Here's What You Should Know Before Having Sex In Front Of Your Dog

Most dog owners would love to spend every minute of every day with their pups. Alas, life gets in the way of that for many of us, which means trying to maximise whatever time we have together.

But what about when we want to get frisky with another human? Should we let our four-legged friends stay in the room? Or is it better to separate ourselves from our dogs before we start stripping down?

That’s what we – Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the co-hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast – aimed to find out when we recently chatted with Dr Emily Levine, a board-certified veterinary behaviourist and the owner of Animal Behavior Clinic of New Jersey.

“When [my boyfriend] Benji and I have sex, we don’t let [our dog] Jumi on the bed, but he’s in the bedroom, and I feel a little bit weird about it,” Michelson admitted. “I feel like he doesn’t exactly know what we’re doing. What do you think about this from a behaviour standpoint?”

Levine said this is a common question she often gets from pet owners.

“For most dogs, it just doesn’t matter,” she said. “If they’re not bothered by it, it doesn’t matter at all. Dogs don’t have this hang-up like people do about things. They sort of live in the moment.”

However, there are some behaviours that signal a dog should not be present

“Where we shouldn’t have the dog in a room when people are having sex is when the dog tries to intervene,” Levine told us.

“There are lots of dogs who have a little bit of FOMO ... like when people are like hugging, the dog wants to join in and so the dog is just like, in a happy way, ‘Hey! What’s going on here?’ and that just ruins the mood.”

Other pups might be uncomfortable for a more worrisome reason.

“There are also dogs who will get very distressed because of the sounds that are being made [during sex],” she said. “They may interpret some of those sounds as aggression [happening to] you, and then it’s not fair to the dog to have them in the room for that.”

Levine advised giving our furry friends a treat or a toy – either in the room or in another room – to keep them occupied until we’re done getting busy.

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We also tackled a question from a listener about a similar – yet very different – scenario.

“We recently adopted a new dog and he loves to lick our older dog’s penis,” the listener said. “What’s going on there? And is there any downside to this or should I just let them go at it?” 

“There are different reasons a dog may lick another dog’s penis,” Levine said. “It may be that there are just so many good odours in [that area] that they’re attracted to that.”

She also noted that they might be enjoying a taste that is present on or around the dog’s genitals.

“We want to make sure the dog doesn’t have like some sort of yeast infection or something in there that’s making it more attractive to the other dog,” she said.

What about the dog who is letting his friend lick him? “If he’s allowing this, he probably just thinks it feels good, or it does feel good,” she explained. 

Levine told us she wouldn’t be worried about the behaviour if it’s happening “here and there”, but if it’s ongoing, it could cause problems.

“The concern about it going on for too long or too frequently is it’s possibly setting up for an infection in the penis that’s being licked.”

We also chatted with Levine about how to address unwanted barking, why some dogs get more aggressive as they get older, what to know before you let dogs and kids play together and much more.

Listen to the full episode above or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have a question or need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com, and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.