Jumping in your seat

**mosmama** · 02-23-2010, 09:17 PM

What does this mean, if anything? Lots of times I'll be sitting on the couch and Limo will be laying next to me or sometimes not. But when I get up from where I'm sitting, I'll turn around and he'll be laying right where I was sitting. Is this a lab thing? Does it mean anything?

**Brady** · 02-23-2010, 10:08 PM

Mine does this all the time too. In the car also when i get out and come back in he is right in the drivers seat.

**creatism** · 02-24-2010, 11:15 AM

ok this my experiance with this issue, my gsd did this constantly and with him it was a rank issue he trying me for alpha. this was his reasoning not going into detail cause there were other signs that made that very clear. if there are no other signs then he may just like the warm spot.

**Bob Pr.** · 02-24-2010, 07:46 PM

With Labs, I doubt if it's a dominance issue most of the time although there certainly could be rare exceptions to that.

With Labs and many other dogs, I think it's almost always a case of the "Junior Officer" (this dog) taking over the ship's bridge, the seat of command, that the "Senior Officer" (you) have vacated. IIRC, from my reading several books on the behavior of wolves, a very similar behavior occurs whenever the alpha wolf is absent.

See comments on this very common behavior of dogs here: http://justlabradors.com/forum/threa...15#post1384515

A possible exception to the dominance issue among Labs was with my Bess.

Bess immediately occupied my driver's seat as soon as I got out of the car whenever she rode with me.

I suspect it could have been a dominance issue with Bess because, when I returned to the car (unlike my Puff who always, immediately, vacates my seat and switches to another spot as soon as she sees me coming back) Bess stayed there to the point I had to physically shove her out of the way with my hip to get my seat back.

Bess was extremely obedient and exceptionally well-trained in almost all other areas (e.g., making L & R turns on command up to 7X before picking up an object) and all usual (plus many not so usual) commands.

But vacating my seat when I returned to the car was not one of them.

This small fault amused me and hundreds of times, and maybe 100X more, I'd mutter to her something like -- "well, if you think you can drive, just go ahead!"

**Belles mom** · 02-25-2010, 01:37 AM

Most of my dogs do this also.

**christensenfarms** · 02-25-2010, 09:38 AM

My dog used to do this until I worked on it...now he stays put. Hard to tell why- we can only guess at the reason and it may not be something we humans can rationalize or understand.

When i left my seat,,I waited just the second it took for him to hop over,,then I popped back in said NO-pushed him over...stay and good. Again a few more times and he learned to stay put. It wasn't hard at all..

**Baloo317** · 02-25-2010, 09:45 AM

It means you have a warm bum.

I think it also has to do with scent. I know that something that smells like me has been useful in comforting my dogs when they're stressed (esp. Peanut), and they just generally like being in places that smell like Momma.

**BigBrownDog** · 02-25-2010, 11:42 AM

When the dogs are with me they stay in the back seat and don't assume the drivers chair when I am out of the car. When Dee goes out with my husband in his work van, he will immediately jump into the driver's seat whenever he can - and he is pretty stubborn about giving it up.