If you own a beagle puppy, you may be surprised to see them exhibiting a humping or mounting behavior. This can confuse many owners, because this behavior is generally thought of as something that beagles in heat do, not something prepubescent puppies do.

However this behavior actually is quite normal, in both male and female dogs, at any age. Beagle puppies can hump or mount for a variety of reasons that aren’t necessarily sexual, including stress relief and establishing dominance.

In this article, I’ll go through the reasons why your beagle puppy might be humping, and what steps you can take to best curb this behavior so it doesn’t become an unsightly habit.

When Do Beagle Puppies Go Through Puberty?

Generally, puppies start to go through puberty between the ages of 7 and 10 months. Like humans, female dogs generally begin this process sooner, and not all dogs will sexually mature within the same time frame.

This means that you can expect a certain degree of humping in a sexual nature from your puppy as they gradually mature into adulthood, as most puppies are considered to be fully developed adults between one year and 18 months of age.

For the most part though, when puppies are exhibiting a humping behavior it’s much less likely to be due to sexual reasons, and more out of energy and dominance.

This is especially true if you decide to spay or neuter your beagle puppy along the recommended timeline from your veterinarian. Additionally, sexually mature female beagles go into heat up to two times per year, making it even rarer for puppies in this age range to start humping because they are in heat.

Main Reasons Beagle Puppies Hump

As I mentioned above, beagle puppies can hump or mount for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common ones include:

• They Are Being Playful

Beagle puppies can often hump or mount simply when they are in a particularly playful mood, especially if they are playing with other dogs in the household.

As puppies, beagles are a particularly small breed, with a lot of energy and not a lot of mass to burn it all off. This can result in a variety of annoying behaviors like biting, barking, growling, and even humping.

While it can be embarrassing and even annoying to witness this behavior, it’s important to remember that when puppies are young, they go through a lot of behavioral phases just like any human toddlers.

Eventually most of these behaviors will go away on their own, but it’s also important to be diligent when supervising them, to avoid any long term bad habits from forming.

• Compulsive Behavior

In many cases, beagle puppies will hump on occasion simply because they have a compulsive behavior. This can often be a result of genetics, where the parents exhibited similar types of behaviors.

However if you adopted your puppy from a shelter or rescue, their previous living situation could also play a role in the development of this type of behavior, as they can also learn it from other dogs in their formative environments.

Beagles, like all puppies, will emulate other behaviors from dogs around them. If they are around dogs that constantly hump, they will resort to mimicking this behavior until it becomes a compulsion of their own.

• Establish Dominance

This is probably the most common reason behind humping in beagle puppies. As a dog that was bred to hunt in packs, beagles have innate urges to establish dominance over the rest of their pack.

This dominance can be established in a variety of ways, but mounting (which looks a lot like humping), is one of the most commonly used behaviors, and one of the most effective among dogs.

Puppies mount because they want to display their physical strength over one another, in order to make clear that they are the ones in charge.

It can be annoying, but it’s relatively harmless, as long as your beagle isn’t ganging up or being too forceful with any other dogs that they come in contact with.

• Stress

It can especially be concerning if your puppy goes into a prolonged period of being stressed out, as this can cause them to resort to humping in an attempt to relieve their anxiety.

There are many causes of stress in beagles, including separation anxiety caused by separation from certain people, or even simply just the transition from one place to another.

One of the most important things that you can do if your puppy is exhibiting this type of behavior, is take it seriously. You’ll want to examine what might be triggering the stress before this humping behavior begins.

You should look for what stimuli might be causing them stress, like loud noises, bad smells, or something that could be physically hurting them.

• – Excess Amounts Of Energy (Witching Hour)

Often beagles will resort to odd behaviors like humping because they are simply bursting with energy.

My beagles often go haywire at the end of every day, hours after they’ve been fed and had their walks. I refer to this behavior as their “witching hour”, because it tends to happen at the same time every day, just before they get ready to go to bed.

Beagles as a breed require lots of exercise to get out all of their pent up energy. Even though most vets recommend at least 30 minutes of exercise per day, it might not be enough for some beagles.

Additionally, beagles require a lot of mental stimulation too. Even if they’ve been walked for the day, if they haven’t been mentally stimulated, they can still have bursts of energy that can result in humping or mounting.

If you’re looking for tips on how to mentally engage your beagle, check out my guide on entertaining beagles while indoors.

• Medical Disturbance

Lastly, medical disturbances can be one of the main causes of stress and discomfort that can lead a beagle to compulsively hump. If your beagle seems distressed or in pain whenever they do this, you should take them to a vet as soon as you can.

Beagles can’t always communicate when something is wrong, but this behavior could indicate that they have an injury in their legs or hips, and they might be trying to relieve the pain in the only way that they know how.

How To Stop Your Beagle Puppy From Humping

Fortunately, there’s also a variety of ways to curb this behavior. Some of the most effective ones include:

• Get Enough Exercise

One of the most important things you can do to curb this behavior is make sure your puppy gets plenty of exercise.

Beagles are a particularly energetic breed, and if they aren’t getting the exercise that they need, they will become anxious and more prone to compulsively humping.

You might not be able to control exactly how much your puppy’s energy level varies from day to day, but you should at least try to maintain a healthy amount of exercise on a regular basis.

Most vets recommend to wait between 10 to 14 days after your beagle puppy’s final vaccination before taking them on regular walks. However once that time has elapsed, you’ll be good to go, and you should aim for at least 30 minutes of outdoor activity every day.

On weekends if you have the time, you should probably strive for more. It doesn’t have to all be walks either, my beagles love going on hikes, playing at the park, and even swimming.

• Use Distractions

Sometimes the best way to stop a compulsive behavior is to simply offer up a distraction. In the dog training world, this is known as “redirection“.

Redirection can be a very effective way to get your puppies to stop with compulsive behaviors before they become habits, and can teach them more obedience for your commands as well.

• Give Praise When Behavior Stops On Command

To supplement the redirection technique, you should also always give praise when they stop humping on your command.

If you practice with the word “stop” or “off”, once they actually do it (after just saying it one time), you should act very excited, give them lots of praise, and even a treat or two. This will help teach them to obey your commands, and will give them positive reinforcement to listen to you in the future.

• Use Time Outs With Crate Training

If you aren’t having any luck with redirecting this behavior, I like to use my beagle’s crate as an easy “time out” whenever they’re behaving badly.

Crate training your beagle is essential, because it gives them a sense of independence with their own private space, and it acts as a way to desensitize them from the world around them.

Beagles often don’t know how to calm themselves down, so putting them in a warm, dark, familiar environment can help them simmer down and start behaving better.

Crate training has been an invaluable part of my entire training plan with my two beagles. If you want to learn more, you can check out my crate training guide here.

• Spay Or Neuter Your Beagle

Spaying or neutering your beagle is an extremely important duty to help with the overcrowding rescues across North America, and to help benefit your dog’s health as well.

By spaying or neutering your beagle puppy along the recommended timeline from your vet, you’ll be able to curb humping as a sexual behavior, and will also help to balance out your dog’s temperament so that they are easier to train.

• Consider Seeing Your Vet

As I mentioned above, beagles can compulsively hump or mount due to a medical disturbance, ranging from things like urinary tract infections to injuries on their legs or hips. Whatever the case may be, a vet will be able to accurately diagnose it and come up with a treatment or preventative solution.

Final Thoughts

Beagles are very loyal, loving dogs. It’s important to remember that they are most likely humping due to some sort of stress they are experiencing in their environment, dominance reasons, or simply too much energy.

Even though it’s wrong, they don’t understand that it is, they’re just trying to find a way to release the stress or energy that is accumulating inside of them.

If you follow the steps above, you’ll be able to confidently curb this behavior in your beagle, and help with their overall obedience training as a puppy at the same time.