Sudden behavioural change 2/3 days ago which hasn’t went away

Hi everyone, I’m looking for advice about my 2.5 year old black male Labrador. His behaviour has changed quite suddenly and I can’t seem to figure out why. He’s doing the following:

• very alert, can’t/won’t sit still. Hours of pacing.
• Panting excessively, heavy breathing, even though room is not warm compared to usual
• Trying to hump me constantly (no one else but me)
• Whines constantly if he can’t get to me even if he can see me (through dog gate etc)
• Won’t leave my side
• I wasn’t feeling well the other day and lay down in bed (which has happened numerous times before) but this time he got up beside me and woke me up and then almost forced me to stay awake it was strange every time I tried to close my eyes again he would paw at me or something but he didn’t mind if my eyes were open.. very strange
• Most of his strange behaviour happens at night, during the rest of the day he would be normal or a little off but not as severe at all.

overall it’s hard to put my finger on but it’s like intense anxiety/separation anxiety from me all of a sudden (started 2/3 days ago and hasn’t stopped). I’ve tried playing with him, giving him attention, not giving him attention, letting him sit up beside me, putting him on opposite side of dog gate .. just a number of different approaches and nothing has worked. it could be nothing but I’m worried there’s something wrong with him that needs medical attention. Facts: Mentioned before but.. male (intact) black Labrador, 2.5 years old, up to date on worm/flea doses, healthy weight, fit- exercised daily. thank you for reading

Hello!  I'm not sure from your description what's going on here.  I have read it several times and can think of a few possible scenarios  scenario 1) Your young male dog is in pain (panting, restlessness, seeking reassurance - but how would this fit the overtly sexual behaviour?  Is everything Ok 'down there', penis in prepuice, etc?  Sometimes it can get stuck out, for example.)    2) There is a fox or female dog in heat just out of sight round the corner or in the garden (???? How likely is this???)    3) He has an undiagnosed breathing / heart problem - they can happen in the fittest animals - but again I can't tie this to the humping; according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a dog acutely struggling to breathe wouldn't usually be thinking about that or 4) Separation anxiety from you, perhaps compounded by upset sexual hormones at the present time .... . I think that a good step would be to let the vet check him out.  They could at least start to rule out obvious heart and lung problems, signs of pain and check the genitalia / prostate gland etc for obvious abnormalities.   They should then be able to guide you as to what to do next.  Meanwhile, if you consider that his breathing may be compromised, or are worried that he may be in pain, or unable to urinate, this may be an emergency.  If left in any doubt at all, your emergency vet could triage the case for you. I'm thinking of you, hope that you can both ultimately get some rest and would love to hear how this case concludes.

Thank you so much for your reply it’s helped a lot! I stupidly didn’t mention a crucial element- he has hip dysplasia in one of his hips. He was diagnosed at about 1 year old and they said he may need surgery in the future but that it wasn’t that bad to warrant it at the time plus he was too young to get it done. He’s on rheumocam for it, but it does seem to hurt him even with the meds.. but as you were saying if his hip was bothering him would he be humping constantly ? His genital area all seems fine, nothing strange or stuck but that’s coming from my limited experience only so I don’t know. Another key thing you reminded me of is we visited my mother and her dog had just finished her time of the month which he was very interested in, however he was only around her for about 2 minutes at most…this was about 5 days ago and he hasn’t seen her since…? There are a lot of factors to consider, very stressful! Your reply really really helped me. I think I should head to the vet.. my only reservation is that the vets where I live don’t consider behavioural issues to be real issues and therefore don’t tend to do anything. In the past, when I brought my other dog with behavioural issues they dismissed me as the dog was “peppy” and therefore didn’t seem sick. And that was the good vet clinic! The other one actually diagnosed my late dog with a heart condition without taking bloodpressure/doing scans - after the tablets didn’t work they gave him more tablets and when they still didn’t work they increased their strength but I just had a gut feeling something was wrong so I went to a specialist farther away and they said his heart was perfect and healthy and that his issues were down to spondylosis and arthritis in other areas. The specialist cost so much money which I don’t have much of. Anyway I’m going off on a tangent but basically I just don’t have the most trust in my vets so I thought I’d ask here first. thanks again for your help and I’ll post an update when I have one ! :)

Hmmm.. interesting thought about the hierarchy of needs.  I don't know how much hip pain a dog would be willing to put up with to engage in sexual behaviour, or how much difficult breathing they would be willing to put up with and suspect that it changes from dog to dog.  Abdominal pain is something else to look out for.  Panting is a well-documented sign of pain in dogs, including joint pain, pelvic pain and abdominal pain.  I look forward to hearing what your vet has to say.   Of course, vet clinics are usually made up of several different individual vets, whose abilities tend to be independent of and complimentary to one another, although as a locum I'd be lying if I said that some vet practices didn't have an obvious culture of excellence.....