Orla is being humpy

[chelle83]

Strange one to me but she has started climbing on top of our 8 year springer boy ozzy and trying to hump his back...is this normal for a female puppy?
Also he has also now started mounting her when she messes him about, he has been done so no worry there but should he really be wanting to do this to her at such a young age?

Chelle

[elaine.e]

It's unlikely to be sexually motivated, or anything to do with dominance either. Dogs hump for all sorts of reasons and I think this article is really helpful https://paws4udogs.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/why-dogs-hump-spoiler-alert-its-not-all-about-dominance/

My guess is that with Orla it's just puppy playfulness and excitement (not sexual) and with your Springer boy it may be that he's feeling a bit anxious when Orla is giving him the run round and humping is a displacement activity to help him cope, a bit like us doodling on a piece of paper or twiddling with our hair when we're a bit uncertain in a situation and need to do something, but we're not sure what!

[its.sme]

Girls will do this, we have a particular blanket that Bea was rather fond of, we put it away after winter hoping that that would be the end of it but as soon as we brought it back out, well let's just say Bea got re acquainted with it 

Bea has now been spayed which has eased it, but with winter coming who knows ! 

[*MaryG*]

Interesting article elaine, thank you.