dog (f) humping cat (m) - please help

[Guest Mutts4Me]

She's driving me crazy.

Sasha's an 8 yo chow mix and was spayed as soon as we got her, about 1 yo. She's continued to have a fairly high libido since then... When we still had our black lab, she would sometimes start getting all frisky with him, flirting and mounting him, then getting mad when he tried to get frisky back with her.

I know humping can be dominance-related, as well, but this seems to be very sexually driven.

Every once in a while, she gets a bit frisky with one particular male c@ (all but the kitten are fixed), nuzzling him (sometimes so hard he falls down), prodding at him, mouthing his neck, chasing (playfully), and if it is allowed to continue, she gets so worked up she starts trying to mount the c@ :oops: She's way too big :oops: :oops:

Scooter just loves it. A couple of the cats have crushes on Sasha, but in general she dislikes cats and ignores them as much as possible. They'll try to rub on her or lay next to her, and she'll mutter and leave. So when she does decide to pay them some attention, they're in absolute heaven. So he dumbly goes along with it.

Usually, it's a once-in-a-while, one evening thing. We tell her NO, make her stop, and an hour later it's forgotten. But this has been going on on-and-off for about 3-4 days now. Just now, she was going at it, was told to stop, did, and the next thing we heard was her bark - we think Scoot got pushed a little too far and swatted her.

I don't know what to do. I think it's frustrating Scooter, too, because he's starting to bite the back of Harley (kitten)'s neck and drag him around for whatever reason, Harley screaming bloody murder (he's very vocal anyway).

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

[pyrless]

okay, first of all, i also have a dog named sasha and a cat named harley...great minds... :D
If Sasha is spayed and the cats fixed as well I really think it is a dominance thing. Our Harley does this crap in reverse to our male dog, jumps on his back and starts yowling like a maniac. They are both fixed, Taz is the alpha dog in the dog pack of 3, but Harley is the undisputed ruler of them all (at nine pounds and declawed, mind you!) and I think he just needs to reassert himself every so often. This happened more often when we has just added 2 new dogs, so if the kittens are new maybe your Sasha is just trying to work out the "new" order of things. I know it is odd, but nine times out of ten the cat will win, so I would let it run its course and keep a squirt bottle handy for when company comes!

[Guest Mutts4Me]

Scooter, the object of her attention, is about 17 months old, and we've had him for over a year now. So she's not trying to assert dominance over him. I wish you could see this... it's total flirtiness, playing herself into an excited frenzy.

Sasha's a freak. She almost never plays, and in fact only has one very old toy that she brings out maybe once a month for 2 minutes time to play with. The rest of the time, she just gnaws her rawhides, and tosses those up in the air to play. It's the fault of her crappy previous owners who were abusive - so of course they couldn't bother to play with her.

When she does Play, be it with a rawhide or a cat, it's a very sudden, quick burst of energy, and then she's done. It's uncommon that she plays with the cats, as she just prefers to be nowhere near them.

I can't really just "let it run its course," because if she gets too physical with the cat, he's going to hurt her, and I'm afraid of her retaliating. She's only once tried to "get" a cat for real, and that was an adult stray we brought in. She was too curious, and he launched at her face. She lunged back out of pure reflex, totally taken aback and her dignity hurt. She stopped instantly and was very sorry, but I don't know what would've happened if the kitty hadn't moved quick enough and I hadn't grabbed her collar.

Well, she hasn't done anything since this morning, so we'll see.

[Guest Mutts4Me]

#1 - I forgot to mention that we didn't name Sasha, her idiot first owners did :-?

And

#2 - Look, I put cat into a sentence!

[gooeydog]

playing herself into an excited frenzy.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Some dogs will do this out of stress/excitement, they get so worked up, then have to get it out some way :roll: I would try redirecting her to a more "polite" outlet, like a game of fetch or tug (does she do either?), and (theoretically) that will take the place of the humping in time.

[Guest Mutts4Me]

[quote name='gooeydog'] I would try redirecting her to a more "polite" outlet, like a game of fetch or tug (does she do either?),

Nope ;)

That one toy that she has is a tug toy we got her when she first moved in. It's a stuffed animal on ropes called Goat Boy (I'm sure you needed to know that), and she brings it out once in a blue moon (maybe once a month) and thrashes it around, tosses it up, catches it, and if we get it she'll play tug for one, maybe two rounds (30 seconds - 1 minute) and then she's done. Fin.

I should clarify that the cat starts it.

As I said, two of my cats have crushes on her, and will come up and rub on her, purring. If she's walking around, they'll try to wind themselves around her legs, or they'll run in front of her and throw themselves down at her feet, wanting some kind of attention. Well, in the past several days, she's been giving this one particular one a LOT of attention.

When I say she "plays herself into a frenzy," I mean she starts by sniffing him, then her ears go back a bit, and her tail starts going faster; then she starts nuzzling his neck, and nudging him, generally getting more *ahem* excited, and it just escalates.

To the point of her beating him with her front leg because she's trying to mount something that doesn't even go up to her belly :oops: :roll: