There is a man in my neighborhood who I suspect either has Autism or some other form of Developmental Disability based on his mannerisms, tone of voice, and the fact that the first question out of his mouth was “Can I pet your doggie?”.
He appears to be somewhere in his 40s-50s, has greying hair, is heavy set and of medium height. Nothing about him is threatening. The two times I’ve seen him he’s stopped his car, got out, and asked to “pet the doggies”. Second time he had a Shi Tzu with him and both times there was an elderly woman in the car who I suspect his is mother.
Both dogs are not insanely friendly nor are they aggressive, just aloof around strangers. But both HATE this man. They bark their heads off whenever he comes up to me. They don’t do this with other people in the neighborhood nor with people at PetSmart. I’m guessing they can sense something is “off” with him.
Frequently.
My newest pack member is an easily-aroused ‘special case’ with hyper-attachment issue, food resource issues, noise reactivity, fearfulness, and aggression problems. Oh, and he’s 110# & 32" at the shoulder.
Care to guess what this massive, magnificent animal is most afraid of…?!
Small, slender women. :dubious:
Yeah, he’s a rehome / rehab project*****, and a challenging one. Fortunately, he ALWAYS leaves the house fully-tacked up in ‘public safety gear’ - Muzzle, red harness, etc. so that folks have some idea that they ought not approach the horse-doggie, and if he does react poorly, no one gets hurt.
But the first time I saw him react fearfully to a little girl, I about fell over. I mean, I knew he was a weird one, but the girl was smaller than him by quite a bit. Big, loud, hairy dudes? No problem. Larger women? Piece of cake. Little girls? Freakout. :eek:
***** Coming along slowly, but nicely. Re-writing his scripts takes time and consistency. Unfortunately, with a bite history, he’s always going to wear that muzzle in public, but he’ll have a good quality of life.
My mom’s previous dog was absolutely devoted to her, and loved most people he met, but whenever he encountered a particular one of my aunts, or to a lesser degree her oldest son, he completely panicked: Peeing on the floor, whining, trying to hide under the nearest piece of furniture, you name it. Even just objects that came from her house got this reaction, I assume because they had her smell on them. My best guess is that it’s because he was a very submissive dog, and my aunt is a very dominant personality (not actually the phrasing she’d use, but it amounts to the same thing), to the point that he didn’t know how to be submissive enough.
And a friend of mine had a dog that loved everyone except for my mother (who’s good with most animals), who he was utterly frightened of. That one couldn’t have been due to past history, either, because the friend had had this dog since he was a tiny puppy.
We had a foundling terrier who didn’t like men, tho he got used to my husband. We assumed he’d been abused by men in his past. My sister had a rescued greyhound who was the same way - loved women, backed away from men. He did mellow as he aged, tho, and he got along with most men in the family.
Blackjack once started snarling at a friend of mine that he knew well. My friend had the explanation though, he was on his way to a date and wearing cologne. He also became animated when he saw people wearing brightly colored clothes, shiny neon type colors it seemed, no explanation for that. Another friend had a pair of female Pit mixes, very friendly dogs, but they shied away from men with beards. Dogs can be pretty weird at times.
Back when I was a kid, we had a wire-haired terrier that had a really good disposition and was friendly with everyone, even strangers. Except the mailman. He would growl and bark every time the mailman came. Nobody else. We lived in a pretty white area and the only thing we could figure is that he freaked out because the mailman was black, because he was the only black person the dog ever saw.
My dog is generally friendly, but reserved. If someone says, “Can I pet your dog?” I ask him to sit and will answer depending on his body language, but every so often he will behave aggressively/fearfully before the person even asks (or if they don’t and are just walking by). And I can’t tell why. He doesn’t like homeless people, for some reason And then sometimes he will want to enthusiastically greet a person he’s never seen before. I can only think they look like someone he knows.
But here’s a weird one. He has taken an extreme dislike to another dog in the neighborhood, and this dislike extends to that dog’s people. So if they’re out walking without the dog, he still behaves as if their dog was with them. On the flip side, he had a dog friend, and he loved, loved, loved everybody in their family, including their roommate, and then they moved out and another family without a dog moved in and he loves all of them, too.
I once had a dog who loved me, but who growled and barked at me one day when I came home from the beauty shop with my hair in a different style and color. And of course I smelled like the beauty shop. I must have still smelled like me under all of that, but it took her awhile.
To the OP, I’ve seen that reaction to autistic people specifically. Some dogs pick up on the fact that the body language and social interactions aren’t neurotypical. For example, although we practice and practice with my son, he will sometimes forget and lean over a dog, instead of waiting for a dog to move towards him. Some autistic people might lurch a little when they move, or move too quickly, even grab. Some dogs don’t mind it. Some dogs do.
Years ago, I was socializing my beloved Akita pup. He was maybe 10 weeks old, and generally a ball of fur who looked like a stuffed toy. People cooed and ah-ed everywhere we went. He was also ferociously intelligent, which led to him having a teeny, tiny freak out the first time he saw a black person. Also balloons. :smack: Well, that’s why we socialize, especially the working dogs that will be 100 lbs when grown. It’s not so cute later on. I was mortified though. :o
I’ve read other anecdotes that dogs are bothered by typical delivery behavior - person comes to house, reaches to the owner w/ strange (to them) objects). Maybe other dog owners can chime in.
Reactions to the delivery person are very common. Stranger comes onto the dog’s territory. Dog alerts. Person leaves something and retreats. This reinforces the cycle (the dog has successfully driven off the intruder), and the cycle usually gets worse as time goes by.
I believe that the UPS truck is the Worst Thing Ever[sup]TM[/sup], in the hierarchy of delivery people. Maybe it’s their large, loud trucks. My parents’ dog is going to stroke out one of these days when he stops by.
When I was a kid, we had a dog that was a racist. A sheepdog/poodle mix, she was totally friendly with everyone… except the mail man, who was black. At certain times we had a substitute mail man who was white, and she was perfectly ok with him. But whenever the black one came, she went ballistic, trying to lunge through the window to get him. She also reacted the same way to black delivery people.
Dog gets a reward for barking (Scary intruder has left! Yay! Barking works!), and every time it ‘succeeds’ it creates a stronger ‘script’ in the dog’s mind. If the stranger / delivery person is ever properly introduced to the dog, the behavior generally changes to ‘bark until I recognize the person.’
I wonder if the guy is hurting his dogs and not even realizing he doing this. My last dog who was a standard poodle and my hearing dog hated an asshole that lived in my building and so did a lot people including me. It sound like is happening to the poor dogs if they’re reacting strangely to that guy and no one else .
Dogs are good at knowing when to not trust a person they can sense it .
I have a cat that loves everyone. Someone comes to the door, Soda has to come say hello. Pizza guy, Mormons, trick-or-treaters all fine. My boss comes over, Soda runs and hides. Don’t know what is up with this; he’s the only person that I’ve seen Soda react to this way.
