When your dog is trying to show you affection, it can lead to many funny situations you may not know what to do with. Why does my dog put her butt on me? By putting her butt on you, she is showing love and trust.
But if this behavior persists for too long, it could indicate an underlying problem that needs your attention. Otherwise, it should just be seen as another one of those endearing little habits that makes your dog unique.
And today, I want to share why your dog put her butt on you! So let’s go!
Why Does My Dog Put Her Butt On Me?
Most people think it’s just dogs’ instinct to groom each other, but dogs do this for several reasons. Here are they:
When Everything Is Fine
Any time you see your dog putting their butt on someone, it’s a sign that they behave affectionately and want closeness with the person. If they’re doing it playfully, it is appropriate, but if this doesn’t fit what you’re seeing, there might be other reasons why your pet is behaving like this.
When a dog is submissive, it will typically sit or lay down and signal that they are at the bottom of the hierarchy within the family. It can signal trust, so if your pet does this outside of playfulness, ask yourself what else might be happening.
Less Attention
If you are busy and not paying your pet enough attention, she may resort to this action to try and grab your attention and show love towards you. Dogs are naturally clean animals and won’t put their butt on the floor or bed when they feel dirty. So the behavior only occurs when they have been thoroughly bathed.
It’s also common for dogs to put their butts on people, especially when greeting them. It shows that they are excited or happy. In some cases, though, dogs may also use this as a form of dominance with other dogs or guests in the house.
Claim You
The next time your dog does this, be sure to think twice before you reprimand her or start praising her. She is doing this as a form of dominance over other dogs in the household or any visitors to the house. By placing her butt on you, she signals that you are hers and she will take care of you.
Show their Anger
Indeed, dogs will often greet you with their rear ends, but this isn’t just behavior they do to show love. They may be showing dominance or anger toward you. If a dog sees another dog in the room, she may try and get attention by rubbing her butt on the floor or bed. It is normal, but it could also signify that the dog thinks she is better than you and deserves more affection.
When your dog puts her butt on you, it just means she feels secure and comfortable in your presence. She loves being around people even though she may not know them very well yet – especially if they have been working with her for some time already.
Show Trust To You
If your dog places her butt on you, she is most likely happy or excited to see you. She trusts you, and this is what makes her feel secure. This behavior may also indicate that she does not like another dog in the household.
Reason number 3 for dogs putting their butt on people can include whether she should be entering their territory. Your dog may consider you as a boundary that keeps other dogs away from her turf. By placing her butt next to your legs or arms, she marks out the boundaries of her territory.
Feel to Protect You
Your dog may also do this when trying to protect you from harm or threat. She may be doing it because she feels threatened by other dogs, but if she genuinely loves you, she wouldn’t want to hurt you.
It’s also possible that your dog does this to protect her owner from others around the house. If people call your dog names or even try to discipline her, she will likely respond by putting her butt on the offender.
Scratches from You
If your dog’s behavior has been getting worse recently, it could be because she is getting older and not getting enough affection from you anymore.
If she does this on your bed, she may ask for some attention. If she is under the bed and you come in, it could be that she wants you to pick her up from her hiding place and give her a loving scratch behind the ears.
Want Intimacy with you
It’s also possible that your dog can place her butt on you because of what some call “dinner duty” or “snuggling duty. As an owner of a dog, you can understand why your dog might decide to put their butt on you when they’re feeling affectionate.
It is a relatively normal behavior in dogs and signals to other dogs and humans that they want closeness with the person. However, there are times when the behavior might be inappropriate or even dangerous so understanding what it means is essential.
Being petted
In addition, dogs love the feeling of having their rear ends petted or scratched. It’s because they have a ton of nerve endings in their bottoms that stimulate the skin and make them feel good.
Final Words
Dogs will always be unique to us. They are our best friends and the best companions that we could ever have. But if you have not to find the reason why does my dog put her butt on me, it’s very thoughtful.
It’s essential to observe that a dog’s butt will most likely smell after sitting on your lap or a table for some time. You can do something about this by bathing her more frequently or by keeping her bed outside, especially if she is obsessed with lying on furniture.
Cats are not usually predators because they cannot kill and eat their prey, but on some occasions, it may be beneficial for them to hunt. In most cases, the prey is a smaller cat that the enormous cat tries to protect. Why do cats bite each other’s necks?
It’s not unusual: two cats fighting, their bodies entwined like two snakes slithering together. Suddenly one of them bites down on the other cat’s neck, gripping tightly enough to make it bleed profusely while they both continue their fight. Let’s know why they do it!
Why Do Cats Bite Each Other’s Necks?
There are several reasons for this. It could be as simple as establishing his territory. Let’s check it:
Make Cat Attacks Female
When mating season comes around, male cats will do this to attract females by leaving a scent they believe the female cat will find appealing. It is also believed that these bites mark their territory. So it keeps other cats away, which makes sense. Because a male cat will not want other male cats around while working to attract the female of the species.
It’s also been said that biting your cat on the neck or the back of its head can work like a training tool. By releasing endorphins in your cat’s brain, they will feel good and associate you with being happy, meaning they should behave in a manner that you find acceptable when you affectionately bite them in those areas.
Neck-biting And Predatory Instinct
Neck biting can also be a display of dominance. It is a sign that the cat doing the biting wants to be in control and will try to dominate all other cats, even if they have had no prior contact with that particular cat. However, not all neck bites are purely aggressive.
Playing And Learning
Some cats will use neck biting as a form of play. In these cases, the prey and the predator become aggressive, but not excessively so. The prey cat is marked as a “game,” while the predator is marking his territory. As you can imagine, this cannot be very clear for anyone who ends up on the receiving end of biting!
Playful bites may be part of training. For example, a cat biting you during play may try to mark you or teach you something he thinks you should know. Maybe he wants to show that it’s okay to take something that belongs to someone else by playing rough with them or showing them what he thinks they should learn.
Fighting & Dominance
A cat may use a bite on your neck as an offensive move while fighting with another cat. This is usually the case during mating season when mating becomes more aggressive and requires more biting and scratching. In some cases, biting on the neck may also be a form of submission by the cat being bitten.
Cat love bites are often hard to watch, not only because you worry about your pet’s safety but also because you know it’s a rather painful experience for him!
When two cats decide to fight and wound each other this blatantly, it’s evident that they are not using their claws and are instead using their mouths to inflict pain.
Hunting Instinct
The cat who bites the other’s neck may be doing so because it seems like an easy way to catch its prey. A predator will make a kill by biting the neck of its prey, so this bite is a sort of instinctive reaction.
Hunters may also use this method as a practice before hunting in the future. He will learn to become more aggressive during mating season while almost simulating an actual kill.
Grooming Behavior
A cat might also be biting his partner because he naturally wants to groom himself. When he does this, he may be distracted and bite what is closest to him, which happens to be another cat!
Biting another cat can also be a form of apology. If a cat realizes that he has hurt the other one while they were fighting, bit or scratched him too hard out of anger. This type of biting may also mean that the cat being bitten was the more aggressive one and is trying to show he’s sorry.
While the reasons why a cat will bite another cat are pretty varied, some medical conditions can cause it.
If you suspect your cat might be suffering from an illness or injury, it’s probably best to take him to his veterinarian as soon as possible.
Lack of socialization
If your cat has never been around other cats, then it’s likely that he may associate other cats with aggressive behavior. It can be a result of bad experiences.
If your cat is still very much in kitten form and has not yet bonded with another cat, then you need to ensure that you provide him with plenty of socialization opportunities. Your plan should be to bring two or three kittens together as early as possible so they can get to know each other and learn how to play appropriately.
Resource competition
A cat who is more significant, more robust, or has more resources to call his own may be dominant over other cats. In most cases, this type of aggressive behavior is only displayed from one side of the relationship.
Suppose the subordinate cat doesn’t know how to de-escalate the situation or is unable to be submissive enough. Then he may resort to biting to ward off or run away from an attacking cat. It means that a submissive cat can bite another cat in self-defense as an act of self-preservation.
Final Words
As we can see, Why do cats bite each other’s necks? There are many different reasons why your cat might bite the other.
It doesn’t mean he’s not behaving aggressively if he’s not hurting you. On the contrary, it just means that he has a very high level of affection for you. It will do whatever it takes to keep you safe!
As with almost any type of interaction between humans, the process of picking up a dog can be pretty complicated. Some dogs will yelp, and others may growl or even bite. Why does my dog yelp when I pick him up?
You may have tried to pick up your dog before, and it yelped, growled, or even bit you. Or, a dog may be anxious during the beginning, and this fear can affect their reaction to your approach.
Dog owners know how difficult it can sometimes be to celebrate their pet’s joy. And today, I will discuss some of the reasons why that might be.
Why Does My Dog Yelp When I Pick Him Up?
There are many reasons a dog may react this way when you attempt to pick them up. Here are some of the most common:
May Have Internal Injuries
Picking up a dog in an uncontrolled way can cause him to yelp. When we pick up a dog, do it very quickly and unceremoniously, or hold it high off the ground, there is a high risk of causing him to yelp.
That’s because you’re interrupting certain reflexes that allow him to regulate his center of gravity. We also put pressure on our dog’s lumbar spine, which can cause pain if you’re doing it wrong. It is one of the most common reasons dogs yelp when picked up.
Get Out of Fear
A dog’s vocalization indicates discomfort and fear, but it’s also a way for him to express excitement. If your dog displays some of these behaviors, it means that he’s afraid:
He is afraid of being alone in the house or the yard.
Also, he doesn’t like to be separated from you.
For example, he feels threatened when he gets in touch with the vacuum cleaner.
Besides, he doesn’t like strangers or people he doesn’t know very well.
Taking in the Wrong Way
Sometimes your dog yelps when you hold him, which isn’t good. The way that you hold the dog is significant because his weight can cause a lot of damage to his neck and spine through pressure.
One of the most common reasons why dogs yelp when they’re being picked up is simply that you have done it in an uncontrol way:
You grab them too quickly before they have time to react.
They are not accustomed to being picked up.
Your hand is closed into a fist, which makes it hard for the dog to breathe correctly.
Feel Joint Pain
There are several reasons why dogs may yelp when they’re being picked up. One of them is a problem in a joint:
A slipped disc (in the spine) causes pain and may be accompanied by yelping.
Cartilage damage to the knee can cause discomfort or pain.
Another possible reason for pain is an infection in the spine or joint.
If you notice that your dog has any of these behaviors immediately, it will help you solve the problem.
Had Recent Surgery
Surgery is sometimes necessary to fix problems in the spine. However, it’s essential to consult a specialist to properly diagnose the problem, according to Dr. David Crowe of VeterinaryCare-PA.org.
Not Surprise
Dogs are susceptible and can perceive many things we don’t even realize. When we arrive home without warning or while they’re resting, our dog may react out of surprise. His yelp tells us that he’s surprised by what’s happened. Due to external stimuli like loud noises or something inside, the dog would like to get released from you.
Feel Excitement
Dogs often yelp when they’re feeling excited. When we enter the house, our dog might become very enthusiastic and jump to greet us. He may even bark or yelp just from being excited. That’s because the dog is doing what his genetics have taught him. He does it to bring his pack’s awareness about his excitement for a particular event.
Have Spinal Pain
Dogs will often yelp when they’re picked up to avoid pain. This is a common symptom of spinal cord issues. The spine is made up of vertebrae, which are bones that allow the body to remain stable and functioning correctly. Whenever there is an injury, it can lead to pain in the back and legs.
Feel problem in Breathing
Dogs often yelp when they’re being picked up because they’re breathing difficulties. It happens mostly to dogs that are suffering from heart disease. The increased pressure on the heart can cause a lot of discomfort and pain in the lungs, which can cause them to yelp.
May have Muscle issues
Dogs may yelp when picked up from the pressure of the arm or any discomfort caused by a muscle cramp in their legs. This is usually due to a prolonged and complex contraction of the hamstring muscles.
You’ll sometimes notice your dog yelping when it moves his leg, but he won’t use it immediately. In such cases, it could be that he’s tightening his muscles and causing pain.
They’re frightened
Your dog may yelp when he’s frightened because he doesn’t know what’s happening or doesn’t have time to react. Sometimes the dog doesn’t know what to do in a specific situation.
When you pick him up, he may feel surprised and anxious, causing him to yelp. His vocalization also allows other dogs in his pack to communicate with him, which explains why they might also be alarmed when you enter the yard or house.
Have Infections in the Eyes
Dogs often yelp when picked up because of eye infections, which can cause pain and discomfort. The dog may also experience pain from the pressure on the eyeball when you reach for his face or nose.
Final Words
Some dogs yelp when picked up for a reason, but others do it for different ones. If I summarize why does my dog yelp when I pick him up, they are due to genetic programming and other situations.
Yelling is a way to communicate that something is wrong, even if the dog can’t talk. That’s why you need to know what type of situation causes your dog to yelp. So you can adequately treat whatever is causing him discomfort and pain.
It did not turn out well to work on duration for “front paws on a platform” during Lewis’ breakfast period.
Most of us know the harm that tools such as shock and prong collars can cause. But I worry that our focus on tools causes less dramatic aversive methods to go under the radar.
We do talk about some aversive methods not associated with tools. Things like molding, where a dog is forced into position. Scaring dogs with noises. Kicking or hitting. But you know what is discussed very little?
Extinction. Specifically, operant extinction of a positively reinforced behavior. An experience that can be so unpleasant to the learner it can provoke violence (Azrin et al., 1966) or depression (Huston et al., 2013; Ramnerö et al., 2016).
Here’s a definition:
The extinction operation is the discontinuation (cessation) of reinforcement as a consequence of a given behavior, leading to a decrease in the frequency of that behavior. — Mayer et al, 2018, p. 30.
Tools such as shock and prong collars are used almost exclusively in positive punishment and negative reinforcement protocols. Extinction of a positively reinforced behavior is not an event associated with their normal use. But the experience of extinction can be anything from annoying to frustrating to devastating.
Extinction in Positive Reinforcement Contingencies
There are varying intensities, for lack of a better term, of extinction. When a trainer shapes behavior there will be episodes of extinction, in which a previously reinforced approximation is no longer reinforced. But the more skilled the trainer, the fewer and more uneventful these are. A good trainer makes it plain through the environmental setup and their actions what the dog should try next. I.e., how they can continue to access reinforcement with slight changes to their behavior.
Alanna and Flynn were just messing around. But look at his claws!
Sometimes we train a new behavior to access the same or similar reinforcement as a problem behavior. No matter how kind and thoughtful we are, our goal is to extinguish the problem behavior in that context. But good planning and providing a clear path to reinforcement for the dog can help soften the experience.
But contrast these carefully designed plans with, for example, the commonly recommended method to ignore dogs who jump up without giving them any clue about what to do instead. Many people have discussed the inefficacy of this method, including me. But besides being ineffective, any abrupt change like that can be unkind. (Depending on how this plan is implemented, it very likely incorporates negative punishment as well.)
Alanna Lowry, DVM, and wonderful, “naughty” Flynn were hamming it up in the adjacent photo. But it is no fun for most dogs to have their human completely ignore them.
That’s the kind of extinction scenario I am focusing on in this discussion: a previously reinforced behavior that is no longer reinforced at all. A complete cessation of reinforcement with no alternative offered. The dog has no ability to remedy the situation, i.e., access that reinforcer again.
This happens not only in training, but in life.
Noting quickly: there also exists extinction of negatively reinforced behavior, so-called escape extinction. I may write about this in the future.
Theoretical Extinction Example
Here is an extreme example that I hope none of us would ever do. Let’s say that every evening you have a play session with your dog. You make several preparations for this. You may change your clothes. Perhaps you’ll grab some treats from a jar. You may get some special equipment and set it up.
You make all the preparations, grab your dog’s toy, and head for the play area. Your dog is accompanying you—excited and ready for some fun. You’ve started the familiar launch sequence. But when you get to the area where you normally play, instead of starting the play, you put the toy out of the dog’s reach and sit down and look at your phone. You ignore your dog.
It’s painful for me to even imagine this because of how hard it would be on my dog. He would try different things to engage me in play for a while. I would be able to see the effects of the extinction process in his behavior as his behavior began to vary. I would likely see frustration-related behaviors if I let it go on too long (Bentosela et al., 2008; Jakovcevic et al., 2013). In other words, fallout.
If I did that every day (completely stopped playing with him after setting up to do so), I wonder how long it would take before he stopped trying to play with me? Again, this is sad to think about.
What Extinction Can Look Like
In the photos below, Lewis’ Jolly Ball, a favorite toy, is hanging in the tree behind me. He is using a variety of behaviors to remedy the situation. This is typical of an extinction process, where the variability of behavior increases. It is a diluted extinction burst.
I call it diluted because was not a true extinction event. I cherrypicked the photos out of a quick 60-second video. I did not consistently ignore Lewis. I interacted with him between these shots, and I put some peanut butter on the tree to set up that shot. It was still excruciating for me to do, to slightly confuse him and to delay the fun for 60 seconds. Of course we played heartily with the Jolly Ball afterward.
There is a lay term for this activity: teasing. “Look! Here’s this thing you want but you can’t have it.”
It worries me that suddenly ceasing to reinforce a behavior that had been reinforced in the past would not break any stated guidelines about force free training I’ve seen. Although they are acknowledged as problematic in the Hierarchy of Behavior-Change Procedures and in the LIFE model, professional organizations don’t seem to cover them in their requirements and position statements and they are not a frequent topic of discussion for individual trainers.
We are technically not doing anything to the dog at all. Not touching him, not scolding him. Yet—it can be cruel.
Real-Life Extinction Example
I made that example extreme to focus on the potential harm. but this type of thing happens in smaller ways. It happens when we suddenly change routines. Here’s a real example from my life with Lewis.
Lewis eats most of his breakfast out of a food toy. But for several months, I broke up his breakfast period with a training session. He got to choose when to switch. I went in with a handful of 15–20 higher-value kibble pieces. I made myself available and waited for him to take a break (good matching law exercise), then we’d have a quickie training session. Then he went back to his food toy.
Lewis is anxious and tapping his feet on the platform
Over the months, I noticed that we had a hard time in those sessions. He was jumpy and mouthy. He seemed conflicted, likely because of having to leave one food source for another. Duration behaviors such as front-paws-on-a-platform, shown in the top and adjacent photos, were extra difficult. The adjacent photo is from one of those sessions; the top one was posed much later. See the difference?
I had done this mid-breakfast training with Clara before, but she was a different dog with a different history with me. She moseyed over to play with me, then moseyed back to her food toy. It took me way too long to perceive the negative experience for Lewis.
After I noticed, I decided to stop our mid-breakfast training session.
I put some thought about how to break our routine in the kindest way possible. Even though the session seemed stressful, he would eagerly approach me when it was time and gobble the food. So he would notice its absence for sure.
What were the cues for this interruption? An obvious one was my entering the hallway where he eats. So if I stopped coming in, would he stop “expecting” the session? No. Another part of the cue was time. Not time of day, but the amount of time elapsed from when he started eating. Somewhere around four minutes. I could not prevent the passage of time. So I couldn’t prevent the little period of extinction where he would perform anticipatory and approach behaviors like looking up from his toy or coming to the gate where I would normally enter. Those were the behaviors that would no longer be reinforced if I ceased the mid-breakfast session.
Was this going to be grueling for him? Not likely. To anthropomorphize a bit, the human parallel would be something like, “Well, I guess we aren’t doing that anymore. Damn. I liked that food. Oh well, I’ve got this other food to work on.”
But making a plan and softening this change provided good practice for me to learn how to handle more intense extinction scenarios that might come along.
My Training Plan
Parts of the Cue (Predictors)
Elapsed time
My getting out the food (he could sometimes hear or see this)
My approach with food
Lewis’ Behaviors in Response to the Cues
Standing still (rather than interacting with his toy)
Looking around
Approaching the gate where I enter
Reinforcers
To eliminate the training session, I planned to fade the cues by softening them or moving them, and to decrease the amount of the special kibble (but not to zero).
Here are the steps I took.
I substituted something else for the training session. I came in at the usual time and gave Lewis the special kibble in a floor scatter. Then I hung around for a while. I offered this social behavior because there was a social reinforcer included in the original activity. He likes having me around when he eats.
I gradually decreased the amount of special kibble (but included the rest in his meal or in another training session).
I gradually lengthened the amount of time before coming in.
My final behavior is to come in when he is about finished with his food toy (which I have always done anyway), hand him a couple of pieces of the special food, then help him retrieve any pieces of kibble he can’t get. The last is part of our normal routine.
Why Bother?
My first example with the play session may have seemed overblown. And my example of fading the interruption in Lewis’ breakfast may seem insignificant.
But I want to practice thinking about this, working out the problems to prevent unpleasantness in my dog’s life. My thought processes will help me if something bigger comes along.
Conclusion
Whether it’s in training or in life, whether it’s planned or sudden and unavoidable, don’t ever forget about the hurt of extinction. If it’s necessary to discontinue a regular activity your dog enjoys, soften the blow in any way you can. And if you have a training credential, ask your accrediting body whether extinction without differential reinforcement is worth addressing in guidelines and position statements.
What kinds of extinction scenarios have you noticed with your dog, either in training or daily life? What happens when there is a cue for a behavior and there is no reinforcement available for that behavior anymore? This can include some very sad scenarios, such as a breakup or a death in the family. (In the future, I hope to write more about the loss of Clara. It hit Lewis hard.) But there are so many less intense things that happen: schedule changes and the like. How does your dog handle them? How do you help your dog?
References
Azrin, N. H., Hutchinson, R. R., & Hake, D. F. (1966). Extinction‐induced aggression. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of behavior, 9(3), 191-204.
Bentosela, M., Barrera, G., Jakovcevic, A., Elgier, A. M., & Mustaca, A. E. (2008). Effect of reinforcement, reinforcer omission and extinction on a communicative response in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). Behavioural processes, 78(3), 464-469.
Huston, J. P., de Souza Silva, M. A., Komorowski, M., Schulz, D., & Topic, B. (2013). Animal models of extinction-induced depression: loss of reward and its consequences. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(9), 2059-2070.
Jakovcevic, A., Elgier, A. M., Mustaca, A. E., & Bentosela, M. (2013). Frustration behaviors in domestic dogs. Journal of applied animal welfare science, 16(1), 19-34.
Mayer, G. R., Sulzer-Azaroff, B., & Wallace, M. (2018). Behavior analysis for lasting change, fourth edition. Sloan.
Ramnerö, J., Folke, F., & Kanter, J. W. (2016). A learning theory account of depression. Scandinavian journal of psychology, 57(1), 73-82.
