In terms of unwanted dog behaviors, humping is one of those that tend to be the most embarrassing for human owners. Whether your dog is mounting other dogs at the park or humping visitors’ legs when they come to the house, having your dog display this behavior can leave you feeling embarrassed and awkward.
The good news is that humping is a very common dog behavior, and you are not the only dog owner who has had to deal with it. It is also often a fixable behavior. By taking a bit of time to understand why your dog is engaging in humping and choosing the right steps to train them out of it, you can often control humping or eliminate the behavior altogether.
Reasons Dogs Hump
Despite what you may expect, humping is rarely sexual behavior among dogs, especially if your dog has already been neutered or is older. Instead, dogs most often hump for the following reasons:
- Showing Dominance
- Stress or Over Excitement
- Medical Issues
The cases where humping would be a sexual behavior most likely occur in younger unneutered dogs, which also comes with additional risks. An unfixed dog can impregnate another dog, requiring more supervision in public areas until your dog is fixed.
How to Stop Your Dog from Mounting
If you have been able to rule out a medical issue and your dog is neutered, you can start training your dog and creating an environment where they're less likely to hump another dog, a visitor, or a toy. This is easier to do when your dog has just started displaying humping behavior, but can be done at any time.
Some of the steps you will want to try include:
- Providing Mental Stimulation - Having chew toys and games readily available for your dog to engage in will help him use up energy and be less overstimulated when encountering visitors or other dogs.
- Basic Training - If your dog does not already know basic commands like sit, stay, lie down, and others, training these commands will help establish you as the leader, making your dog less stressed and likely to show dominance through humping while also helping them with self control.
- Redirection - Once your dog knows basic commands, you can have them stop humping behavior by engaging in a different behavior such as sitting, rolling over, or fetching a toy.
- Remove the Dog from the Situation - If you cannot redirect your dog or you have a situation where it is very important your dog not hump another dog or a visitor to your home, put your dog into his crate or another room for the time being.
- Remove Toy - For humping behavior that is directed at a specific toy, blanket, or another belonging, take the item away for now until you have the humping behavior under control.
If your dog starts humping in public, or mounts a visitor's leg in your home, there is no need to yell or get angry. Simply redirect your dog or remove him from the situation as you start working towards training out the behavior going forward, either on your own or with the help of a professional trainer.
