You’re braving the dog park, you’ve come with friends who are used to the dogs, you’ve even come to the park without your dog to scope it out and learn who’s who. You’re ready! Your dog walks in after the initial sniffing exchange at the airlock, and you watch them run for the first time in months since you don’t have a yard. Pure joy.
Then a friendly looking pup walks over and mounts. And doesn’t let go. Your dog isn’t happy. What do you do?
Why Do Dogs Hump Anyway?
Humping has many reasons besides reproductive. It’s a way to say,
- “I’m overstimulated and don’t know what to do”
- “I want to play and you’re not playing”
- “I’m upset”
- “I’m tired”
- “You’re weird”
- “Do something!”
My dog does it when she’s tired or if a male dog is intact. We leave after I remove her from her chosen humpee and lots of uhhhh apologizing, or at least go to the other end of the park if it appears she still wants to sniff or play with other dogs.
When Someone Else’s Dog is Humping Yours
The initial goal is physical separation. The secondary goal is removal of the dogs in each others’ spaces to prevent it from occurring again. Treats, air, or horn can create that two second time period you can swoop in to grab your dog and move away from the other.
As both a pro and as an owner of a humpy dog and what I can say without seeing it with my own eyeballs is you’re completely in the green to say you don’t want this happening beyond five seconds, especially if your dog is getting to the point where they are snapping back or getting into arguments. That’s what I would deem acceptable behavior as a response to being harassed. Some dogs understand humping can be an invitation to play and will start bouncing around in reply. Not every dog is into it, though, and not every humping dog understands an unenthusiastic response like sitting down, shrinking down, or turning and snapping means “no thanks.” (We can train dogs to go away or even prevent the humping to begin with. That’s an option.)
In a perfect world, the owner of the humper would call the dog away from yours, the dog would leave your dog, and the humper would be minded. That, of course, doesn’t consistently occur.
How to Separate Dogs From Least Invasive to More Invasive
I have seen some aggressive stuff by overprotective owners when another dog so much as bark in their dog’s face, including but not limited to a person punting a 10 pound dog who herded their 40 lb dog. What I would find acceptable and reasonable for creating space between dogs would be:
- a shower of treats at the offending dog’s face
- can the other dog have food allergies? yeah. but diarrhea over a dog with a puncture wound wins every time for me
- using a compressed air can like the pet corrector red can
- similar to a keyboard cleaner, compressed air fits easily in a pouch or on a belt and it doesn’t matter which direction it is facing to be effective
- an airhorn (I hate this personally)
- like the compressed air, it’s easy to carry and doesn’t matter which way you hold it
- swooping your arm under the offender’s neck to lift them off your dog
- this can be done gently
- I strongly urge practicing it “dry fire” before needing it in realtime
- practice with a stuffed animal first
- work towards practicing on a live dog
- take special care not to damage their windpipe
and so forth with an increase in intensity and force dependent on situation, level of danger, potential for injury, and so forth. There are more physically invasive, aggressive ways to pull dogs apart. I would try this list first before progressing to a two-person jobby that involves angles and care in how you separate to prevent injury for both dogs and humans or exacerbating the situation. Humping is almost always NOT a life threatening situation that requires that level of intensity.
A Note on Pepper Spray When It Comes to Dogs Humping and Dogs Fighting
I strongly encourage people to NOT use a pepper spray for humping or breaking up dog fights. Pepper spray shoots in a mist and will affect everyone in the area, including the humans. Even pepper blasters that use gel or balls can lead to human and dog injury as it is directional, and if that thing isn’t pointed directly at the intended individual, you can injure yourself or other unintended victims with it. When it comes to a fight-fight, as my former self-defense partner put it regarding humans, something like pepper spray will “just make your attacker more angry.” This is part of the LAST RESORT toolbox.
You Can Always Leave. People Are Dumb.
There’s also leashing up your dog and leaving, which is hard to do when another dog is on them. It feels like “losing” when you have to leave due to another’s behavior. But at the end of the day, you’re preventing stress for your dog …which is why I personally take my humpy dog away or out of the park when she does it.
Not everyone considers that dogs have feelings and can have an experience so poorly that they can’t be around other dogs without freaking out. They don’t understand their dog could traumatize another dog like that. “They’ll figure it out,” is something I hear a lot and used to say myself. To a degree? Yes. But there’s so much that can go wrong, I don’t “let them” unless the conditions are okay to make that happen, and I supposedly know what I’m doing.
For those reading and thinking “why doesn’t she train her dog to not hump?” I have, bro! This post is focused on what a person can do when their dog is being harassed in a public setting, not the humper’s side of things.
More On Defensive Leash and Dog Handling
If you’re interested in how to safely handle dogs in stressful or dangerous situations, Trish McMillan and Mike Shikashio have defensive dog handling classes and are Names in the Behavior World. The classes may only be online at the time of writing and are a great introduction to what to do in low and high level emergency situations regarding dogs.