To clarify, can dogs be trained to only attack, say, black people? If so, does this happen and is it very common? This is just an odd factoid I picked up somewhere that I wanted to verify one way or the other.
I’m not sure what you’re asking. Are you asking if dogs can identify race? Yes. I hope this doesn’t require a cite, it’s pretty obvious. Are you asking if there are any dogs that are more agressive towards people of a particular race(s)? Yes. I know dogs like that.
I’m still puzzled by your question, why wouldn’t such dogs exist? Do you suggest that canines are somehow blocked from either perceiving race or acting agressively towards people of different races? How would that even evolve?
I agree with groman. Dogs are plenty smart enough to be trained to differentiate people based on “race”. A lot of people report that their dogs react aggressively towards black people even if the owner is unaware of showing any bias. I had a few German Shephard mixes growing up that did that on their own. I never figured out why. It wasn’t as though they didn’t get exposed to many black people.
How would this be “pretty obvious”, Shagnasty? I didn’t know it until you mentioned it. Not intending to sound snarky, just making a point. As I said, I had heard of it but didn’t know if it was true that a dog could differentiate between people of diffirent “races”. I think what I was asking was if there have been any reports of racist groups actively training dogs to attack members of other races, and if it’s a very common occurance.
How would they know a black man from a white man if both people treated them the same? Is skin color that important to them? I assumed it was like fur to them; if two dogs are friends and one suddenly changes its color, they’ll still be friends.
Or am I incredibly naive? 
shrug I guess I spend too much time with dogs.
Dogs pay less attention to visual elements than people, but they still do. Short, tall, dark hair, light hair, male, female and racial charactiristics are all visual elements that their visual acuity allows them to see, and in numerous recognition experiments (non-scientific, unfortunately, just playing with dogs) i’ve done, dogs use all of the characteristics I listed for visual recognition. However, dogs need olfactory recognition to act “sure”.
Dogs have the ability to generalize (Sorry no cite, but plenty of personal experience). Dogs also expect humans to act within the stereotype they develop, so dogs will typically treat drunk people with caution if they don’t typically see drunk people. Therefore a dog that never saw a black person before will most likely treat them differently. How differently depends on the dog and the training.
Although it’s true dogs will pick up on subtle cues from their owners that the owners themselves might not be aware of, this does not work the other way. If a particular dog seems to dislike a particular race, gender or what-have-you it might not have anything to do with the owner. Maybe the dog simply had a bad experience with ONE person from that group and generalized.
My dog distrusts bearded men, for example. No clue why.
Wasn’t there a case a few years ago in which a police dog, released to attack a (white) criminal who was resisting arrest, instead ran the other way and mauled a black child? I want to say it happened in Richmond, Virginia. People were demanding that the “racist” dog be executed.
I remember someone making the argument that since most of the criminals the dog was sicced on were black, it had made the association that black people = criminals.
People still react to people of different races differently, even if they’re not aware of it. It’s my WAG that dogs can percieve subtle differences in their owner’s reactions.
Why would you call them ‘white’ dogs, are you implying that whites are the only ‘race’ to attack blacks, if so I would say that a ‘black’ dog would be much much better in attacking blacks then a ‘white’ dog.
Dogs are free to form their own opinions about races as well, based on whatever the hell they wish, including whatever analogies they draw between the “human world” and their own.
My dog goes after brown.
UPS brown. 
I wasn’t intending anything by calling them “white” dogs. That was simply what they were called where I heard about them (and no, I can’t give a cite.) I’ll call them racist dogs from now on, ok?
To me, the cause of “racist” police dogs is pretty obvious. If the dog lives with its owner in a mostly white neighborhood, then odds are that most of the black people it encounters are criminals. Therefore, it naturally tends to associate black people with danger. Kinda like a white suburban kid whose primary exposure to black people is via the evening news.
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I think the question has been answered as well as it can be.
Thread closed.
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