What to do when you become your Dog’s “Special Friend”? Why does my dog hump me and no one else? Owning a dog, especially from puppyhood, is one of the most rewarding things you can experience. They’re not called “Man’s Best Friend” for nothing, but sometimes your little furry friend can take that friendship a little too far, especially if you choose not to spay or neuter them. Much like cats get in heat, dogs can feel this to an extreme.
Since you are their owner, pride, and joy, sometimes they’ll take out some of that love on you. It’s great that they feel that way, but you only see them as friends, especially if you’re lying on the couch or trying to eat dinner. I speak from experience because I once owned not one but two highly infatuated puppies, and using these tricks and tips helped teach him that there were plenty more fish in the sea of stuffed animals.
The Psychology when you become your Dog’s “Special Friend”
What to do when you become your Dog’s “Special Friend”? Before I mention the solutions, it’s essential to understand a bit of puppy psychology, even if their brain sometimes goes a million miles an hour. A puppy’s first year is significant to its development like a human baby. From the minute you (hopefully) adopted them to watching them outgrow three collars in a month, your puppy is growing physically and mentally. You, their owner, best friend, and God, play the most significant role in your puppy’s development.
You probably know that dogs came from wolves, a classic example of a pack animal. Dogs are known as pack animals, meaning they live the healthiest lives among other dogs. In a pack, an alpha typically protects the mothers, the elders, and the puppies by finding food and warding off threats. When your puppy was born, you likely adopted them alone and did not adopt the mother with them (if you did, kudos to you – you kept one more dog off the street). Now, imagine if you were a baby and right after birth, you have pulled away from your mother and raised by someone who was 10x your size, made food magically appear in front of you, and gave you belly rubs any time you rolled over. Your life would be pretty sweet, proper? This is, in essence, what you’ve done for your puppy, and needless to say, they are highly loyal to you because of the care you provide. You have now become your dog’s Alpha.
Another thing to understand is that a dog’s life cycle is much more rapid than a human’s. Humans usually don’t need to hear the birds and the bees until they are 12 years old. That’s almost retirement age in dog years. According to some sources, your puppy reaching about nine months is equivalent to a 12-year-old human child or teenager. I don’t know about you but when I was that age, some stuff definitely, powered on, to stay the least. This is happening to your puppy—couple this with the fact that you are their one and only owner. Your dog might want to start getting busy with you.
Now that you know what’s going on in that chaotic little brain of theirs let’s take a look at some ways to alleviate their urges and teach them that no means no.
The Solution when you become your Dog’s “Special Friend”
The first and most obvious way to cut down on your dog’s escapades is to spay or neuter them. However, it’s understandable that this is sometimes not an option. Some people have moral reservations or cannot afford the procedure. Check with your local humane society if they spay or neuter adopted pets. They will sometimes do it free of charge or at a discount if you adopt the dog from there. Most humane societies I know will also neuter their newfound residents as soon as they are found, but if you found yourself in this article, this likely did not happen. One of the puppies I had raised was fixed entirely, but he would still try to do it like on the Discovery Channel every chance he got.
This brings me to my next solution, which will probably cost as much as the first: finding him a new special friend. Of course, I’m talking about dog toys. Most dogs, especially puppies, are picky about their toys. After all, they are the stud here. You should have a sizeable budget saved up so you can present a whole harem of friends to your puppy, and hopefully, one of them will stick. If you can’t have an entire toy bucket, use some old stuffed animals you don’t care about. One of my dogs used an old Shamu plushie I won at SeaWorld, and the other used a red jalepeño pepper. Yeah, you can imagine what that looked like.
Finally, the best long-term option is to properly train your dog not to come onto you (and hopefully not the other). This takes by far the most time but will pay off the best. The simplest and most effective way is, whenever your dog gets frisky, quickly pick them up, sit them down, and loudly and firmly say “NO” to them. This will get annoyingly repetitive, but this is how puppies learn. Another thing is to stay on surfaces higher than they can jump to. If you have a spasmatic dachshund, this can be challenging but will also help in training. They’ll beg, they’ll whimper, but you must be firm. It took me almost a month to break one of my dogs of this habit, but he hasn’t done it since.
Conclusion
To answer the age-old question, why does my dog hump me and no one else? You need to realize that you are your dog’s alpha and that they reach breeding age much earlier than you might think. To combat this problem, you can either spay or neuter your dog, find a toy to use instead, or train him not to mount you. Regardless, if you found this article helpful, please feel free to leave a comment down below.
