"In pet dogs, some individuals will attempt to hump humans. Most people assume this to be abberrant sexual behavior. In fact, it's nothing of the kind. It's dominance behavior. The dog is not trying to mate with the person, but to bully the person. "
Are you sure? If I talk affectionately to my dog,(praise baby-talk) he gets amorous. I get the impression that dogs are more affectionate with sex than dominant. Their just terribly mal-imprinted. The exposing the throat is pure nonsexual submissiveness.
Good exposition. You nailed it with your comments about people seeing the evidence they're looking for
Are any humans ever really sure they are interpreting animal behavior correctly? Let me put it this way: I'm as sure as I can be after more than 35 years of living with multiple dogs at a time. This includes many years of field training and showing German Wirehaired Pointers, rescuing countless dogs (all types) through the years, raising a number of litters, conversing with some very successful field trial trainers and dog show handlers, and reading more books about dogs (and other animals) than I could possibly ever recount.
Dogs have lived with humankind for tens of thousands of years. They are exquisitely tuned in to our body language and tone of voice, and most are capable of learning a vocabulary of our words up to about the level of a 2-year-old child. We signal them in ways we aren't even aware of, so that, for example, when you talk affectionately to your dog, he (or she) instantly responds in a way that the dog thinks is appropriate. You may interpret his reaction as "amorous." The dog may have something else in mind entirely.
While the bond between loving people and their dogs is truly unique among species, when it comes to non-verbal communicaton, the dog is our superior, while we are often blind and deaf to what they are "saying."
I should add that, while I'm sure there are millions of people whose love for dogs equals my own, I doubt if anyone on the planet loves them more than me.