# Humping Issue



## murphy1 (Jun 21, 2012)

Anxious to hear the responses.


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

My friend has a black lab who does this to Max - she's never bitten but she grabs on tighter the more we try to get her off. She's relentless, we pull her off and she's right back at him - to the point where I severely limit their time together, he won't defend himself and I worry about his hips. Max is a humper himself, but this is seriously bad - so I'm also anxious to see the responses.


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

I've always tended to let our dogs sort it out for themselves, while supporting the resident dog. We've introduced several dogs into our household over the years, and this approach has always worked.

However, when we brought Duster, our current pup, into our home last year, it was a bit harder. Our resident dog was my daughter's 6-year-old toy poodle. He weighs about 10 lbs., but in his own mind he weighs 75 lbs. and is king of the world. He was outright nasty to Duster: snarling, etc. And Duster was a very "in your face", playful pup. After consulting our trainer, we applied our usual method and let the poodle "manage" the situation, while keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't hurt the pup. I will admit that three months in, I was starting to get a bit desperate. There were periods of brotherly love, but they were interspersed with longer periods of nastiness on the part of the poodle. Duster never seemed particularly upset by it. 

Our trainer was right: it was ok in the end. They're sharing a bed under my desk as I type this. Duster has a fairly soft personality and has always accepted the poodle's "corrections" well. I think it might have been harder if he'd challenged the poodle, but he never did. They play together now, share a water bowl, and so on. Duster is even allowed into the poodle's kingdom (my daughter's bedroom). We don't take chances - their food bowls are separated at different ends of the room, for example. The poodle will occasionally defend his position (on someone's lap), but he understands that this means he has to get down, so he does it less and less.

In your shoes, before you do anything at all, I'd be inclined to consult a trainer you trust, who has experience with this type of thing. It may well be that the behaviour will go away once the dust has settled. If I understand your post, the new dog doesn't object to the humping, and the only time your existing dog has hurt the new dog (biting his scruff) has been when you intervened: that, to me, would be an indication that direct human intervention may not be the best approach here. But I'm not an expert.

Best of luck, and let us know how it goes. These things can be tricky.


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## Lennap (Jul 9, 2010)

ceegee said:


> Our trainer was right: it was ok in the end. They're sharing a bed under my desk as I type this. Duster has a fairly soft personality and has always accepted the poodle's "corrections" well. I think it might have been harder if he'd challenged the poodle, but he never did. They play together now, share a water bowl, and so on. Duster is even allowed into the poodle's kingdom (my daughter's bedroom). We don't take chances - their food bowls are separated at different ends of the room, for example. The poodle will occasionally defend his position (on someone's lap), but he understands that this means he has to get down, so he does it less and less.
> 
> In your shoes, before you do anything at all, I'd be inclined to consult a trainer you trust, who has experience with this type of thing. It may well be that the behaviour will go away once the dust has settled. If I understand your post, the new dog doesn't object to the humping, and the only time your existing dog has hurt the new dog (biting his scruff) has been when you intervened: that, to me, would be an indication that direct human intervention may not be the best approach here. But I'm not an expert.
> 
> Best of luck, and let us know how it goes. These things can be tricky.



Thanks I am sure this is right, but it is so hard not to intervene when you think your puppy is being hurt! So far it has been a week of love - interspersed with two ugly humps always towards the end of a play session. She tried again a few minutes ago and I just said off and she got off.


I am working with a trainer, but it was too late last night to call, and too early this morning when I posted.


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## Lennap (Jul 9, 2010)

laprincessa said:


> My friend has a black lab who does this to Max - she's never bitten but she grabs on tighter the more we try to get her off. She's relentless, we pull her off and she's right back at him - to the point where I severely limit their time together, he won't defend himself and I worry about his hips. Max is a humper himself, but this is seriously bad - so I'm also anxious to see the responses.


Your case sounds way more extreme than mine - Have you tried water bottles? Also I know they are controversial, but if the dog is trained on an ecollar that would probably work wonders.


Good luck!!!!


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

Lennap said:


> Your case sounds way more extreme than mine - Have you tried water bottles? Also I know they are controversial, but if the dog is trained on an ecollar that would probably work wonders.
> 
> 
> Good luck!!!!


I'm ready to try that with her! Part of the problem is she's not my dog, and so I'm limited in how much I can correct her. Her owner is the sweetest lady in the world, but she's just not strict enough some times with Layla! My solution has been to keep them apart as much as I can, but I think I'm going to start with the spray bottle. I worry about Max's hips - she actually takes him down sometimes.


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## puddles everywhere (May 13, 2016)

Occasionally I would get a "humper" visitor, we did the keeping apart but the tension was affecting all the other dogs and creating issues with other dogs that were never there before. 

I put them both on 4' leashes and started walking. 1st with them on each side and keeping them close & under control, as they began to get tired I held them on the same side and kept walking. When I say walk, I mean a Dog Whisper.. brisk, no stop walk. I must have lost 5lbs that day! But the more tired they got, the better it was. By the time we got back they were so used to each other and their smells.. or never wanted to walk again? Anyway, no more problem. Neither dog belonged to me so was limited on choice of corrections. This one pair was there for 3 weeks and after the walk it never happened again. So sometimes just a power walk for several miles can do wonders. Not sure this will work with everyone but worth a try.


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