CAN WE STOP A MALE PUPPY FROM HUMPING?

Dear Jubilee,

We have a four-month male Airedale. He has a terrible habit of humping on us and on guests. Today he humped the four year old daughter of a friend of mine. I have had other Airedales and have never had this problem. How can I stop this behavior? What does it mean?

Thank you,
Annoyed

Dear Annoyed,

Humping is not about sex. It is done by both males and females (believe it or not), and it is a dominance attempt, not a sexual thing. I had a male that at eight weeks grabbed the hind leg of a large adult Airedale and started humping him! The adult remained cool: like who do you think you're fooling! Since we are breeders, we also have more than one female, and the alpha female Airedale occasionally humps the others. She will even hump our male once in awhile. Usually, she ignores them all, but there are times when she seems to think she has to make her dominance known. So the dog humping the child is telling the child that it is above the child in your pack (and your pack should be adults at the top, children in the middle, dogs at the bottom).

When the dog humps, do not worry about his psyche. Make a loud noise (a negative marker), push him down, and do something he dislikes (like squirting water in his face). I have had several people with young children call about both males and females doing this to a small child: the puppy is testing you and is trying to put itself above the child in the pack. This is not to be permitted. The dog has to be pushed down and reprimanded.

A good tack to take to change this behavior permanently is to make the dog dependent on the child. For example, have the child feed the dog his regular meals (that means put the dog's dish on the floor but teach the dog to sit before it gets its food) whenever the child is home. Involve the child in training the dog -- take the child and the dog to a puppy obedience class and let the child do the training. All these things say very clearly to the dog that the child is the dog's superior in the pack (the family), and the dog needs to be mindful of that or it won't get fed, won't get attention, etc. It also teaches the puppy to respect the child and to obey the child.

As you strategize for ways to handle this, remember, any strong negative handling and yelling is attention; attention is a reward; and you get the dog behavior that you reward.  When you push the dog down, calmly put all four legs on the ground, and make it clear that it only gets attention (in every instance, even when it jumps on you for attention) when all four feet are on the ground. Dogs usually dislike loud sudden noises, so a loud sudden noise is also a punishment: I like to precede such a noise (or a squirt of water in the face) with an "eck" sound: that sound becomes a negative marker signifying that something unpleasant may follow (like the clicker is a positive marker signifying that a treat may follow). Instead of "Eck!", some people will say something like "Excuse me!" or "I beg your pardon?" -- anything that says you (the dog) are on slippery ground here and you are about to be punished. These negative markers are done when you are in a straight upright position, looking very stern (the puppy will try to do something to get you to bend, to be more friendly, less authoritarian -- and that means the puppy will stop doing what has caused you to become so straight and forbidding!)

In addition, teach the dog to sit every time the command is given. Then when it is doing something you do not want it to, you can command it to sit, thus replacing a negative behavior with a positive behavior that you can reward.

I hope these hints help.

Jubilee