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Female Mounting? Dominance or sexual?

4K views 33 replies 12 participants last post by  Carolinek 
#1 ·
I am at my wits end 😅 and it’s only been 3 days. Bella is nearing her 11th month birthday. She has been getting along with our new puppy, half sister Paris (4 months). But now we have a problem. As of 3 days ago I’ve noticed Bella has started mounting Paris. I’m not happy about it.
Bella has been spayed since she was 6 months so I really don’t understand what’s going on. Does anyone has any advice to curb this behaviour? I’ve been telling her to stop it but i want it gone completely.
Am I over reacting? Is this normal dog behaviour? Is she trying to tell Paris she’s the top dog?
All incited welcomes please 😣.
 
#4 ·
Gracie did it her whole life. And, like with barking, scolding does nothing except possibly make it worse.

You can try to avoid the situations that precede it (e.g. getting over-excited ) but I've never seen anyone successfully eliminate this behaviour.

Will be interested to hear what others have to say.
I don’t know what her problem is 😩. I was literally standing there looking at them and suddenly she hopped on Paris and I gave her the mom ‘look’ and she hopped off. Ten seconds later she was back again 😡. Generally Paris fights her off but since Paris was looking at me she wasn’t aware until it happened.
 
#31 · (Edited)
I like Whole Dog Journal for behaviour and training advice:
I really like that Whole Dog Journal Training article. "The longer your dog has practiced his mounting behavior, the harder it will be to change. It’s logical that the sooner you intervene in your dog’s unacceptable mounting, the better your chances for behavior modification success. "
And - you Can change the behavior. Every time you let it continue it reinforces it.

.... like with barking, scolding does nothing except possibly make it worse.
You can try to avoid the situations that precede it (e.g. getting over-excited ) but I've never seen anyone successfully eliminate this behavior.
Totally agree -- scolding is about the worst training method I have found ! It is definitely negative attention.

I taught my Spoo not to bark, and not to hump. So it is possible. There are good pointers in that article.

Spend most of your time with your dog doing thoroughly enjoyable activities, doing behaviour modification training, .. and respond immediately to the humping by separation and total lack of attention.

With barking I always responded with the first bark by jumping up and saying "show mommy" and following him to see what he was barking about, talking with him about it, and then thanking him. I know this sounds ridiculous :) But when I jumped up at the first bark he quit immediately and led me to the door or the window.

The only time I have a problem is when we stay with my sister for over a few days. Her dog barks at everything, and all she does is yell his name over and over. Bark, bark, yell, etc. It is almost like they are barking at each other. By day three my Spoo is joining in, and it takes a few days when we get home to get him back on schedule.

Last week I was very tired and instead of getting up and saying 'show mommy', I just laid there and asked him to be quiet. He waited a minute, gave one more bark, I asked him again and he just gave me the strangest look - like 'What is wrong with you?' but ambled over and laid down with a big sigh. I almost felt guilty as I did hear someone on the porch.
 
#6 ·
While I do see it happen a lot in play, Gracie didn't reserve it for those occasions. In fact, years ago, as we were all gathered around my infant niece, Gracie decided it was a good time to hop onto that poor baby!!! I was mortified.

Thankfully, that was the only time she ever did it to a human. She mostly did it to her "baby brother" (another poodle mix) whenever he was getting attention, or to any dogs that were playing excitedly. She'd rush in and snarl, grab a mouthful of hair, and run away......or hump.

Did I mention she wasn't very well socialized with other dogs?? 😂😂
 
#8 ·
Oh dear Gracie 😂😂😂. That was not very nice.
I hope Misha doesn’t regress either.


I hope Paris grows up soon then. It’s a bit unnerving to see my two little baby poodle sisters humping. While I understand dog world is different my heart is unhappy.
Although this will most likely be a fruitless effort I’m still willing to try and get her to stop this behaviour 😩. It’ll be even more mortifying if Paris learns and practices it.
Hoping for the best.
 
#9 · (Edited)
My girl Sass chose a loose back pillow from a bergere chair. Fortunately, she limited her activity to the living room. We'd be in the family room and hear the heavy velvet covered down pillow hit the floor and then it started. She did this thru the rest of her life while still physically able. No idea what her motivation was.

You're asking about girls but to compare, my boys did it to each other til almost a year old. They pretty much stopped before they were neutered. I don't know how long it was before I realized that I hadn't had to tell either one to Get Off Your Brother! in weeks. I think it was just play/dominance when younger then maybe a bit sexual as they were maturing, but still mostly play/dominance.
 
#10 ·
As far as girls humping, I tend to think it is a somewhat dominant move. Stella, whom I've only had 1 year, was totally submissive to Zeke for the first several months. Then after a while, when he would do something dominant to or towards her, anywhere in her direction, now she goes and gets a plushie toy and goes at it like a bunny lol. It's gotten pretty common for her to do that. She's never done anything like that with Oscar, but her toys pay dearly.
 
#12 ·
I’ve been visiting a friend in the country for exercise, and encountered humping in her 25 pound American Eskimo. It’s kind of amusing to see this tiny thing attempt to hump a 26” male spoo. My boy is having none of it and corrects her every time. On our third visit she still hadn’t learned, and I’m okay with letting my dog do the correcting because of his size. The smaller dog has been through several homes and perhaps there’s something in her past that led to this. She does’t have other canine visitors. Otherwise, they seem to play well together.
 
#13 ·
This is completely normal behavior. It is often part of play and it can be a sign of being overly excited. The only dog that has ever done a lot of humping in our household has been Lily (spayed bitch) with 2 intact males (but mostly Peeves and mostly when they were both puppies).
 
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#14 ·
Thank you for all your insight guys! After thinking about it and talking to other people I now see that Paris started this 😂. So she traps what she sews. I’ve been better at stopping it before it happens so we’re getting somewhere (I hope).

We just had a play date with a spoo (5 years old and spayed). Out of nowhere she started trying to hump Paris 😅😅😅. She’s known Bella since she first came home and NEVER tried that so I don’t know what’s going on. It’s a crazy world over here in poodle town.
 
#21 ·
Oooh Zoe is a little boss 😂. I’m shocked that with Opal being so big she would allow that.


You're going to need a Hump Police t-shirt, I think!

Just remember: If Bella gets your attention every time she humps Paris.... Well, you can see where that might go, right? So proceed with caution. ;)

Being the extreme mommy’s girl that she is she does not like negative attention 😅. She gets sad and goes under the bed for a while. But I’ll definitely keep an eye out to see if it becomes attention seeking behaviour.
 
#22 ·
BellasMomZ, there's an old saying that goes: It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. Over many years of having multiple house dogs, I have frequently had a small dog who ruled the roost. One of the most interesting was a female whippet who had such an enlarged heart that she could only eat very small amounts of food, so she was very, very skinny. Her ribs, backbone, and hips protruded. She was so skinny that I usually had a dog sweater on her to ward off rude comments. That old whippet would show just the tip of a canine tooth and the other house dogs would toe the line. She was a funny old girl - lived to age 15 in spite of her condition.
 
#23 ·
So nice to hear that she lived so long. Sounds like she was definitely the head hen in the roost 😂. I’m certainly interested to see his this goes with Bella and Paris. I have a feeling they’ll be fighting for that spot for as long as they live.
 
#24 ·
I honestly don't think I understand why you think it needs to stop. If the humpee is not happy they will tell the other dog to knock it off. Once Javelin reached sexual maturity it so happened that Lily had a UTI so she smelled unusual to him and he thought her scent meant she would be receptive to his efforts. He approached her while we were all lying on the bed. She was involved with a stuffed toy. He was hovering over her not sure what to do since she din't get up or flag him in anyway. I thought about "rescuing" him from what I knew was coming, but didn't since I knew she would tell him with much more clarity than I could convery that he shouldn't try anymore. She whipped around and gave him her most reactive corrective snarly face and immediately went back to her toy and he jumped off the bed utterly flabbergasted. He has never tried to mount her again in the subsequent 4 years.
 
#25 ·
He’s a quick learner. Paris is a sweet girl but we’ve noticed she has a bit of a temper (with Bella) and occasionally is aggressive when it comes to toys and playing. Although she fights off Bella most times when she tries to mount, I’d rather not foster behaviours that result in her being reactive since we wouldn’t want that reactivity to be further developed n the future.

I can’t correct her for defending herself; but it’s translating into other things between them. So I’m just trying to do what I think is best 😩
 
#26 ·
Oh I get it then, but remember micromanaging such relationships is nearly impossible since you can't realistically (but must) manage every bit of their relationship. Our two males have issues that we won't leave the consequences of to chance, so unless closely supervised they are always on either side of a gate or one is inside and the other is outside since we like to relax and not to micromanage every little thing. It doesn't sound like they want to kill each other (and I know people who have kept multiple dog homes where this was the case), but when I have clients where the dogs are red zone with each other that some dogs just need to be only dogs in their homes.
 
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#33 ·
Our tiny poodle never mounted other dogs but she would go nuts with her lambchop toys.:LOL: At first I'd take the toy, then as time went on I just let it happen. when she wanted attention she'd try to straddle someone's foot, everyone thought she was gonna hump them but she never would, she was faithful to lambchop only. lol
 
#34 ·
I haven’t had experience with this, other than occasionally with young dogs. I did just have an strange experience with Gracie this weekend though.

Gracie is a young spayed dog. She was spayed at 13 months but never came in heat. I brought her for a play date with my friend’s cairn terrier. He is intact and she is a breeder so he has been used for stud. At first they played, then he tried to hump her, repeatedly.

Gracie’s response was to run away from him and zoom around the yard with a toy. He didn’t chase her, but he is seven and she is a very fast, young poodle. She didn’t correct him either and at one point just rolled over on to her belly in a submissive move. They both seemed kind of confused by the whole thing, and my friend put him in a crate for a bit to calm down, which helped.

I probably will get them together again as the play part went well and I am good friendS with the dog’s owner. I assume they will figure it out, and eventually she will tell him to knock it off. I admit that I had to stifle my first response, which was to tell him not to be assaulting my girl! I reminded myself they are dogs after all.
 
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