dog training

Question
QUESTION: I have a five year old male unneutered German Shepherd,we recently adopted a neutered male labradoodle puppy that is approximately one year old.My German Shepherd has started trying to mount the labradoodle and lick his penis.I have tried to discourage this by spraying water on him and trying to correct him when he tries, but this has not worked.Please tell me how to correct this behavior and why it started in the first place.
Thank You

ANSWER: Hi, Dennis,

Thanks for the question.

Your shepherd is strongly attracted to the doodle through his need for social play, which is a way dogs have of sublimating their urge to bite. In other words a part of him wants to bite the doodle, but another part knows that that's not proper social behavior. He would probably settle for a good game of chase or a round of wrestling, but my suspicion is that the younger dog is either slightly intimidated by the shepherd or is simply not interested in having a session of rough-and-tumble play with him. (Correct me if I'm wrong about the details, but when one dog mounts another it usually indicates a frustrated desire to play.)

I'm not sure who's penis he's licking; I assume it's the doodle's. But either way, this indicates a strong urge to bite that's being repressed, so it comes out both as obsessive mounting and licking.

Do you ever play fetch and tug-of-war outdoors with the shepherd?

LCK

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Yes he plays every day in our back yard, and he also spends allot of time rough housing with the doodle,so I am not sure that this is the reason for his behavior.

Answer
Hi again.

Even though your shepherd spends a lot of time playing with the doodle, that doesn't mean he feels totally satisfied by the experience. For dogs the ultimate pay-off in life comes through biting down hard on something in play. Since they also have social inhibitions about biting down hard on their owners and packmates, they rarely get a chance to achieve that level of satisfaction. That's why I asked if you play tug-of-war with him outdoors. The harder he bites the toy in play, the less need he'll have for humping or licking the other dog's body parts. All behavior is an expression of energy, and if you can set things up so that a lot of your shepherd's energy can be expressed through playing tug, he'll has less of a need for these strange behaviors.

There's another element to this, though. And that is that with certain types of dogs, any time you punish or repress their impulses you increase the likelihood that they'll misbehave in some way.

Have you done any obedience training with the shepherd?

LCK