cooper – went through a humping phase during their adolescence. They took turns jumping on each other, barking the entire time. Marta Hildebrand of Auntie Marta’s Pet Sitting Services swears this would have made a charming YouTube video in the right creative hands.
Marta also told me about William, a Golden Retriever, who has his own special humping blankie. When he
gets that certain look in his eye, his owners let him have the living room to himself. They put classical music on the stereo, switch on the electric fireplace for a soft glow, and angle his blanket invitingly on the sofa. Then they tiptoe out so he can enjoy his romantic tryst in private.
Most dogs that are into humping, and being humped, by other dogs, are not as discriminating or discrete as William. Guiness is a Beagle, another Auntie Marta client, who lives in the same suburban development as Fairfax, a German Shepherd that easily weighs 100 pounds. Their owners get them together for regular playdates, giving Guiness many opportunities to mount Fairfax, who tolerates this for brief periods of time. He doesn’t try to reciprocate. In fact, Fairfax seems to expect this behavior from Guiness as part of their initial greeting routine. Their owners have stopped even trying to scold or separate them.
Marta knows a woman who fosters dogs who swears she once caught five of her charges forming a Conga line of humpers and humpees. If you add Donna Summer singing Hot Stuff, you can picture them – a Bichon Frisee, a Llasa Apso, a Yorkshire Terrier, and a Basset mix – working the number.
Is this a training issue? Besides the obvious sexual implications of humping, the behavior can also be interpreted as a show of dominance over the dog on the receiving end, or to the person attached to the victimized leg. It could also be the dog’s misguided attempt at an exuberant greeting. Whatever the reason, the behavior usually mortifies both the dog’s owner and the guest. The best bet here is to redirect the dog’s attention to a favorite toy, or ask him to perform an acceptable behavior such as Sit or Place.
On the other hand, consider a story a client told me. Her male pit mix Toby suddenly began humping her female lab mix Madeleine. Both dogs have been neutered for years. My client took the dogs to their vet for their annual well dog checkups and Madeleine was discovered to have a urinary tract infection. Was there a correlation between Toby’s behavior and Madeleine’s illness?
Then recently Toby again humped Madeleine, so my client brought a sample of Madeleine’s urine to the vet. Although she does not have an infection, the clinic suspects that Madeleine may have the beginning of a kidney disease. Toby’s behavior had led the client to seek treatment for her other dog.
We have all heard about dogs that sense when people have diseases like cancer or who are about to have an epileptic seizure. So, before you send your amorous dog to another room in disgrace, consider what he might be trying to tell you…
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