How Do They Know?

[shells]

I take my 2 dogs (1 x male, 1 x female - littermates) who are now 16 months old down to our local offleash park every day for some ball throwing. There are regularly other dogs around and every now and then we encounter a "humper". For some reason they only ever go for my male dog - they dont even bother with my female and if the even try anything she tells them to get lost and they leave her alone - no questions asked but will still continue to harass my boy (I dont let it continue - I give the owner a chance to come get their dog then it is leashes on and we are off)

So what is it about him that makes dogs want to hump him? Quite often he is just minding his own business chasing the ball and they come running over. It has happend since he was younger. I have noticed now he will tell them to get lost - only after he has the dog ontop of him - it never gets that far with my girl.

They are both desexed and there is no humping at home (between the dogs that is LOL).

Edited August 9, 2010 by shells

[wuffles]

How old is he? "Teenage" males tend to get humped a lot by older males.

Apart from that, some dogs just seem to get humped a lot

[Ravyk]

HUmping is a dominance thing, so maybe your male comes across as more submissive than your female?

[wuffles]

HUmping is a dominance thing, so maybe your male comes across as more submissive than your female?

I might be wrong here but in my experience the dominant males are the ones that attract humping... my boy is dominant and gets humped by other dominant males quite a lot. He rarely humps, but when he does, it's definitely not the submissive ones that cop it

[Ravyk]

In that case I'd say its still a dominance thing, theyre probably trying to work out who is the more dominant male

[shells]

My female is definitely more dominant. I just find it amazing that most dogs can judge him from a fair distance away - they make a beeline for him. Maybe I should stop calling him my sooky boy

[Odin-Genie]

HUmping is a dominance thing, so maybe your male comes across as more submissive than your female?

I might be wrong here but in my experience the dominant males are the ones that attract humping... my boy is dominant and gets humped by other dominant males quite a lot. He rarely humps, but when he does, it's definitely not the submissive ones that cop it

I thought males whose place in the hierarchy was uncertain got humped since other male dogs were trying to figure out if they could dominate him. My male dog is a quietly dominant dog in the sense that he doesn't try to dominate other dogs, but wouldn't let any other dog dominate him either. I have rarely seen any dog try to hump him.

[corvus]

Personally, I think the link between social dominance and humping is tenuous at best.

IMO, humping is often a displacement behaviour. I regularly see it from dogs that are uncertain how to behave in a social situation.

Erik used to cop it heaps when he was an adolescent. I've noticed adolescents tend to get humped a lot. Otherwise, consider this. If it's a displacement behaviour, makes sense to do it someone who's not going to bite your head off. I would guess that your girl can see it coming and shoots them the look that says "Don't." whereas the male is not sending any such signals.

Or, the male shows more anxiety than the female and it causes social tension in the other dogs, which is alleviated by humping the source of all the tension.

Or, the other dogs are all pushy dogs that do things like that because they can and so they pick the dog that will let them (or at least looks like he will) - see first point.

[KAMS]

Dominance, dogs are very intuitive

[shmoo]

Personally, I think the link between social dominance and humping is tenuous at best.

IMO, humping is often a displacement behaviour. I regularly see it from dogs that are uncertain how to behave in a social situation.

Erik used to cop it heaps when he was an adolescent. I've noticed adolescents tend to get humped a lot. Otherwise, consider this. If it's a displacement behaviour, makes sense to do it someone who's not going to bite your head off. I would guess that your girl can see it coming and shoots them the look that says "Don't." whereas the male is not sending any such signals.

Or, the male shows more anxiety than the female and it causes social tension in the other dogs, which is alleviated by humping the source of all the tension.

Or, the other dogs are all pushy dogs that do things like that because they can and so they pick the dog that will let them (or at least looks like he will) - see first point.

^ This. Humping and dominance has been delinked that many times I can't understand why people are still so quick to jump to that conclusion.