Toy Rat Terrier Behavior

Question
I have toy rat terriers - a male and female (litter mates) who are now one year old.  They have been spayed and neutered but the male is constantly trying to mount the female.  What can we do?  She runs to my husband and me for protection because he is getting more aggressive with her -- pulling her ears and dragging her by the scruff of her neck.  Isn't this supposed to stop after neutering?

Answer
Carlie -

How long ago was your little fella neutered ?  It can take up to 6 months for the hormone levels to drop.... but if you only recently had him neutered, he's had an entire year of life to develop this behavior.

It is often not about sex drive in dogs, but rather a dominance behavior, and since he's been with his sister all her life, and she's not slapped him out of it to date, she's not likely to start now.... Once of the reasons many people don't like to keep littermates together.

As for modifying his behavior - use a squirt bottle.  Teaching him that getting squirted will be the result of being aggressive to her will help pretty quickly.  You can reinforce this even more if you use crates.  You could put him away for 5 minutes after every time he needs squirting.  It would make it even more effective if you crated them when out of the house.

the reason this would help is because every time he is successful at tormenting her, he is more likely to try it again.  It won't take long to learn that he can be mean when no ones' home but needs to act right when you are.

You're gonna need to nip this in the bud or you're gonna have 1 spoiled brat on your hands.... and of course I cannot emphasize obedience classes enough....

-Beth