I hope everyone is having a good week and staying out of the nasty heat! We are beating the heat at hip hounds by staying inside with the air conditioners and having an occasional romp in our bone-shaped pools!
I know that a lot of doggy parents log on to view our web cams. I am sure that you guys see some funny stuff on there. Maybe you have spotted your dog playing, me dancing, or another dog being humped. I want to address humping because it is something that dogs do from time to time and it is sometimes misunderstood.
Dogs hump (or mount) each other for different reasons. It all depends on the situation and the individual dog. Some dogs hump in play, as a sort of game. If you watch them long enough and you notice the dogs trading roles, these dogs are having a good time being goofy with each other. Other times there might be a dog in the play group who may feel that another dog is being too rowdy or unruly. The first dog may hump the unruly dog to attempt to calm them down and say, "hey buddy, you are being too crazy. I am in control!" This behavior may look mean but it is totally natural pack behavior. All of the dogs at Hip Hounds over the age of 9 months are spayed or neutered, so there is no sexual behavior in any of this.
While monitoring the play groups, we try to stop all humping just because it can escalate into a fight if both dogs are extremely excited. Some dogs are very sneaky about humping others and do it while our backs are turned! We know who the sneaky ones are and we try to keep a good eye on them.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. I also want to say Happy Mother’s Day to all of the doggy mommies out there this Sunday! Check back with us for next week’s blog, video of the week, and dog of the week!
woof!