Humping not dominant?

[TobysFolks]

I put this in the health care forum because I do not necessarily believe it is a training issue.

We have two dogs in the household one 6 year old female cocker who has been spayed and a 2 year old male mastiff that has been neutered for over a year.

Now Toby the Mastiff has always had a fondness for Daisy the cocker yet Daisy wants nothing to do with Toby.

Often when she walks by him he gets this crazy look on his face, he tries to go up to her and start licking her hind quarters. To this 99% of the time she growles and or snaps at him, causing him to jump back w/his tail between his legs. The other 1% of the time she does let him lick her.

When we tell him to stop he will usually lay down and moan and whine for a few minutes, then he gets up goes into the room w/his bed and starts to hump it.

She can sometimes just walk past him, send him into the zone, and he will then go into the room w/his bed and hump it w/out even attempting to go near her.

Basically to me he is acting like a teenage boy who can't get the girl so instead of getting to hump her, he goes into his bed and masturbates because he knows full well that he is not going to get satisfaction any other way.

He does not do this when my brother's male cocker comes around.

If you could see him it really doesn't seem like dominance it just looks like pure lust and sexual frustration. Furthermore Toby is not dominant w/her any other time, nor is he dominant w/any person.

Is this scenerio medically feasible? With two animals that have each been fixed? I've never in my life had animals which were not spayed or neutered so I do not know what is standard behavior for them when they come into heat or when they try to do the deed.

Any suggestions? Right now I'm tempted to let him continue to try to hump his bed... it tires him out and seems to stop some of the frustration. I don't know what else to do because he literally moans like he is in pain otherwise.

Holly

[Athe]

This doesn't sound like any dominance issues to me ;) I get this so often at the boarding kennel, neutered male dogs that come in with their humping blankets/beds :D This dogs just like to masturbate, and I see it most often when they get excited. Instead of jumping all over people or getting rid of excess energy in another way, they found humping to be their default behavior when they get excited. It's basically thier way of blowing off steam in a way, most of the dogs I see that do this excitment humping are nuetered hyper males. I rarely see intact males hump their blankets, but, I have had a few opportunist intact & nuetered males try to humpl me while changing water buckets...what can I say, I am a sex object to some of these dogs...LOL :D Even these dogs are not dominant, it was just an opportunity they didn't want to miss. haha

I wouldn't be to concerned about it, the best you can do is to teach a new default behavior. I had one customer with a randy Lab that she taught to pick up his toy and bring it to her for a game of fetch instead of humping his blanket. This worked perfectly for her, now, I know when he is really excited as when he is in for boarding and gets much too excited he picks up his toy and paces with it (some times he will air hump).

I find people throw around the work "dominant" much to quickly to explain some behaviors of dogs. All the males I have met that have this bed humping behavior have been docile, laid back, submissive dogs.
The times I have seen my dogs (only my females) use humping behavior in a threatening manner is when they have been trying either to calm down another dog (young dog gets playing too rough, my females have humped them in order to calm them down). Or, when my intact female starts to come into heat, all my dogs including the females get excited and start humping her.

[TobysFolks]

Well we got rid of the bed. He managed to rip it apart while doing the deed. So now he officially has nothing to hump and hasn't. He's just been terribly whiny...

Athe, thanks for the reply though, it helps to get another point of view on these things.

Holly

[Athe]

Your Welcome ;)
I had to laugh as I see this so often at the boarding kennel. Dogs coming in with their humping blankets which they hump when they get excited. Most often these dogs have started this as a default behavior when they get soooo excited and want to release some tension. :)

[Ratboy]

My old Beagle was a "rug humper". He was very dominant, and wasn't neutered. He did it a lot, but one night my sister had a party for her Sorority sisters and apparently many of them were having their periods, because my dog tried to hump them all, and when they wouldn't cooperate, he went and humped his rug. We were all drinking, and thought it was hilarious. The look on his face was great, he would glare at us, while humping the hell out of his rug, and us laughing at him seemed to anger him.

The funniest things he did that night was when one of the girls had been stood up by her boy friend, and she was drunk and blubbering about it. She was sitting on the floor and Farfel comes up behind her and grabs her around the neck with his front legs, and grabs her hair in his mouth and starts humping away. She can't get him off, and she's laughing and crying at the same time, and finally, I go and pull him loose. He had "finished" all over her back, her bra hooks made a nice "friction" point for him. I had to give her one of my sweatshirts, as she was "too big" on top to wear any of the other girl's tops, while she waited for her stuff to wash and dry. After that night, he would try to hump her every time he saw her, grabbing her by the leg if he couldn't do any better. I think the perfume she wore got him hot.

Then a little while later, one of the girls had her nightgown on, and was passed out drunk on the floor, and he "ran up" her nightgown and found what he was looking for! She screamed, and sat up, and started smacking him. He backed out, ran for the rug and humped it several times, while glaring at us the whole time. We stopped counting at 75 humps that night.

My Lab would masturbate about 3 times a week or so, jerking wildly when he finished. He always seemed confused as to what was happening, but kept doing it till almost the end.