Merlin had a friend come around tonight, a puppy basset hound which started to hump him after they had been playing a while. I put this down to excitement as the pup is only 5 months old, however merlin didnt seem to like this and decided to return the favour. they were also licking each others diddlies , can anyone shed any light on why 2 dogs would do this and the best way of stopping it if it is undesirable. Apart from the fact it didnt look very nice, i wouldnt want this to become a dominance issue if it isnt already and i dont really want merlin to start this as the only episode we have had was with a dog he ran after and didnt come back. On this occassion i put him on a lead as we were out and he didnt like that and didnt do it again. Arent dogs grotters sometimes.

My dog and his brother hump each other if they get the chance and my old dog, Bob, used to hump Percy the JRT from next door and vice versa! Unfortunately, dogs simply don't share the same cultural mores as humans and don't see anything out of order in a mutual exploration of their more interesting parts - you can't describe them as "private" since to a dog they are anything but!

This doesn't mean you have to accept a humpfest because you can introduce diversionary activities that are of higher value than another dog's bottom. Sometimes this means separating the dogs in question but the pup is very young and I wouldn't be worrying about dominance issues if all they are doing is a spot of natural exploration. And without suggesting you allow either of them to get hurt, sometimes it is better to let your dog do the communication because if Merlin really doesn't want the attention he'll soon make it clear to the pup.