Why Do Female Dogs Hump?
Some dogs will hump anything — the air, pillows, blankets, their favorite stuffed animal, humans, and every dog in sight. And it’s just a little embarrassing when your dog mounts the neighbor or their favorite toy when you’ve got company over.
And it’s not just male dogs getting in on the action; female dogs hump as well.
Growing up with male dogs I was used to them humping, and I always assumed it was just a ‘boys will be boys’ thing. But a couple of years ago my female dog jumped up on my leg & started humping. To say I was shocked is a bit of an understatement. I found myself wondering ‘Why do female dogs hump?’ so I decided to find out for myself.
Humping in Female Dogs Can Have Multiple Motivations
If you have a male dog that hasn’t been neutered there’s a good chance his humping might be all about reproduction. But as easy as that explanation is, it doesn’t explain the humping done by those who have been neutered and female dogs.
Growing up we had a Lab that mounted a certain relative every single time she came to visit. After distracting him and getting him to settle down we’d tease her and say “Oh, he really likes you.” As a child I assumed it was just my dog being a pervert; but when Laika mounted my leg during a training session I was in shock. I’d always assumed humping was just a male dog thing.
Humping can be a real nuisance (that can potentially lead to dog fights), so figuring out why they’re humping to begin with will help you find ways to discourage the behavior.
Humping in Dogs Is Not Always About Reproduction
First things first, humping in dogs isn’t just about reproduction, nor is it a sign of a dominant dog.
Humping is seen in dogs of both sexes whether they’re spayed or neutered, and for dogs it’s a completely normal behavior. Canine humping is classified as a non specific arousal in dogs, and it can be triggered by multiple situations or stressors.
Mounting behavior is seen in puppies as young as 6 weeks old — and although it tends to appear more in males a lot of females mount as well. And just as tail wagging doesn’t always indicate a happy dog, when it comes to humping there’s multiple reasons behind the behavior.
Female dogs can hump out of excitement, stress, boredom, anxiety or frustration.
Why Do Female Dogs Hump?
So why do female dogs hump anyway? Canine cognitive science has come a long way over the past few decades, but we’re still left making a lot of generalizations. What we do know is that female dogs exhibit humping behavior during play, times of stress, when they’re excited, out of boredom, for attention, and out of frustration – it’s a behavior that varies based on context.
Humping in female dogs is considered an arousal response, and it can be triggered by various situations. Female dogs usually hump out of excitement, over stimulation, stress, play and frustration.
Unlike most other mammals, neutered male and to a lesser extent, neutered female dogs will continue to mount other dogs. Quite common and quite normal. In fact, neutered male dogs tend to mount more than intact males, presumably due to a lack of discriminatory experience. – Dr. Ian Dunbar, Humping is Normal, Yet Rude and Lewd
Humping in dogs can occur during times of play, stress, anxiety, excitement, boredom or frustration.
Humping In Dogs Is Often Triggered By Excitement
Over excitement can bring out mounting behaviors in any dog, females included. It’s not uncommon to see humping at the dog park or doggie daycare; places where there’s a good chance of dogs becoming over stimulated. When dogs get over excited their energy has to go somewhere. Some dogs get the zoomies, while others start to hump.
Humping in dogs can be seen in a number of environments, and the target of the humping is widely varied. Some dogs become over excited during play sessions and start humping their owners legs, while others tend to only mount other dogs.
For some dogs having visitors over causes over arousal, and for others it’s a trip to the dog park. At it’s core humping in dogs (for both males and females) is a non specific arousal response. And if it happens often enough it becomes a habit that can be pretty hard to break.
For dogs, mounting is a well-known displacement behavior, associated with emotional conflict or anxiety. If a new person or dog drops by the house, a nervous Nancy could quickly become a nervous humper. – Julie Hecht MSc, Why Do Dogs Hump?
Many dogs that hump are doing so out of over stimulation & excitement.
Frustration & Stress Can Cause Humping in Dogs
Like humans, dogs display a wide variety of behaviors when they get stressed out. Some dogs sulk, some hide, some lick themselves repeatedly and some dogs turn to humping.
It’s not uncommon to see dogs that are stressed out during a training session start to mount as a quick way to relieve stress. And although it’s not common humping in dogs can turn into a compulsive behavior.
If your dogs mounting behavior is compulsive or causing problems with other dogs there are some ways to redirect that behavior through obedience training, desensitization and preventative measures.
Mounting could also be what ethologists call a displacement behavior, meaning that it’s a byproduct of conflicted emotions. For some dogs a new visitor to the house could elicit a mixture of excitement and stress that could make for a humping dog. – Marc Bekoff Ph.D., Why Dogs Hump
Humping is one way dogs can release pent up stress, anxiety or frustration.
Humping in Dogs Is Not a Sign of Dominance
Contrary to old myth your dog’s humping is not a sign of dominance or them wanting to be alpha.
Studies have found that canine humping appears quite often amidst play behaviors and excitement, especially among female dogs. It has not been found to be related to any aggression or submission signals. Dogs that exhibit friendly behaviors towards one another such as muzzle licking are also the ones commonly found to be mounting.
Mounting could be part of a suite of behaviors associated with aggression, such as high posture, resource guarding, direct stares, and threats and standing over. But mounting, by itself, doesn’t indicate a status issue. By itself, mounting might not mean a lot. – Peter Borchelt, PhD, and CertifiedApplied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB), H*mping
Despite popular myth there’s been no scientific link found between humping & dominance.
Female Dogs Hump Due Excitement, Stress or Frustration
When it comes to figuring out why female dogs hump it’s important to understand the context in which your dog starts the behavior. In general humping in dogs is an arousal response that can be triggered by:
- Excitement
- Stress
- Frustration
Any variation of the above can explain why dogs hump when it’s not in relation to reproduction. If your female dog is humping think about what preceded it. The context of the situation needs to be taken into consideration since the humping behavior itself is only a sign of general arousal.
There isn’t one single explanation for why dogs hump; and until dogs can tell us exactly what’s on their mind we’ll have to take it in context. Humping is normal dog behavior, despite being quite embarrassing for some dog owners. It might just mean “I want to play,” or it might be caused by stress — it varies by situation.
So why do female dogs hump? They hump for the same reason males do; it’s a general arousal response. Deciphering all the reasons behind that arousal is another question we haven’t quite figured out.
Is it OK To Let My Dog Hump?
Although humping is normal dog behavior, it can become a habit that’s hard for dogs to break out of.
The best way to stop your dog from humping is by distracting them and redirecting their behavior onto something else.
For example, if your dog gets really excited when guests come over and has a tendency to hump give them a yummy treat or play a quick game of fetch to focus on instead so they can relieve that pent up energy.
Same thing for taking your dog out to play with other dogs; not all dogs are going to react kindly to being mounted, so it’s best to prevent the behavior before it happens. Easier said than done, I know, but over time praising your dog for engaging in a more desirable behavior will encourage better manners.
Check out out the Rest of Our “Why Do Dogs” Series:
- Why Do Dogs Love Belly Rubs?
- Why Do Love to Lay in the Sun?
- Why Do Dogs Go Crazy After a Bath?
- Why Do Dogs Have Spotted Tongues?
This is information that, I think, all peeps living with doggies ought to know. Tough topic to tackle but you did it EXTREMELY well.
Purrs,
Seville
People tend to get uptight about humping because we’re generally uptight about any behavior that could be sexual in nature. But as you point out, humping isn’t necessarily about sex or dominance — it can be caused by all kinds of arousal. Thanks for sharing this, and it can apply with cats as well as dogs. 🙂
That’s very interesting that the same can be said for cats; I really miss out on so many kitty behaviors.
This was fascinating information! I’d always heard that humping was a dominance behavior, so it’s interesting that this has been disproved. Knowing that it’s a stress-relieving behavior takes some of the “ick” factor out of it when it happens, but gotta admit, it’s still embarrassing when it does! And it always seems to be in public where everyone can see it. Which would make perfect sense because dogs are probably more likely to be stressed in a public setting. Thanks for helping to make sense of this behavior – I’ve always wondered about it!
I really didn’t give it much thought until Laika mounted my leg; I was so confused by that. But it does make sense since she gets so worked up during some training sessions though trying to decipher between excitement & frustration can be hard. It is embarassing when it’s your dog doing it – because as you say it does always seem to happen in public lol.
This makes me wonder… I’m not too sure what kind of arousal it would be in our house… the recipients of humping in our house tend to be stuffed and furry!! lol
When I first adopted Luna, she humped everything! I was startled! I think a lot of it may have been because of the reasons you listed – stress, excitement, etc. But I also think it was partially because she was spayed later in life, which is also one of the reasons she marks frequently.
Great article! My Beatrice often humps when we have company over. We think it happens because she is both excited by the company and confused or stressed about them being here. Sometimes she also does it when overly excited playing with toys.
This is such as interesting article. It makes sense that it could be from frustration or excitement, rather than sexual in nature or dominance. I’m wondering if there’s any relationship between humping and putting of paws over the shoulder of another dog, which some have suggested could be a dominance display too. Perhaps that could be related to play, frustration or excitement as well.
I also wonder if there’s any relationship between females that hump and when (or if) they were spayed. Haley was spayed young and has never humped anything. I wish we knew so much more about our dog’s behavior.
I do wonder about the relationship between time of spaying/mounting behaviors as well. During my research I read something that stuck out where a behaviorist basically said “Dogs only have so many behaviors they can do” so I guess in that regard it makes sense that some of them are for multiple reasons.
SO interesting. My brother’s female Chihuahua humps a lot when lots of people are around, which of course is embarrassing, but now I can see how it’s kind of her dealing with her stress/excitement. Makes a lot of sense! Thanks for sharing 🙂
There is certainly a lot of confusion regarding humping and it has caused a bit of conflict in our own life. Charlie tends to hump one of our friends dogs, especially as he gets more and more tired. It is definitely an overstimulated response, but our friends see it as a sexual behavior and get quite upset about it.
We will definitely be passing this information along to them 😉
It was quite embarrassing with our neutered Lab growing up; he’d hump pretty much every dog he met – though looking back now I’m pretty sure it was just over excitment.
I’ve never had a girl dog who humped. 🙂 Dewi, however, humps Jon Farleigh when Jon Farleigh gets overly vocal. Jon Farleigh and Dewi BOTH hump cats (for no known reason). Clearly, the behavior is not reproduction-related. It is, nonetheless, disturbing. Especially if one is the cat. 😉
Trying not to laugh at the fact that they hump the cats; that is quite odd.
This is perfect. So many people think it’s all about dominance when there’s so much more to it.
Interesting post! Our pug is hump-crazy. She usually gets tackled as a result – maybe one day she will learn!
Excellent explanation of this. We were told it was from excitement or over stimulation as well. Delilah did this at one particular play session with one particular dog. It was very frustrating. I was leaning towards letting the dog let her know it wasn’t cool, but the dog’s owners were freaked out by it, so we had to keep pulling her off. And now I’m off to read about the licking problem because SAMPSON is doing it!!!
I can confirm the excitement thesis. Honey gets overjoyed when we give her a large stuffed animal and she responds by humping it.
I used to have two female litter mates who took turns humping each other, one after the other. They saved this activity, however, for only when we had company visiting.
Nervousness? Or just showing off?
My Chi-Weenie was neutered at 4 months old, he is now 5. He has humped his stuffed bear every night after his dinner for so long that we rarely notice it anymore lol. He has never tried to hump us or another dog in the house just his stuffed furry friends. I think it is just relaxing for him.
This is great! I am so glad you posted this info!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
I have a female Chihuahua, she was 2 when I got her and she just recently started humping my leg…I laughed like crazy at first because it is quite funny but, she does it when I give her love or tell her how much I love her. My mother who has dementia, says it’s a sign of affection??? She, the dog, hasn’t been spayed and does come into heat but, she just started doing this in Oct. of this year and I acquired her in Feb. of this year. Could it be a sign of affection?
When ever I buy a fabric dog bed my JRT batch humps it until a frenzied. If she just has fabric throws/blankets she doesn’t do this. She then gets quite aggressive if we try to over it or tidy it up. Can you help with an explanation please.
Hi all
My Ruby Pug is the 1st female I have known hump.
It is generally play related.
Should I stop her or just go with It?
Tia xxx