07 MayEpisode 51 | Ask Annie: Dealing with humping and other annoying behaviors
Annie addresses questions from people who are dealing with dogs who have habits that annoy other dogs, and, ultimately, their owners as well. One owner wants to know how to deal with a new rescue who is bothering the household's other two dogs and generally causing chaos in the home, and a dog walker asks about how to manage a charge who is constantly trying to hump his walking buddies. In addition to addressing setting up appropriate social situations for dogs, exercising them and using crates in multi-dog households, this episode offers a thoughtful take on why dogs hump and how to keep it from becoming an issue.
Subscribe: iTunes
Transcript:
Annie:
Hey everyone. Annie here. Thank you for listening and a particularly big thank you to those of you who have reached out in the last few weeks. We seem to be getting a bigger listenership which is really rewarding and I've appreciated the nice reviews on iTunes and the messages on Instagram etc. Seriously, I really appreciate it. As some of you know, I had a baby recently. Little Miss Magnolia who is so wonderful and I really love being a mom, but as you may have heard parenting is hard. Actually parenting is not so hard as much as parenting and trying to do absolutely anything else has proven difficult. Especially at podcasting because even if I can get someone else to watch her and I do have an amazing woman who comes and watches her a few hours, a few days a week and my in-laws and my mom and my husband, but even if I can get someone to watch her which is great; I live in like a loft basically, there's no doors so it's hard to find a quiet spot to record and uh best case scenario I can like find a way to record while she naps but her naps were sort of unpredictable and every night I think, “OK well tonight I'm going to record a podcast episode when she goes to sleep but usually by then I'm so exhausted that I know that I'm not going to be giving you my best self.”
So right now I managed to have her in a sling, on my body, taking a bottle although she just pushed it out so that she could suck her thumb and I am going to attempt to answer some of the excellent questions that I've been storing up. I've gotten so many questions lately that are so good I want to answer them all but I'm going to see if I can get through two or three before uhm we have a baby meltdown here.
OK so the first one comes from Emily of Cleveland OH.
Emily writes,
Hi, I've been reading your blogs and they have been so helpful. I wish I saw them when I first got my dog. I see you've already done some stuff wrong LOL.
–Here's some, some good Magnolia grunting in the background.–
I adopted a rescue dog. A Yorkie that was three years old extremely matted and malnourished. He's been neutered, shaven and gained weight and acts like a total puppy. I'm assuming from being freed from under all that matted fur has given him renewed energy. A month and a week after adoption and we're still having a few issues. He’s still pooping in the house, it was like he had never been on grass before. He's weird about going out, you take him out very often and he's aggressive and loud when someone goes to leave the house and he does not get the hint when our other dogs aren't in the mood to play thus inevitably starting some fights. I know you don't know him and can't give specific advice but do you think I should take him to a specialist for training or should we just go to normal puppy school. I can use all the help I can get. My dogs- I have one 8-year old female who's a schnoodle, a 5-year old male Yorkie and Chewy is the name of the new 3 -year old male.
And I wrote her and I asked her if any of the dogs were using crates.
And she wrote: the other dogs do not use crates but Chewy slept in a cage and was put in the cage when we left for the first month.
I guess she means when they went out.
Annie reading email: and we have been letting him have free rein now but we keep the cage there because we feed him in there to prevent fighting over food.
Annie: OK, I have three very big suggestions for dealing with Chewy.
First of all, let's talk about the crate first, I think it's good that uh Chewy has been using a crate at least some of the time. Certainly it's a good idea to use it to prevent any kind of fighting over food but since it sounds like he might not be the most popular dog in the household and also has i issues with people coming in and out, I think the crate can be a really great place to do training with him and for him to feel really comfortable and safe and, perhaps, also for the other dogs to feel a little bit happier dealing with him if he is in a confined space.
So, I want you to make the crate into a really awesome spot; the fact that you're feeding him in there is a wonderful start but you could also start kind of hanging out with him while he's in the crate, you know, I generally like crates that have open bars rather than like the hard kind of plastic-style crates. We did an episode, uh, a few months ago on the Revol crate, R-E-V-O-L, which we now carry in our studio and at storeforthedogs.com. I really like that one, because, you know one of the nice things about it is you can open up the top panels so that you can really give treats through the top panels and it really collapses nicely but that is not so much of a issue here unless you have a very small apartment which I'm guessing you don't if you have three dogs.
But you know make the crate into an awesome, awesome spot for him and training-wise you can work on clicking every time he sits in the crate and then give a treat. You can work on doing hand touches in the crate. Sometimes I'll teach a dog to, like, do a spin in the crate by teaching them to target my fingers or something like a target stick, on each side of the crate until you get them doing a full spin.
–You are really making some good sounds here baby huh.–
You can also work with him on his issues with people coming and going by every time someone comes or goes drop really awesome stuff into the crate so that he learns gosh I love it when
—oh the grunts—
I love it when people leave the house or the apartment or whatever because really awesome stuff happens in my crate. I love using the Treat and Train for this kind of thing, if you can fill it with stuff that's delicious, you know, I don't know whether that's bacon bits or Cheerios, peanuts, dry food maybe, although dry food might be too boring. But the Treat and Train, which we also have it storeforthedogs.com, is a remote control treat dispenser that you can actually kind of remove the bottom lip on it and sit it directly on top of the crate so that treats or whatever you're putting in it falls directly into the crate and then you know you could tape up the button for it, the remote control for it, right by the door and just get to the habit of every time someone leaves, press that button so that great things happen in the crate. And of course it's tricky because I know he's going to be barking and he's going to be a menace while you're doing this and you're going to feel like well in my rewarding him for barking if I press this button while I exit and uh if you heard me on this topic before you know what I'm going to say which is that you always have to think about the dog’s emotions, the dog’s feelings about things, before you think about their actual behavior. You have to think about classical conditioning before you start thinking about operant conditioning where you really like setting criteria. And so I wouldn't worry if he's going bananas and being a jerk while you're leaving, I would still go ahead and press that button because, or just drop treats in the crate, or whatever because you want him to just get really psyched about people leaving. And if you can change his feeling about people leaving, if you can change his feeling about people leaving, you're going to also change his behavior.
OK, so that's the big number one thing I wanted to mention, was, up the use of that crate, get him really psyched about his crate, use that crate as much as possible and you know it might be smart to keep the crate somewhere where he can't see the front door so that he's not like staring at the front door the whole time or all the time and if the crate works well you might find that the other dogs are interested in going in the crate too in which case you might decide to get them crates too but I would at the moment focus on creating lots of happy moments for Chewy in that crate which shouldn't be that much bigger than he is. You want a crate that's big enough for him to turn around in but that's about all. And, unless you think he's going to be majorly uncomfortable without a bed or something in the crate, I would probably not put a bed in the crate or if you do just put something flat like a towel because you're going to be dropping a lot of treats in it giving him a lot of food in it and I don't want the stuff to get lost in folds of the bed or whatever.
Also dogs are usually less inclined to pee and poop in their crate if there's nothing super soft in there for them to pee and poop in. And, you know, he should be so psyched about being in his crate that you shouldn't have to be like locking him up in it, closing him up in it, he should just sort of end up wanting to be there whether or not the door is closed. So that's number one- get him to love his crate.
OK #2 is I think Chewy needs to have, needs to get some good friends. So you know taking him to, uh, should you take him to a class, should you take him to a specialist; honestly more than anything else, I would start asking around and see if you can find some other dog owners who have dogs who might be a good to pal around with Chewy.I'd probably rather they just hang out like in someone's backyard then in a dog park where you kind of don't know what you're going to get and I don't think he needs to play with lots of dogs I think just you can find one or two good dog pals for him with whom you can arrange play dates, you know even just a few days a week for 20 minutes or so I think could do the job. I mean, ideally, every day but if your other dogs aren't appreciating his playfulness, rambunctiousness, whatever you know, I want you, I want him to have another outlet to get out those ya-yas that he has and you know to have fun to, to romp around etc etc.
I think that if you bring him to a class where he's going to be on leash with a whole bunch of other dogs were also unleashed that could prove to be really frustrating to him. And if you bring him to a specialist for private training, well you know that's great, but I think more than that he needs he just needs that social time with other dogs. And I think ideally it would be social time that's like outside and someone's lawn or some, some enclosed outside space 'cause you're saying he has some perhaps weird feelings about grass and that kind of thing, well, if he can play with another dog which is something I think he's going to enjoy, if you can find a good match for him, on grass you know that's a really excellent way to help him develop good associations with being outside and being on grass, you know, and playing around like that is also probably going to get his bowels moving which might help with the pooping outside thing, which I understand is is a goal of yours.
And my last suggestion is basically click everything. You know behavior is happening all the time and it sounds like there are a lot of things that Chewy’s doing that are you know things that are annoying to you, things that are annoying to the other dogs but you know if you look at all of the time in the day, the majority of the time he's probably not doing things that are annoying- it's just the things that are annoying that you know stand out more. But I want you to start, you can literally use a clicker, and every moment that you notice Chewy not being obnoxious I want you to click and treat that. And you know the best thing would be to click and then deliver the treat or you know it doesn't have to be food it could be you know playing with him, it could be a game of tug, or a good butt scratch whatever. But if you are using food, I suggest delivering that food in the crate so that we continue to build the association of “being in the crate is good” but the thing that you're clicking he could be anywhere- the idea is, you know, sometimes you hear trainers talk about clicking the behavior and rewarding for placement and that's really what I suggest doing here.
So what is an example of good behavior? It doesn't mean he has to be sitting or lying down or doing something that you asked him to do, if he's just existing peacefully near the other dog, click and treat that. And you know if you haven't used the clicker with the other dogs they're probably going to catch on pretty quickly so you might have your hands full getting three dogs 'cause you're probably going to end up wanting to reward all of them, but you know, again,that might be a nice reason to acclimate each of them to a crate so that you can click and then drop it a treat in each crate. Again, I like using the Treat and Train for this kind of thing, at least with one dog, because if you are going to click and treat every time your dog is doing anything that you like, it can be more convenient to just wear a remote around your neck then to have your hands full of slimy treats that you're going to try and deliver.
But, you know, we think that dogs probably kind of think in pictures, right,and I think of it like by clicking everything you like, it's like you're creating a photo album for them that they can reference to be like “Oh my human liked it when I was just quietly sitting by the couch so may be able I’ll go and do that again.” The click is like taking a picture of a moment that they can then file away and next time they're trying to think of what to do, well, they're going to go back to that photo album of behaviors that have been reinforced in the past. And, you know, the more behaviors that you reinforce, the less time there is going to be for him to be doing all the obnoxious stuff that's bothering you.
I went to Clicker Expo a few months ago, which is the big semiannual, well I guess they have three of them I think tri-annual conference held by the Karen Pryor Academy and there I saw a talk by one of my training heroes, whose name is Kathy Sdao, and she's really great at giving analogies and I love analogies, and one of the analogies she gave about this idea of, you know, sort of clicking everything in order to get rid of behaviors that you don't want or don't let those behaviors even happen to begin with because every time you know he's engaging in a behavior you don't like probably it is being reinforced in some way. So, you kind of want to figure out how to make it unlikely that those behaviors are ever going to occur again, rather than worrying about punishing those behaviors.
She gave the example of gardening and she talked about a conference she went to where a panel of gardeners, I think it was, where somebody had a question about getting rid of weeds and the first person on the panel talked about her technique for weedin -which weeds to pull and how and why. And then the second person on the panel talked about what kind of fertilizers to use and what kind of weed killers to use. And the third person on the panel said. “if you don't want to have weeds plant densely. “
And that is really what this kind of clicker training is all about. If you are telling your dog all day, I like it when you do this, I like it when you do that. If you're doing that by clicking or kind of like taking a picture of each of those moments you are going to have a dog who doesn't have a whole lot of time to be producing weeds, as it were.
Anyway, great question. Thank you for writing that one in.
And our next question comes from a dog walker who is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This person is on Instagram at Pudgydog, P-U-D-G-Y-D-O-G. And they write:
I have a dog behavior training question. I have a wired-haired Fox Terrier client who is neutered and approximately 2 years old. He's a great boy, very gentle, very sociable, plays well, except, he's a humper. And I'm not talking, just casual super fun, a friend type humping and he is super serious about it, as if he wants to be a hump Olympian. He really latches on and won't let go- it's hard to pry him off. When a dog gets him to let go by growling or snapping or whatever, he will let go for about 2 seconds and then he's right back on. I have quite a few humpers on my roster but Finnegan takes it to the next level. Any tips? He favors the ladies but if there aren't any around boys will do.
So I wrote and asked if this is something that happens on leash or off leash or both. If it happens in his home and if he is walking with other dogs, how many dogs is he walking with. And they they wrote back:
He does this on leash while out on group walks and while playing at the park or in yards. Basically he'll do it whenever he can catch up. He doesn't do it in his home because he's an only dog and I haven't brought other dogs into his home. He walks with maybe two or three other dogs.
OK, so first of all, I feel kinda bad saying this because this person wrote me a question and I don't want to bash their business model, but I am generally not in favor of group walks for dogs. Now I say this as a New Yorker with a New York dog and a New York training business, and so I haven't trained dogs so much in other places, I haven't really lived in many other places, so maybe things are different in Manitoba, but in New York city, at least, I think things can quickly get chaotic when people are walking multiple dogs and there are a lot of reasons for this. And, you know, before we even talk about sort of the issues that can happen with dog behavior when there are a whole bunch of dogs being walked by one person, I say a whole bunch, really like more than one is what I mean by a whole bunch . First of all, leashes can get tangled and, uh, it can be hard to keep track of what each dog is doing which just ends of meaning that one dog stops to sniff something and the other dogs are walking and the walker doesn't realize that one dog stopped to sniff something and keeps walking and the end up pulling the other dog, which could result in neck problems or the dog coming out of the leash or just the dog being quite unhappy about being pulled, which could lead to any number of other problems.
Then there's a purely logistical issue, which is that, when you're walking multiple dogs, you know, assuming that they all don't live together, which they probably don't, you know, you're going to have to pick up dogs and drop off dogs while you have a whole bunch of other dogs that you're minding. And this means that you're either going to have to bring dogs into the apartment of the dog that you're picking up or dropping off or you're going to have to like tie the dogs outside the apartment , perhaps in the building or outside on the street in some way, which I've seen done in New York city frequently. These sort of packs of six or seven dogs sometimes tied to a banister outside of the building which seems, like not a good idea to me for any number of reasons. The only way to avoid that kind of situation , that I can think of at least, would be to have two people walking the dog so that one person can stay behind with the dogs while one of the dogs has picked up where I dropped of- but I haven't encountered too many walking services that do that kind of thing and any dog walker that you're picking but especially one that's going to do group walks, if you're gonna go that route, make sure that they have insurance – ask to see a copy of their insurance, for sure. Because I think with any dog walking there are just so many unknown variables or so many things that could happen, so many things that could go wrong and you want to make sure that they are insured if they're going to be handling your dog when you're not around.
So I guess my first big piece of advice is that this dog shouldn’t be walked with a whole bunch of dogs; he should probably be walked alone. Now why is the dog humping? So humping is a totally normal behavior for dogs. Many dogs will hump in some situations, even girl dogs will hump. And it;s generally what we refer to as a displacement behavior. It's energy that is going in a weird direction. And usually displays and behaviors occur because of some kind of stress or anxiety. So in this case, I'm guessing, Finnegan is uncomfortable being walked with a whole bunch of other dogs.
Now I mean whether or not it sounds like he does this both on leash and off leash but I'm guessing he gets to the park after he's been on leash walked there with a pack of dogs, so I'd be interested to know if he does it at the park if he's not being walk there with a whole bunch of other dogs. Whether the stresses from being on leash with these other dogs while walked or if it's stress about being around other dogs at all – I think that's an experiment that you could run. But, in any case, I'm guessing he's doing the humping because he is in some way uncomfortable, or you know , maybe just overly aroused, and I don't mean like sexually aroused, I just mean overly stimulated by everything that's going on.
And when I'm talking about displacement behaviors I like to remind people that humans show displacement behaviors all the time. An example would be jumping up and down when you're happy. You know it doesn't really serve any specific purpose but, you know,you have some energy that needs to go somewhere and you end up jumping up and down. Or punching a wall when you're angry. Or, you know something that I found I did a lot as a kid. I would laugh in situations where laughing wasn't appropriate- I remember specifically whenever my mom cried I would laugh and it's not that I thought it was funny, I don't think i did think it was funny at all, but it was this, sort of, like weird energy I had and that was the inexplicable direction that it went.
Ear scratching is another commonly seen displacement behavior where all the sudden your dog seems like he has a super itchy ear. I was telling a client about this once and I said you know sometimes like if your dog goes to greet another dog and the greeting doesn't go well, that kind of thing, often you'll see them stop and start scratching their ear with their hind leg and that's a displacement behavior. And this client said, “oh, is that kind of like when I'm at a party and I check my phone even though I know my phone is dead?” Like yes, exactly that's that's kind of what displacement behavior is. It’s like “oh I wasn't trying to greet you, I was just busy over here, you know, scratching my ear.”
And, you know, sometimes as a guardian to a dog, I think displacement behaviors can be useful in that they can be giving us some information. My dog, for instance, my dog will hump sometimes, usually he’ll hump my leg when we're at the dog park and I interpret that as it's time to go. You know there's probably just too many dogs or it's just too stimulating an environment for him. And he's a smart cookie and that he has, I probably learned that it's better to do it to my leg then to do it to another dog which is an unknown quantity, right? You never know how another dog will respond. He doesn't do this so much anymore but he used to frequently do it if there were two dogs playing and he was the third, and I've seen this third dog humping syndrome a lot. Which is, dogs tend to play best in twos and if there is a third dog that's trying to get involved, often they will start humping. I think it's like, yeah I don't know, I guess it's like one way that they figure they can somehow get involved.
Now some dogs might not really mind getting humped. They might not mind being the humpee but that's still not a reason that you should encourage or let this dog hump other dogs. Um, because you never know how the other dog is going to respond and I generally think of humping, as a kind of, immature social behavior. Often in puppy class, puppies will hump each other a lot and I always tell clients. you know, it's kind of like a 5th grader at a dance party who just, like, doesn't have a lot of moves yet- they just haven't really developed their repertoire of things to do. I mean dogs have a limited amount of things that they can do with their bodies or things they do do with their bodies- you know, they're not like gymnasts or modern dancers who have some kind of massive repertoire of things to do. Humping is something that's baked in and, you know, evolutionarily makes some sense- if you don't know what else to do try humping something and perhaps you will reproduce even if ninety-nine times out of a hundred you're helping the laundry bag.
But it is a habit we want to discourage. Now like in puppy class, I encourage dog owners just to kind of gently interrupt their dog, whether that's kind of going in and getting their attention away from the other dog with a treat or just sort of gently pushing them off the other dog. There's really no need to make a big deal out of it and almost always especially when this happens at dog parks, when I see dogs something other dogs at dog parks, it's the people who are way more upset about it than the dogs because they interpret it as some kind of show of inappropriate sexual behavior where it really isn't. It is a normal part, like I said, it's a normal part of the dog's repertoire of things to do in the world. And chances are it's either a show of discomfort or it's sort of a display of social naivete where the dog just hasn't learned more appropriate ways to play. So you can just interrupt it.
That said it sounds like Finnigan isn't a puppy, he's a bit of an older dog and I'd rather figure out ways to keep him from humping at all, rather than get into how to stop him from humping once he starts
So firstly, I suggest, like I said not walking him with other dogs; although you know, I should have said before, sometimes I have seen walkers walk two dogs at a time, or even three, that really get along and do well together so if you can find you know a great mix for Finnegan then I am for that. But if you find that he's humping any other dog that he walks with then I am against any kind of pack walking for him.
Number two is: I think he sounds like a dog who probably needs to be getting a lot of exercise, whether that's going running with someone or going somewhere where he can chase a ball. Or even just in the apartment- maybe it means playing a really good game of tug or chasing a flirt pole. Flirt poles are like these, um kind of like, really big cat toys like a pole with the least bit at the end of it -we carry these in our shop and at storeforthedogs.com- I'll link to it in the show notes . You can use that to help him get his crazies out. You know what, the Treat and Train I mentioned before, you know, sometimes I'll get my dog to basically do laps back and forth in my apartment by setting up one Treat and Train on one side of the apartment and the other one on the other side of the apartment and I'll trigger one and then the other and I can, you know, pretty, pretty successfully get him running back and forth in that way. And actually you don't even need two Treat and Trains- you can just teach your dog to go to his bed on one side of your apartment and then put the Treat and Train on the other side of the apartment and every time he goes to this bed, trigger it and in that way too you can get a dog will run back and forth and burn some calories in process.
My last suggestion for Finnegan or dealing with Finnegan, I should say, is to get him a good dog friend, you know, that might take some, uh, some interviewing of candidates but I would love for him to have a single dog that he can have some really good play dates with. It's funny 'cause actually I guess that was my suggestion about the dog with the other question too, Chewy. Dogs, like I said, they do tend to play best in pairs and I'm gonna guess that he's going to be a lot less overwhelmed if there's just one other dog to run around and play with and I think that the chances that he will learn appropriate play are a lot greater if there is only one other dog for him to be engaging with. And that the situation where if he does start to hump, I would just sort of gently redirect him, just gently push him off. I'd rather have the human be in the position of stopping him from doing it rather than letting another dog snap at him or another dog, you know, be uncomfortable and to try and teach him a lesson as it were. I don't really want another dog to be in that position so when you're choosing a playmate, I would choose one that is pretty chill about that kind of thing- not because I wanted the dog to be humped a lot but if it does happen I want him to be a little bit tolerant so that he can deal with it at least for the second or two before you, as the supervisor, remind Finnegan by pushing him off that that's not an appropriate way to play
Thank you so much for these great questions. I hope I was able to provide some helpful answers.
Just a note that if you would like to keep up with what we have going on at School for the Dogs do make sure to follow us on Instagram or Facebook – we’re just called School for the Dogs in both places.
We also have a weekly newsletter which you can sign up for at Schoolforthedogs.com/newsletter.
Fun dog fact of the day… You know we've been talking about humping that is not for procreation but certainly there is dog humping that does happen for reasons of procreation which is a good reason to spay and neuter your dogs. A non-spayed and non-neutered dog couple can produce as many as 67,000 dogs within a six- year period. Not one couple themselves but that couple and their progeny. So as much as I love dogs- it would be great to not have those 67,000 dogs out there, unless they all have good homes with good dog owners, in that case- maybe it's an OK thing but I think we're far from that point.
And Our Woof Shout Out this week goes to… Miso the sheepadoodle. He is a mini-poodle and a sheep dog, I believe. We had a last minute drop out this weekend for Instagram stories take over. We have a different dog and, occasionally cat, do a takeover of our Instagram stories account every weekend. And this week, at the last minute, we asked if Miso and his humans would do it for us and they did such a great job. And this dog is just ridiculously adorable, little puppy, little black-and-white floppy, furry, little guy. You can follow him on Instagram at miso_theminisheepo. That's Miso M-I-S-O underscore the mini and then S-H-E-E-P-O
**music*
The product sponsor for this episode is the Animaswizzler and the Animatwist. I believe I've mentioned these products before on the show. I really love them. The Animaswizzler is a bully stick holder. The Animatwist is Himalayan chew holder, although, you can kind of hack it to also hold a bully stick. They’re excellent but sadly, I believe, both products have been discontinued and so the Animaswizzlers that we have in stock at School for the Dogs are the last ones that are going to be produced so if you haven't grabbed an Animaswizzler yet for your dog. I highly recommend it. Not great for like power chewers, they don't last that long if you have, like, a German Shepherd with super super strong jaw and intense chewer but for smaller dogs, younger dogs, lighter chewers- they’re great. The Animatwist, I think is actually a better option for really heavy chewers- it's a bit sturdier but we have exactly 1 left, just one , by the time you even listen to this episode it might be gone. You can get it at our shop on East 7th St in Manhattan or a look up Animatwist at storeforthedogs.com
*exit music*
Links:
Animatwist
