ohmidog!

What your dog sees as humpworthy may include other dogs (male and female), your child, your ottoman, your favorite pillow, your house guest, a stuffed animal, your leg, or anything else he — or even she — can latch on to.

It’s one of those canine behaviors we humans find less than endearing, downright embarassing and highly confusing; and, as a result, our reaction is usually to bow our heads in shame, holler at the offending dog, or pretend it’s not happening.

So it’s good to see somebody boldy jumping on the subject — and getting across the point, among others, that the behavior is totally normal.

Julie Hecht, who manages Alexandra Horowitz’s Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College in New York City, explores the ambiguous and often avoided topic of non-reproductive humping in the latest issue of  The Bark magazine.

“From tail wagging to barking, dog behavior is riddled with nuance. A wagging tail might convey ‘I’m quite scared’ or ‘This is the best day ever!’ Like tail wagging, mounting is far more complex than it may appear, and there is not one simple explanation. But there are some likely candidates.”

Hecht holds a master’s degree in applied animal behavior and welfare from the University of Edinburgh, and she’s an adjunct professor at Canisius College. More important than any of that, she’s not afraid to tackle a subject that offends the more prim and proper among us.

So is humping sexual, or part of an instinctual urge — “must … reproduce … now” — to create offspring?  Is it a display of aggression, an assertion of dominance, or just a way to relieve some pent up energy? Clearly, it’s not always and entirely motivated by sexual arousal, Hecht notes, for pillows aren’t usually that arousing.

For nearly as long as ethologists have studied dogs, they have taken note of dogs’ tendency to hump outside of reproductive contexts, she writes.

University of Colorado ethologist Marc Bekoff observed way back in the 1970s that young canids — pairs of three- to seven-week-old wolves, coyotes and dogs — were prone to pelvic thrusting, and that females also engaged in some of that behavior.

“It’s what dogs do. It’s a completely normal behavior,” explains Carolyn Walsh, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, who studies the nuances of dog behavior in dog parks. “Both males and females mount, regardless of whether [they are] sexually intact or not.”

It can come from a surge of emotion, anxiety or arousal,  Walsh explains. 

“Dog parks can be quite stimulating, and for those who are highly aroused physiologically, mounting behavior could easily come out. There can be such a buildup of social motivation and the desire to affiliate that some of that energy spills over into the sexual motivation system. You see sexual behavior coming out, but it’s mostly out of context.”

Hecht also interviewed Peter Borchelt, a certified applied animal behaviorist in New York City, who pointed out, “There are only so many behaviors a dog has access to, and dogs do what is part of their species-typical behavior. It is something they know how to do.”

Many dog owners equate humping to dominance and control, but it can also be a friendly and less than lecherous attempt to get another dog to play. It may be a cry for attention, a way for dogs to gauge the bond they have with other dogs, or to test just how much a play partner is willing to tolerate.

“This is the idea that dogs perform potentially annoying behaviors like mounting to test the strength of the recipient’s investment in the relationship,” said Becky Trisko, a behaviorist and owner of Unleashed in Evanston, Ill., who has studied dog-dog interactions in the dog daycare setting.

“It’s like saying, ‘How much will you put up with?’ ‘How much do you really like me?’”

Despite all the dirty connotations we humans attach to pelvic thrusting, with dogs the behavior seems — while stemming from various emotions — to be more of a celebration of life than anything else. Cooped up in houses all day, a trip to the dog park, or even just seeing the leash come out, can get dogs excited to the point that something else comes out. Humping, or even an erection, it seems to me, isn’t all about sex when it comes to dogs — that’s just how we’re prone to interpreting it.

We humans equate it with sexual lust, but, with dogs, humping might just be a natural way to celebrate, like the high-fiving or chest-bumping of frat boys, or that “woo-hoo” noise girls make when they get together.

Looking at it through a less tainted lens, one could even make the argument that the behavior — humping, not woo-hooing — is more charming than it is revolting.

For the dog, joy is joy; and embarassing as it might be for us to see any overlap between sexual pleasure and just plain happiness, dogs don’t seem to get all bogged down in what might be the appropriate expression of their various happy and excited emotions.

Is that dirty? Or is there a certain purity there? Do dogs have their emotions confused? Or do they have it right?

None of this is to say you should try it at home, at the corner bar, or anywhere else. Civilized society dictates we don’t engage in that behavior. It’s only to say we shouldn’t get too bent out of shape when our dogs hump.

Rather than punishing a dog for exhibiting glee, it makes more sense to gently redirect the behavior. Watch closely at the dog park and you’ll see that many dogs — the humpees, as opposed to the humpers – do that themselves, with a growl or snarl.

My dog Ace does not tolerate it — whether it’s him being humped, or another dog. He feels the need to break it up, and, should he see one dog mounting another, he will generally rush over and do so.

I’m not sure where that behavior comes from.

Maybe he has become too human.

(Painting by Lachlan Blair, from his father Stuart Blair’s blog)

Baltimore police said Monday that two 17-year-old boys have been charged with multiple accounts of animal cruelty in connection with using lighter fluid to set a cat named Mittens on fire in Baltimore’s Central Park Heights neighborhood.

The owner of the cat, who lives on the 3300 block of St. Ambrose Ave.,  told police that the animal had been set on fire by her grandson and a friend.

A witness told police that the suspects brought the cat onto a rear, second-floor deck three weeks ago and and put a milk crate on top of the pet. They then poured lighter fluid through the openings in the crate and dropped a book of lit matches into the crate, police said.

Police said the cat howled, knocked the milk crate over and leapt from the balcony, running in circles until the flames went out.

Mittens recently had three kittens, and continues to nurse them in her new surroundings — at Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS), where she is expected to survive her injuries.

Mittens’ ears were damaged as a result of the burns. She also sustained third- and fourth-degree burns on her back and side, according to BARCS.

Two boys — aged 10 and 12 — have been charged with fighting, baiting and cruelty to animals after deputies say they discovered the boys were operating a backyard dogfighting operation.

A neighbor called deputies in Orange County after the boys dumped a dead dog on his property. When deputies arrived to ask one of them about the allegations cops say the boy picked up a puppy and started beating it until deputies forced him to stop, according to Fox News in Orlando.

Three dogs were taken from the property after they were found covered with wounds, spray painted and living in unhealthy conditions.

Yet another incident of cat abuse has come to light after a witness saw a group of boys swinging a small orange and white cat by his tail.

Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) reports that the incident took place on the 2600 block of Wilkens Avenue.

The witness reported the boys were swinging the cat in the air, smashing his head on the ground, and also appeared to be trying to throw the cat, by his tail, onto a rooftop.

The woman took the cat and handed it off to another woman who then brought the kitten directly to BARCS. 

The Snyder Foundation for animals is offering a reward of $1,000 for anyone with information leading to an arrest and conviction of the boys responsible.

At BARCS, veterinary technicians determined the three-month-old kitten most likely had a broken jaw.

Using the Franky Fund, the technician sent the kitten to Everhart Animal Hospital, where X-rays showed he will need surgery on his jaw. The surgery is expected to be performed later this week. 

Staff at BARCS gave the cat a name:

Miracle.