German Wirehaired Pointer Club of America

[davepapp]

We rescued a spayed female GWP about 2 years ago. At that time the agency indicated that she was 3-5 years old. When we got her she had almost no training and was not house broken. She has done very well over the last 2 years, and learned many tricks (GWPs are smart!). Recently she has been displaying what appears to be sexually agressive behavior, namely "humping" a large floor pillow in our bedroom . We have noticed this behavior in the past, but very infrequently, when she has done the same thing to her bedding. She has not displayed any of this behavior to us or our two cats. All literature we have seen suggests that this is dominance behavior, but that doesn't seem right to us. It seems to be in-season behavior, but she is spayed. Our vet says it appears she had one litter before she was spayed. Could this cause our dog to act as if she was in heat? Has anyone else had a similar experience with thier GWP? Thanks in advance for any advice

P.S. we have removed the offending pillow (a.k.a. "boyfriend" )

[cheerio]

Humping is not a result of having had a litter prior to being spayed, and it is not necessarily a sign of dominance. it is dominance when the dog hump another dog, but when it is displaced to a adult person or an object, it is more likely to be a sign of passive aggression and is often triggered by anxiety. Something is bothering your dog. It could be anything such as boredom, change of schedule, of diet, someone who is ill in the family, a visitor in the home... any change in her well settled little life. If you can find what it is, you can change her behavior very fast. In most cases however, it is difficult. Dogs are so sensitive, so intuitive as well!... So if you cannot remove the cause, here is a method which works well. Removing "boyfriend"(LOL) is the best thing you could have done. It is however not enough. Find her favorite toy, or, if she does not have one, buy one you know she'll enjoy such as skwiking or talking toys. keep it with you and everytime she start humping, say "NO" take the toy out and give it to her. This will change her mind and little by little she will get conditioned and will search or ask for her toy each time she feels like humping. You will have displaced her response. One word of caution: Do not give her the toy until you have taken the object she was going to hump away and only once she back out from the behavior. If, once you remove the object she grabs another one, take that one away first. If you give her the toy while she is misbehaving, you are in effect rewarding her behavior. Also, it is best to keep the toy solely for this purpose and not let her play with it otherwise. Good luck. I hope this will solve your problem.