Mounting or humping in dogs is most generally not about sex, according to experts. Oh sure, if you have a female dog in season and an unsterilized male dog humping on her, then yes, it is evidently about reproduction.
But in today's well-mannered society, a number of dogs are being neutered and spayed, and unspayed female dogs in season are often kept at home safely by their responsible owners.
So why do dogs hump on things, you ask? Puppies begin mounting each other in their early years, and if it is not trained out of them, the behavior can develop into a habit or indicate a serious health issue. Let's talk more about dog humping and know what's behind all of this bumping and grinding.
Animal Researchers Are Taking Note Of Dog Humping Behavior
As you might expect, animal behaviorists have a lot to say about dog mounting. Famed ethologist and Nobel Prize-winner, Niko Tinbergen's "four questions" help enlighten the said topic. One of his queries is specifically given: "How does a behavior develop during the lifetime of an individual?" After all, behaviors like this don’t just magically fall down from the sky, land on the canine's ancestors, and make these dogs mating every day and continue humping for generations!
For many years ethologists have studied canines, they have taken note of their tendency to mount outside of reproductive contexts. “It’s what canines do. It’s entirely normal behavior,” explained Carolyn Walsh, Ph.D. to The Bark. Dr. Walsh is an associate professor of psychology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and she studies dogs' nuances behavior in dog parks. “Both females and males hump, regardless of whether [they are] sexually intact or not,” she added.
Meanwhile, Celeste Pongrácz, a Mudi breeder in Hungary, discovers that humping can alter with hormonal shifts. As she explains, “Currently, we reside with seven bitches, and when somebody is in season or is coming into season, some canines want to mount, and others ‘ask’ to be mounted. Even so, it always involves the bitch in season.”
Research also reports that neutering male dogs can reduce the mounting behavior, but, of course, does not cease it in its tracks. Basically, there's more to it than hormonal shifts.
The Complexities Of Mounting In Canines
From barking to tail wagging, canine behavior is riddled with nuance. Their tail wagging may mean "This is the best day ever!" or "I'm quite scared." However, canine humping is far more complicated than it may appear, and there is no single explanation, but there are a couple of possible culprits.
In some circumstances, dog humping is linked to an emotional surge, such as being aroused or feeling anxious (in this context, "arousal" refers to a general stimulation). In a recent investigation of dog park behavior, Walsh and her student, Lydia Ottenheimer Carrier, discovered that hounds practicing the most humping were doing the most playing.
“Dog parks can be very stimulating, and for those who are physiologically extremely aroused, humping behavior could simply appear. There can be such a desire to affiliate and social motivation buildup that some of that energy flow on the sexual motivation system. You see sexual behavior emerging, but it’s mostly out of context,” describes Walsh.
But a mutt's general anxiety or arousal is not limited to the dog park. Stimulation simply results in everyday scenarios: a new dog is introduced, a new person comes over, or a pooch is confined in the house for the entire day. One participant named Duclos says, “One of my pups mounts the others when I grab their leashes or otherwise am doing things that indicating to go somewhere.”
Dawn Cleary, the owner of Blue Cerebus Dog Boutique in Madison, Indiana, attributes humping displayed to the excitement by one of her Golden Retrievers. “When my Frisbee champ catches the disc, my littlest one likes to run out and mount the other. It’s the only time they do it?…?kinda like they want to share in the glory of the Frisbee being caught.” (Is this the dog equivalent of painting your face and viewing the Super Bowl?)
As Peter Borchelt, Ph.D., and Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB) in New York City reminds us, “There are only a host of behaviors a canine has access to, and canines do what is part of their usual-species behavior. It is something dogs know how to do.”
Since their choices are a bit restricted, a pooch, instead of scrolling Instagram during downtime, might be disposed to getting to know a stuffed animal a little better.
Dog owners should also take good care of their dog's health and wellness, as their dog mounting may be caused by underlying medical concerns. According to frontiers.org, one of the most common diseases affecting canines is periodontal disease, with a prevalence of at least 80 percent in dogs over the age of three. If you want to know how to prevent this disease, you could look here.
Multiple Motivations Behind Canine Mounting
Humping can be surrounded by several distinct behaviors and happens in a variety of contexts. Mounting could be a dog's assertive behavior associated with social bonds instead of competition for status or resources.
In a more friendly context, dog humping could be an attention-seeking behavior to establish an interaction. “It nearly seems to be a way to get the other to play among preferred play partners. A dog might bark, bow, and paw at another pooch. If the second pup isn’t actually responding, the humping will typically spring from the dog, and then they will play,” explains Trisko.
Trisko also proposes that dog humping among their friends is related to testing bonds. “This is the concept that canines practice likely annoying behaviors like humping to assess the strength of the recipient’s investment in the relationship. It’s like they are saying, ‘How much do you really like me?’ or ‘How much will you put up with?’,” added Trisko. Since humping appears to be not aggressive, status-related, or affiliative contexts, this is a provocative probability.
Concurrently, humping is not always associated with friendship. As Aimee Moore, CPDT, of Dog’s Best Friend Training in Madison, Wisc., mentions, “I don’t think there is one single explanation, but with unfamiliar canines, or usually, even with owners, it can be related to status and be quite rude.”
Borchelt has been treating behavior issues for over 30 years, and he has observed that “Humping could be part of a suite of behaviors related to aggression, such as resource guarding, high posture, threats and standing over as well as direct stares. But dog humping, by itself, doesn’t signify a status concern. By itself, humping might not mean a lot.”
In addition to that, he also feels that it could even be an issue to impute the “dominance” label to a mutt who is a humper. “If you perceive a pup as dominant because they hump, you might think that you need to do an action so that your hound is not dominant to you–perhaps make him heel always, which could decrease sniffing, utilize intimidation to make them follow explicit rules, or give your dog exercise and canine-canine interactions. This could have negative consequences for the relationship.”
Breaking The Humping Cycle
Some types of mounting are easier to deal with than others, the animal professionals say. When a pooch is mounting a person, that individual should just stand up and walk away, which teaches the pup that this is unacceptable behavior. When they hump other dogs, owners should separate them and keep them apart whenever they cannot be supervised.
