Okay, genetic engineering has officially gone too far.
It was bred to stop unauthorised farmhands from stealing the milk.
Genetic engineering was probably not what happened with Suzie.
Several Rotties ran around my street for a time & Chows were always so common it seemed every third dog was a Chow mix. She was pretty obviously a neighborhood mix.
Never the less she was an excellent dog. She was a loyal and affectionate dog who never forgot her duty as a guard (except when we went to the vet).
Oh, a chow? I see.
Oh Cow
WTF ever
I had a Corgi mix rescue dog named Pepper. He would go crazy and want to kill what seemed to me to be random men. They could be Black, Asian, White, whatever. Tall, short, fat . . . I finally started asking some basic questions and found out that the one thing they all had in common was that they hunted.
They weren’t necessarily wearing clothing that might have been worn while hunting. I don’t know if it was a mannerism, smell, or a look, that made him want to rip their faces off. If he went crazy at a man in a suit? I’d ask if he was a hunter , the answer was always yes.
My boyfriend’s family’s cat is sexist. He hates men of all stripes. Won’t eat when boyfriend is around, hides in another room, hisses at him like crazy. He lived with him for 10 years, but yet lets me pet him and such. Must have been abused by a man in his previous home.
I’m from South Africa, and in the bad old days it was “common knowledge” that dogs belonging to white people were all racist and barked mainly or only at black people. Now, I don’t know whether these dogs were picking up vibes from their owners, but it seems more likely that the owners consciously trained the dogs to bark at black people. To this day, fewer black people than whites keep dogs around here, and they tend to be more nervous around them.
Now, on to my story. I have a Shiba Inu who, contrary to her breed’s reputation for being aloof and detatched, loves everyone and gets very excited to meet anyone new, but she especially adores black people. (My family is white.) She is very boisterous and friendly, and sometimes the objects of her affection misconstrue her intentions and are wary of her (in which case I keep her away from them) so she can’t be picking up on the fact that people are friendly to her. It’s not just the novelty of strange people either, because she was deeply in love with a black friend of my husband’s who lived with us for about a year. Her (white) breeder had another job during the day and the dogs were routinely fed and looked after by the breeder’s (black) employee. This makes me think that her prejudice is her very own, based on her past experiences (conditioning), and not the result of the body language or emotions of the people around her.
When I went to the house of a black colleague her dog looked at me like :eek: but it could easily be just because I was a stranger.
In other news, my aunt had a viciously racist bantam rooster when she was a little girl. The family always wondered how he ever knew the difference, and why he would care…
When walking my dogs they growl openly at people that are smoking cigarettes, cigars, pipes…whatever.
I avoid smokers so I think they’ve picked up on it.
Over the years I have owned quite a few Goldens and fostered dozens more. I have yet to have one that showed any racist tendencies. Several were more fearful of one gender over another, but race has never seemed to make a difference.
Hot air balloons though, huge issue for three different males I have had. Not sure why only the males, but if a hot air balloon went over the house, all holy hell would break out!
Before I knew her, the rotty I walk once went berserk at a bunch of hot air balloons flying over her garden.
I don’t know if any of them were black!
My German Shepherd mix is wary of men (looks at them anxiously, ears and tail low); especially scared of black men (stares and looks very worried, tail between legs, will try to run away if they approach him); and so frightened of men in hooded sweatshirts with the hood up that he has growled, barked and lunged at them before. This is outside the norm for him, as he’s usually docile with humans even though he’s somewhat fearful of everyone he doesn’t know very well.
I live in a racially mixed area and walk him a lot, so it’s been clear to me for a long time what he has an issue with.
A black man in a hoodie isn’t any scarier than a white man in a hoodie; all hooded men are equally scary.
I had one (Newfoundland) who didn’t like people in uniform. Cops, crossing guards, full-service gas station attendants, anyone in work Dickies with a name patch or company logo, she even wasn’t fond of Boy Scouts (in uniform). Funny thing was she could pick out a uniform even if there was only one example of it present (only one person wearing it) in a crowd of other people. We raised her from a pup and never taught her this, so I’m not sure where it came from.
Years ago my family had a dachsund that was afraid of/hated men, except for my father. She was OK with pre-teen boys. When my father brought her home, he said that he had taken her from a guy who was kicking her, so it’s not too surprising.
What the fuck does being a Rottweiler have to do with it?
Was it supposed to be some kind of Rottweilers=German, Germans/Nazi/white supremacy link joke?
If it was it fell right flat.
My family once had a dog that didn’t like white people, but in my opinion, his problem wasn’t their race but that they were strangers. He was really a one person dog, but tolerated the rest of the immediate family. Neighbors and friends were regarded with suspicion. As this is a mostly white area, I don’t recall his feelings about black strangers. The fact that he had a white veterinarian didn’t help.
We have owned multiple dogs in our family. There is only one dog who has exhibited “racist” behavior.
We Bear at the SPCA at 12 weeks old, listed as a GSD mix. I imagine she was a blank slate at her adoption. She went to training classes and did all the normal socialization stuff. She had never had a problem with anyone and was great around people of all ages. She was trained to be nice to cats and other dogs. She is good with almost all dogs, except when overly dominant male dogs pick on non-dominant dogs. She has asserted herself and will “tell” the overly dominant male to knock it off. Owing to her name, Bear was a medium-large dog, about 75 lbs. Bear has a slight protective streak around some people, usually children, but would most often do the “wiggle-butt” once the stranger came up to her and gave her love and treats. The hoodies bother her was well, but she doesn’t growl, she just keeps her eye on them and will get between you and the hooded person.
When she was 2 yrs old, we had some work done on the house. One of the workers was a black man who did not like dogs and was particularly scared of large dogs. He was in and out of the house and Bear was agitated by the commotion. We had her behind a baby gate while they were bringing stuff in. Once they got settled, I asked if it was ok if I let her loose around the house. The white worker said that his black co-worker was not good around large dogs. The white guy came over and scratched Bear and said hi. I took Bear and put her in the crate and alternated that with having her upstairs with me.
When they returned the next day, I was not there, my husband was. I told him to keep the dog away from the black guy, but husbands just don’t always listen. Supposedly, Bear ran up to him, the guy cowered and swore a bit, and husband grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled him back. The dog did not touch the man, and got about 3 feet from him. Anytime Bear saw the man, she did a low growl, sometimes barely perceptible. She never bared teeth and never approached him, just did it behind the gate or from her crate whenever she saw him. Since then, we have encountered black people on walks and people coming to the house. It only seems to be black men who she gets a little antsy about. She will growl at black men who appear to be fearful of her.
She cares not about black children or women. She displays “wiggle-butt” when she meets any child. Bear has been used her for educational programs about rescue and dog care for scouts and going to elementary schools. We have used her to “practice” temperament testing and show people how to conduct the tests safely. She does agility and the vets, techs and groomers all love her. We use her to test other dogs for dog aggression as she will sit/stay with little trouble and won’t ever provoke another dog. She lets the cats and foster dogs eat out of bowl. She lets foster kittens crawl all over her. I thought I had a “nice dog”.
I was really confounded by the whole thing and asked a behaviorist if we had done anything wrong. Her opinion is that her current behavior was shaped by that one experience. The behaviorist thinks that dogs can sense the fear and some dogs will take advantage of that, she also thinks that Bear’s senses were reinforced by the husband “punishing” her by reprimanding her for doing her normal “happy” approach to a fearful person.
Our chocolate Labrador detested Mormons.
Short-haired young white males in coats and ties approaching the door - obviously up to no good.
We named her over-the-top reaction “the Mormon howl”. Never heard it in response to any other intruders, even the much-loathed UPS men (one of them would not come to the front door, preferring to leave packages halfway up the walk).