Hi

I need help I have an 11 week old boxer dog who has recently decided to hump peoples legs, it can be me or my husband or the kids he is not fussy, it tends to be when he is becoming more active and first he starts to bite quite hard which we deal with be saying no and ignoring him, he does it more with the kids and then when he thinks we are not going to play because of the biting he starts to try and hump our legs.

Is this normal behaviour for an 11 week old and is he trying to dominate us?

If this is the case what can we do to stop the behaviour now!!!!!!!

Please help.  Thanks in advance.

IMO this is normal and if you pup was still with his siblings he would be doing it to them and getting told off for it, so carry on removing your self from him when he does it to you or the kids and try and distract him with a toy or start a short training session.

Hi guest, I'm pretty sure it's nothing to do with dominance, just a very over excited young pup!  Many many dogs do it, of all ages.  I know my 2 Staff boy pups are going through the stage at the moment with each other, but it only happens when they've been playing and have got totally overexcited.

You need to nip it in the bud to show him this behaviour is not acceptable to you...an idea would be to remove yourself (or whoever he's currently humping) from the room and totally ignore him - and I do mean totally, ie no eye contact, body turned completely away from him if he approaches you and no sound from you acknowledging his presence.  As soon as he's calm again then you can praise him but do this calmly.  To be ignored by it's pack leader is a disconcerting experience for a pup or dog and they will associate certain behaviour with being ignored so preventing further unrequired behaviour.  However, this does take patience and will not happen overnight, not especially if your boxer is anything like lots of other boxers I know! :-)

Also, not sure how you or your children actually play with your pup but a suggestion would be to keep all games quiet and not overly exciting ie no rolling around on floor and bouncing around the house, this will get the pup totally excited and is likely to cause humping.  Maybe instead try hide and seek games with his toys to keep him stimulated but calm.

Hopefully some more people will give advice later also.