The affect of sexual behavior on top dog training
As sexual drive is the strongest drive of all higher animals (including humans and dogs) it can’t be underestimated in intervening in any top dog training process.
Like humans Sexual drives are absent in the infants (dog’s) life, are on fire during puberty and teenager hood, and decrease rapidly in old age. Mostly liked to the sex hormones and energy levels, but with the underlying reason of procreation of the species by necessity being the strongest drive that any organism or animal has. Above the need for food and water.
This might all seem obvious, but its affect on dog training will soon become clear ..
Male dogs will show signs of sexual play as early as 6 weeks of age. As any dog trainer will know, mounting of a dog this young can be practice for sex or just domination. Because male dogs are always interested in an opportunity to mate they are more likely to try to dominate another dog by humping it. Whereas females drive to mate is seasonal – if they are dominating another dog by humping it regularly throughout the year, it is easier to assume that they are dominating and not engaging in specific sexual behavior.
Please be aware that there are many forms of subtle and overt domination that dogs will do with other dogs, we are mainly concentrating on mounting or humping to keep this article brief.
EXCITEMENT AND sex and domination and top dog training
It is true that for a dog trainer or owner to be alpha over a dog, to exercise full control they have to dominate their dogs mind. If the dog is trying to hump the owners leg, it is trying to be in control. When a dog is very excited from running around, from just play or youthful excitement, this can sometimes spill over into sexual excitement or the rush of dominating another dog by humping it (perpetrator male or female).
The more secure and sexual a dog, the more social and sexual and secure a dog, the more likely it is to try and hump any other dog it assumes it should be dominating (if it is a dominant kind of dog). If it is really social and the owner has some kind of control over their dog, they can either stop the dog by voice command from trying to hump another dog, or call it off, once it has tried to hump the other dog.
In a perfect world, where owners don’t have egos, and all dogs are social, a dog in a social pack should be able to make its own choices about which dog it should hump, and the dog being humped should work out whether it will allow this and how severe its response should be (but still remaining social in the telling off). Human owners need only interrupt if one of the dogs is seeming upset or the other owner is.
The reason that I am discussing sexual behavior at all in this dog training site is that humping/ domination is often tied to or mistaken for sexuality (as the humping act is mimicking the act of having sex). AND a sexualized or excited dog, is often much harder to control (listen to commands) in an off lead dog park.
Apart from chasing birds and vermin, one of the major things that causes conflict in a dog park (between owners, dogs or dogs and other owners) is who’s dog is humping who’s. IF you can regularly discourage your dominant dog from humping a dog that it wants to hump (dominate) then you are well on the way to advanced top dog training skills.
I have seen many 100% social dogs, and in any dog pack, with any approaching dogs, they work out if and when they will try and dominate a dog regardless of size and breed. This does not always work out well for the social dog, as often they are optimists and take on dogs that are not as social as they originally believe in their excitement. AND THIS is the main reason that I bring this up. Because if your dog is social and mostly trained, they should soon pick up when you really want to stop them dominating another dog – and you will work out when it is play and acceptable to the other dog and the other owner.
