# Humping & Marking...questions regarding 9mth old



## Walnut_the_Nut (Jan 25, 2012)

Hi All, 
Looking to get some advice for our almost 9 month old puppy. We're having three issues:

*1. *Last week I got an email from our dog walker. He said he noticed our pup trying to hump another dog for the first time. He said he'd keep an eye on him in case the humping got excessive. A few days after that email, a friend came by and we went for a walk around the block. Walnut got super excited for some reason and started humping by buddy. Now yesterday, we were playing fetch outside and after about 15 minutes, he randomly started humping my leg. He did hump when he was 8.5-9.5 weeks old, but we put a stop to it very quickly. He hasn't humped since… until now. 

*2. *I noticed last week he lifted his leg. It was funny because he almost toppled over because he was trying to lift on a downhill. I've seen him lift only 2-3 times, but he does seem to be marking. Over the past week, I've noticed him squat and pee 2,3 sometimes 4 times on a 30 minute walk. Sometimes he'll pee right away when I take him out, and walk down the street, and he'll pee again (just a small amount). He doesn't have any health issues. The marking started around the same time as humping. 
I know the rule of thumb is to wait till 18 month to neuter, but I don't really want to burden my dog walker with humping. I've asked him to stop him from humping whenever possible, but realistically, he's got 5 other dogs to worry about. 

At 9 months of age, is it safe to neuter? He doesn't show any aggression at all. Just humping (3-4 times since last week) and marking seem to be the issues. He's still growing. He's a little over 60lbs right now, and our previous vet estimated he will be around 75-80lbs fully grown. He still looks like a puppy, which makes me think it's too early to neuter…but I also feel like the humping and marking will stop once neutered. 


Lastly, the 3rd issue:

*3. *Every time he gets excited, he runs to grab a toy and then comes to play. We taught him this when he was 8 weeks old. We used to get home and he would get so excited, he just kept biting us. So we gave him a toy as soon as we took him out of the crate, which took care of that problem. To this day, anytime we let him out, he first goes to his toy box, gets a toy, then comes to say hello. That's great. But the problem is, when a toy is not present, he quickly looks around to pick something up to put in his mouth, and ends up finding his leash. He doesn't chew it, just like to hold something in his mouth. He only does this when we bump into people he knows, when we let him out, or when people approach him to pet him. How can I stop him from picking up his leash? 

Otherwise, he walks nicely (his nose at my heel), listens very well, poops on schedule (same time every day), growing at an excellent rate, and my vet loves him. We've never had any other issues with him. He's also doing pretty well with not pulling when he sees people he knows (we walk backwards when he pulls, so he realizes the more he pulls, the longer it takes to get to the person to say hello). 

Any ideas, thoughts, comments?


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I'd neuter him.

Not so much because of the marking (if the dog is housebroken, not an issues) or the mounting (which can be corrected and stopped). 

But because you have your dog being walked by other people around other dogs... there's that lack of control as to the behavior and training of your dog. Means that you could be correcting the behaviors on your part, but your dog will be posturing (not even mounting) around other dogs and so forth. 

My golden is intact and the guys before him were as well, but there are responsibilities and extra handling that needs to be done. I would not allow people to take my dog out with a bunch of other dogs, dog parks would be an absolute no, etc...

The third issue is not an issue at all. Some goldens just need to have something in their mouth when they are excited. My Danny would have to have something in his mouth to make his happy-grr noises, otherwise his nose/lips/face would do this crinkling thing and he'd just snot at you instead of grring.


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## Visitador (Aug 12, 2011)

Cody is nine months old today and is scheduled to be neutered tomorrow. Reason, exactly what Megora said. He goes leash free with a dog walker. Although he does not hump, other (female) dogs have started noticing his smell and sometimes balk at him.


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## Walnut_the_Nut (Jan 25, 2012)

Thanks for the replies. 

*Does neutering generally put a stop to this behaviour?*

I agree with the comment regarding the dog walks. Our walker is awesome, and i'm sure he would keep our dog on leash if he felt it was required...but I wouldn't want to put our walker or the dog through that. Our walker is a family run business, that is against vets recommendation to neuter large breeds at 6months...but they never mentioned what age they thought was appropriate. 

Maybe I should send him an email ask what he thinks??? 

Honestly, I just don't want the humping to become a 'norm'. It was pretty embarrassing when he started humping my buddy's leg.

All other behaviours I can train/manipulate, but I dont' even know where to start with humping! Specially because I may not be the one witnessing the action, and my walker isn't familiar with clicker training.


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## ashleylp (Jul 23, 2011)

Humping and marking do not go away with neutering. To teach him not to hump you need to be extremely consistent... NEVER let him hump. The second he looks like he's going to, tell him "off" or "leave it". then interrupt if he continues or begins to hump.


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## Walnut_the_Nut (Jan 25, 2012)

Some good news. 

We've been working on not letting him mark, and so far, we've seen some good results. Just a few weeks ago he was marking 2-3 times on every 45 minute walk. 

Recently though, he hasn't tried to mark much. I've caught him 2-3 times this week (on leash), and interrupted it. I feel like we may be able to completely stop him from marking on walks. He's not as attracted to scents coming from grassy areas as much...and these are the same areas he would repeatedly mark. 

As for the humping, our dog walker hasn't mentioned his humping getting any worse. I did catch him humping at the park, so I stopped him right away, and put the leash and immediately left the park. He was pretty upset about that. 

We're still going to get him neutered. We may end up getting him fixed in Sept... making him 11 months old. 

Hopefully that's not too soon. He's growing REALLY slow physically, but has matured so much over the past 2-3 weeks. He's much more focused - even with other dogs/distractions around him.


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## Willow52 (Aug 14, 2009)

We never had an issue with Hank humping but did with marking. He'd lift his leg on anything vertical; blade of long grass, bushes, trees etc. One day right before his first birthday he lifted his leg on our granddaughter's bed. I was right there to stop him and made his neuter appointment for a few days later. He had never lifted his leg before in the house and never again after that one time. After his neuter he stopped focusing on marking everything while outdoors.


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## Visitador (Aug 12, 2011)

FYI: We got Cody neutered (at nine months). The healing was quite fast. He only had some pain on the night of the operation. One aspirin took care of it.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

My boys, George and Mick were neutered in th 8-9 month range. George, so he wouldn't breed his mom or sister. Mick was neutered because he was starting to mark. Neither has orthopedic issues.


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