David the Dogman

Wednesday, 01 September 2010 09:55

Written by Editor

Is he dangerous?

Dear David,
My problem is as follows:
We have a Golden Cocker Spaniel of about 10 years of age.
He has always been a great part of the family and we have never had any concerns regarding his behaviour at all. Yesterday we celebrated our son's 1st birthday and on 2 separate occasions he mounted a child and began humping him. The first child was only 3 years old and whilst the other was older he actually scratched the boy's back. He was persistent enough in his action to shock and worry us quite badly.

We have never really seen this behaviour before although our friends said that when they looked after him previously he humped their boys on several occasions. He is exercised every day - a little less than we did when he was younger but we still maintain somewhere between 20 minutes to an hour of walks a day.

We have even recently moved to a ground floor apartment with a garden to ensure that he gets enough stimulation from being able to sniff around and get fresh air when he needs it.He was castrated when he was very young. In general he is good with children but we do not want to risk a similar scenario happening again - we will have increasing amounts of children in the house over the coming years.Thanks for any advice that you can offer. Jenny.

Dear Jenny

I would recommend that you visit your vet to explain your problem and the vet might well apply a hormone therapy. Apart from medical intervention there is no cure for this behaviour and it will get worse. Long walks as you describe make no difference whatsoever.
This is a learned behaviour and can be extremely dangerous. Many people think that to castrate a dog is the end of their problems but this is a grave misconception.

I am concerned and must stress that your dog can never be trusted with any children, even supervised. The safest bet with your dog is to crate him in the home, or fit baby gates (obtainable from Leroy Merlin) so that the children can be safe or keep him outside.
I would mention that when a woman menustrates this can have an effect on your dog and one should keep in mind that blood is mating time in the animal world.

I would like to ask you some questions and offer further advice, please send me your telephone number.

Regards

David