I once had a hamster who couldn’t stand the Dutch.
We have a stallion on oour farm who is clearly sexist – he does not like or trust males.
We think he was mistreated by a man when he was being trained as a youngster, and he remembers it. He now knows and accepts a few men who regularly work with him (and feed him), but he clearly is unhappy whenever a new man comes around his stall.
And frankly, I don’t even know how he tells – this time of year in Minnesota, both men & women are bundled up & wrapped in layers of clothes so much that you can’t tell the difference.
Simone the American Pit Bull Terrier is sort of the opposite of racist – she loves everybody and wants to climb into their laps – men, women, Asian, black, Hispanic.
In particular, Simone loves “cool” guys – tall young men wearing open jackets and sunglasses just melt her. She was a street rescue, and has no dog aggression – sometimes I wonder if she was raised by such people for fighting, and turned loose because she wasn’t aggressive, but still loves them.
However, she did give warning barks when she saw the black paper silhouette of a mummy in a neighbor’s front window during Halloween. It may be a reaction to a dark shape with arms raised threateningly, or it may be that she will protect us if the undead rise.
Simone has also melted in terror during the movie Zulu when the Zulus gave their ululating war cry. But she napped through the Zulu episode of Warriors on the History channel. She’s also afraid of skateboard noise.
Sadie the AmStaff mix growls at some people with hoods covering their faces, regardless of color. Simone joins in, but may be keying off Sadie. All of these people growled at have been walking toward us. My assessment of what the incidents have in common is that fast-approaching, energetic, or angry-seeming people whose faces cannot be seen trigger this reaction…it appears to be preemptive self-defense.
Our dog definitely doesn’t like black people, as well as some others. My son’s best friend for his whole childhood is black. When he comes over our dog is suspicious and worries that child (well, young man now) but the dog doesn’t bother a number of other, less frequent, visitors. We have speculated that it is his smell our dog doesn’t like - his family is Ethiopian and the food smell is very strong at his house. It probably boils down to his difference in appearance though. And our mailman is black.
Our dog is only aggressive toward men.
I also have a yellow lab/German Shepherd mix (although he seems more Lab in both looks and personality). He is also afraid of brooms, as well as: bushes, mail boxes (
) flag poles, tall weeds, small dogs, and just about everything you can imagine. I have had him for 10 years- he was a rescue from a shelter at 10 months old (estimated by the vet) and I know nothing about his puppyhood before he adopted me. He is so very loving, friendly and playful toward everyone (especially small, young humans) and has only expressed fear or dislike of a person in one or two inexplicable instances. I trust his judgment though, so if he doesn’t like someone on sight I give them a wide berth myself. Thank goodness he isn’t racist or that policy could be bad for me, huh? 
Since we are branching off to other animals though, I had a cat (may he RIP) that had been abandoned by his previous “owner” and adopted me when we were overseas. (The base vet had records on him which is how I know he was abandoned rather than feral or stray.) He was the most loving, friendly, and sweet kitty, unless you happened to be Chomorro, or looked like you had Chomorro ancestry, so maybe Pacific Islanders in general. It was really bad when we were moving back to the states from Guam, because all the workman and movers etc. were Chomorro, which sent poor kitty into a tizzy of fear and hiding. His racism/hatred/fear was so strong that one day I had him outside (he was indoor-only unless he was escorted by his Mommy in our front yard) and he saw someone getting out of a car across the street and two houses down- so far away that I barely noticed them and he bolted into the house as fast as his kitty legs would carry him- that man looked Chomorro (I don’t know whether he was or not) and kitty had no such reactions to anyone else coming or going around our house. I suspect he had been mistreated by the locals at some point and that is what caused the fear, but he was the most racist little cat I have ever known.
My dog is not racist.
He’s black, if that matters. 
Way off topic here but just thought I’d share - a friend has a golden retriever who is afraid of black dogs, no matter what size they are. It’s hysterical to see an 80 pound dog cowering from a black toy poodle…
My Pointer does the “OHMIGOD I LOVE YOU FOREVER I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME BELLY RUBS DO YOU WANT TO PLAY?” with everyone who she has not encountered in the past hour. Yes, this includes people she’s never met before and it’s white people 90% of the time.
Except for Hispanics. With them, she is very polite and lets them pet her, but as soon as they are done with introductions, she’s gonna go into another room and lay down and be very quiet, thank you very much. This is a step up from moving very swiftly into another room and sitting down and shivering.
I don’t know if she’s met any black or non-Hispanic brown people, so I can’t vouch for her opinions on them.
As for sexism, she seems to be quicker to mind females, although this could be because the one male she encounters on a daily basis pretty much actively encourages her bad behavior.
My mother-in-law has a theory about racism in animals as it pertains to other animals, maybe it could apply to animals racist against people as well.
My yellow dog, did not care for our tortoise colored cat- he wouldn’t let her sleep on our bed or share our food and while he was not hurtful to her, he would chase her away from anything he decided was “his”. But when our orange cat came home (the previously mentioned abandoned kitty that found me) our dog immediately began snuggling with him, helped him find a comfy spot on the bed, gladly shared food with him and in general became a good big brother for the cat. He loved that cat so much that when the cat died (he had contracted FIV during the time he was outdoors and died an untimely death because of it) the dog was inconsolable and had to be put on anti-depressants for a while.
My mother-in-law’s theory was that the yellow dog did not like the tortoise colored kitty because he was such a different color, but the orange cat (he was a light orange) was in the same color family as the dog so he was okay. So maybe he was displaying a preference for his own “race” as in color.
Maybe it’s similar when “racist” animals regard people people- those closer to their own shade seem more familiar and “normal” to them and those that are differently colored are “strange” and therefore scarier.
Thanks for doing something on this.
I’ve always thought dogs were really good at picking up on owners’ subtle reactions to their environment. My pit bull is uncanny in knowing when to growl and when not to. It seems to me he is reading my reactions. For example, once I was sitting in the living room and a suspicious looking character walked up on the front porch by the door. I got tense and my dog started growling at the door. It surprised me a great deal because he is the most friendly dog in the world and has never barked at someone approaching the door.
Regarding the racist dog issue, I have always thought it is the case of the dog picking up on subtle indications from its owner. If the owner subconsciously tightens up when seeing a black person, I feel the dog takes note. Hence, racist dogs.
I look forward to the results.
She’s an Australian Shepherd/Border Colllie mix.
My purebred Border Collie spent the first two years of his life being pretty much ignored by his suburban owners. Kept in a dog cage in the house at night and chained outdoors most of the day I doubt he met anyone who was not white during that period of his life. When he was not the cute puppy anymore my family took him to Chicago, gave him lots of love and exercise and he grew into a great dog. My kids had lots of friends through the house and he was friendly to the whites and latinos but would bark at the black kids. The dog certainly wasn’t picking up on some unexpressed prejudice - one of the black kids the dog didn’t like was my son’s best friend. We learned however to put the dog out back when Jason was coming over or there would be lots of barking. It might have been skin color the dog was objecting to. One of my daughters best friends was a light skinned black and the dog had no problem with her, but would bark at her mom when she was picked up.
And he didn’t like the letter carriers regardless of race. What he did when the mail was delivered was certainly a variant of “going postal”.
Yes, my dog growled at the neighbors everyday and any other time he encountered African Americans and this one really mean lady that was my best friends boss. She was white.
Beagle/Shepherd for the record.
My female whippet-mix mutt doesn’t like black people, people in uniforms, and especially black people in uniforms. For some reason she doesn’t get upset at really dark Latinos. She lives with an average white dude and a morena latina, and doesn’t really get a lot of exposure to black people in SE Michigan because they tend to segregate themselves, and not much exposure to black people in Mexico 'cos the only one here is my coworker from Michigan.
I had a female pit bull terrier named Eyes. She had one brown eye and one blue eye and her first owner’s children named her. Eyes disliked people darker than a paper bag. Her hackles stood up and she barked ferociously at two of my good friends, both short and stocky, one Hispanic and one Chinese. She lunged at Gabriel once and nipped him under the eye when he leaned across her to pick something up. She did not bark at Gabriel’s aunt Jo, who is Chinese also, but of a lighter skin tone. I thought it was because they were male until I brought my girlfriend Leticia home and Eyes went crazy barking at her; hackles up, showing her teeth, the whites of her eyes visible.
Now that I think about it, I did have one black girlfriend who Eyes did not mind. And she never liked Shayne, a white guy. I always thought that dog was crazy.
A possible confounding factor that I feel obliged to point out: Some dogs have bad reactions to some specific people, for no apparent reason at all. Three examples that come to mind:
A friend’s dog back when, a male St. Bernard/mutt mix, was scared to death of my mother (who’s a perfectly nice lady, and who likes dogs). In this case, the friend owned the dog since he was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, so we know there was no abuse involved, much less by anyone who resembled Mom.
My mom’s current dog, a male mutt whom we think is mostly beagle and German shepherd, is absolutely devoted to her, and friendly to everyone else he meets, except he always goes into a panic in the presence of one of my aunts (mom’s own sister, who even looks a fair bit like her). He was a pound dog, adopted at about a year old, and nearly starved when she got him, so we don’t know what his history held.
And a different friend, up until recently, had a female spaniel who was always very nervous around me-- On a good visit, she’d occasionally work up to the point where she’d allow me to pat her on the back once or twice before she skittered away, but never more than that. I don’t know her precise history.
In all three cases, the dogs in question liked other people, and the people in question were liked by other dogs, but there was just something that set them off. It’s worth keeping this in mind in relation to anecdotes of racist dogs, too: If a dog has only reacted unfavorably to a single person of some race, it’s possible that the race is irrelevant, and the dog’s just objecting to something not apparent to humans at all.
Let’s turn this around. Are there any dog owners on this board who are dark-skinned (either because of African or Asian ancestry), whose dogs respond negatively to white people?
I had a Rottweiler Cow mix who hated black people. She was suspicious of most people, but she was particularly aggressive and threatening to black people. Especially guys but also women. There were a couple of things going on I think.
I found her in the predominantly black neighbourhood of Grant Park in Atlanta. It was a very poor section of town and there were lots of aggressive young boys around. I found debris in in my yard a couple of times and think some of them threw stuff at her.
Worse was the vet situation. The first time I took her to the vet it was with the ASPCA and all the vets in training came to watch the head vet try to diagnosis her mange. Many of these students were black. Unfortunately it was a very painful thing and she was always horrified of vets. Latter all of her vets were black. For the longest time I took her to two west Indian vets who I liked but she hated. They also hired black vet assistance who naturally had to wrestle her in to submission for shots. I am pretty sure she generalized the treatment she got from the vets to all black people.
She maintained her awful fear of vets when we moved to lilly white north Texas. But since I didn’t know any black people in that god forsaken dust bowl I can’t say if her hatred of black fold improved.
Now this sounds as though it might be true, but in my case, I have known incidences where I have seen “a potential threat” minutes before Lassie and she doesn’t start getting agitated until she gets a scent, or sees them herself. Believe me, I don’t get jumpy easily, so I doubt she is picking it up from me.
YAYYYY! I knew we kept you around for a reason!
ps. Do I need to add a smiley to avoid Ed’s wrath, d’ya think?