Hey, 'Tween is open. I say go for it!.
One of my dogs is a racist against blacks…but he’s not prejudice. He hates all black. Black shoes, black coats, black people, it matters not to him.
one odd thing i remember when i walked my dog ages ago, was another owner of a dog said that black/dark colored dogs are scary to lighter colored dogs because they think the dark dogs are phantoms/ghosts. My minpin was supposed to be scary to the large yellow lab because of her color. I do think the color of the dog and it’s family matters if the dog is “racist”. If the dog has a dark colored family member whether it be a person, cat or another dog they seem to be okay with dark colors, if not, they’ll be “racist”.
Heh.
The reason why Hot Air Balloons drive dogs into a fit is because their is a pitch in noise that his released with the gas into the balloon that dogs can hear and humans can’t.
(We’ve had two hot air balloons land in our back yard. One of the balloon pilots told us this.)
BOT.
Our late dog ( lab/mastiff mix, RIP.) was not racist or sexist. She was the model of happy good dog and could be taken any where and deal with any type of humans/crowd or other dogs. If another dog opened up in a fit of barking at her, she would look at them like they were all retarded and shit and keep on sitting there. If were were walking, she wouldn’t break stride with me, if another dog/person or just a wandering dog came along. To be honest, having a dog this awesome I thought was what everyone had. Now, I realize it was 80% dog and 20% training.
She only growled once at a cop, and that was rather hysterical as my husband was getting a ticket at the time, but it was her first time seeing someone in a uniform up close and personal. We issued a " Hey!" and that set her right.
The only aggression she ever showed was on two occassions, and if I didn’t have a front row seat to it, I wouldn’t have beleived it.
One was when a sorta-neighbor’s yellow lab-doppelganger to our dog trotted up to our deck to play with our kids. Our Murphy didn’t ken to it at all and she bit that dog on the ear.
The other was when we had the audacity to adopt a cat. This cat grew up with a family dog ( the fattest min-pin evar.) and had no issues with our 100# lab. So, a day or so after coming into our house, the cat (who was really awesome in every way a cat should be.) decided to clean our dog. Our dog, not ever having been cleaned before by a cat, issued a growl and a lame snap. Within the hour, however, the cat persisted and our dog just gave in.
She would greet anyone who drove up with a couple of barks and tail wagging furiously and demand to be petted. If you were smart, you would leave your car door open so she could scarf up any food on the floor of your car. A few occaisions she would go for rides in my friends cars without their knowledge because she layed down and wasn’t stinky or annoying. I cannot tell you how many times she would sneak into my van when I wasn’t looking and be in the passenger seat when I got up front.
She occassionally went for rides with the UPS on his route. Sometimes with conscent from me,sometimes he would find her 5 miles down the road in the back of the truck sniffing everything. He’d finish the route for the area and bring her back.
She’d eat anything, but never went into the garbage. The only food she would not ever touch was kiwi.
Despite her size, she was about a good as body guard as a Amish Man and was happier than a Walmart greeter on Prozac.
I miss her every day.
I want to amend my comment above. My dog reacts negatively to black men, not women or children. He reacts somewhat negatively to most men unless he knows them, although he calms down pretty quickly no matter who he comes across (except for other dogs).
When my black female friends come over, he doesn’t blink an eye or make a sound.
Aww. Shirley, your dog sounds like a real sweetie.
Una, Sorry I didn’t identify the breed.
The racist dog was a mutt, with a lot of poodle.
My dogs, a bulldog and boston terrier like everybody. Although the terrier was more partial to females than males, except for me of course.
Black or white is not an issue for my Pointer…
…but he prefers women…don’t ask me why, but he can pick them out a mile away.
He’s not afraid of anyone, unless they start giving out to them, even then he just leaves you alone.
My Jack Russle Terrier (RIP) either likes you or hates you, not much middle ground there. He also doesn’t care what colour, who or what you are. If he hates you, it doesn’t matter if you give him food or cuddle (if he wants to) he still hates you. We didn’t find any pattern for this.
My dog basically doesn’t like other dogs, but that’s fairly common I believe. However, my grandmothers dog (it was a lab mix of some kind…dark brown, fairly big) really REALLY hated white people. I remember when I first brought my wife over to the house the dog went nuts, and my grandma and some of my cousins said something like ‘Oh, he always goes on like that when white people come over’. No idea if the dog would have reacted the same way towards black people as there aren’t a lot of black folks in my grandma’s neighborhood, but it sure didn’t like my wife, and at least according to the rest of the family it reacted the same with other white people. Maybe it was the hair…
Anyway, that’s my own anecdotal $.02 worth, FWIW…
-XT
When I read the OP I thought: no freaking way. Dogs just react to the feelings of their owners or their experiences. Having read this far I’m beginning to think otherwise.
My dad loves telling this story:
When I was about 4 there was a brush fire of some sort across the street from my yard. I was standing on the fence with our dog next to me. Friendly firefighter comes up and asks me “Does your dog bite.” I cheerfully replied “Nope.” The firefighter turned around and our dog promptly bit him. Best part: dog was a Dalmatian! :eek:
I don’t think he hated firemen, I think he was just a mean dog from what I remember.
I am inclined to agree.
I am reading a book by Paul Loeb, who believes that the dog’s behaviour is determined by the owner in this context. Over here we often hear remarks on how the dogs of white people agressively defend their home against black people - most often these statements are made by people who seem to have a racial prejudice themselves.
i’d have to disagree with owner’s prejudices being given to the pet through our feelings.
I’d say I’m slightly racist and my parents are too. Not to the point of hating other races to a point I’d want to kill them. If my dog could have sensed that inkling of racism no matter how small or evil, she would have acted upon it. She didn’t. I was practically more racist than she ever was. She was a Black and Tan miniature pinscher that weighed less than 20 pounds. I’m of Korean descent, raised in Canada all my life with pure korean blood in my veins. Me having racial prejudices had no bearing to what my dog perceived. She could care less of skin color, racial dietary habits that created certain odors or even hair length. She seen me with longish hair, shaved head and my normal shorter length hair. She’s seen me talk with other dog owners and pet other dogs. She’s seen black people, white people, asian people, hispanic people, arabic people, indian people, probably not so much native american people. Not once did she react to them based purely on their race.
The people we walked close to react differently though. The arabic or indian people seemed to not wanna be close to my dog. Even though the leash i used wasn’t the retractable ones and i had two hands firmly on the leash.
The only time my minpin would react to a person would be if i were yelling at them and I initiated aggression, if they were walking with a limp. There was this guy who was to my view, filipino somewhat mentally handicapped and walked with an apparent limp that my minpin found not too nice. I had no fear of this guy because i’ve seen him around the neighbourhood doing his walk around it. She apparently didn’t like him for some reason and acted aggressively towards him. I would avoid creating contact if I saw that guy near us or in the field of view.
Another funny thing is anyone the size of my mother or sister-in-law, with somewhat the same walking gait would get my minpin to think it was them and she’d wanna go to them with a whining type voice. I could goad my minpin to think that my mom was around the bend and she’d react the way she usually did and want to see for herself. She was oblivious to race, it was size, person’s gait and their voice that would matter to her.
If i sicced her on something she’d know the type of voice i’d use. If i wanted her to come to me she’d know by the higher pitched excited sound i’d use to get her to come. I assume she’d think that me yelling isn’t a good thing and she’d join in on the loud barking i was doing. She hated when people raised their hand to something. If she saw my hand raised to strike someone either in jest or softly she’d react with a growl bark and sometimes a whine bark like she disapproved.
Mind you, my minpin was an aggressive dog. She used to chase bigger dogs in the parkette. She’d be the first one to try and sniff butt. She’d react to aggressive small dogs by being aggressive back, she’d take control of submissive dogs by sizing them up over and over. Big aggressive dogs she’d cower and let me take lead. I always walked her, never once picking her up in any distressing situation I deemed walkable. She acted like a big dog because I treated her like a big dog. I was most likely the pack leader of the family too. She’d know that if you cross me, there’s hell to pay, she’d cower to my mom for comfort, from me she knew who was boss. I was mainly the person who did the most discomforting things with her, like trimming her claws and taking her to the vet. She never greeted me at the door when I came inside because I didn’t want her to do it I tried to get that boisterous energy out of her, but my parents didn’t do the same so she greeted them with energy everytime. Consistent training matters. She wasn’t crate trained, she had regular walks, house broken, she had full range of the whole house. I don’t know what else I can type to give the impression that she was a good dog and me an average dog owner.
I was the racist one, she was the indifferent one.
If the dog’s been abused as my old dog was, they react negatively towards people who look like the abuser regardless of the owner’s prejudices. That’s something that has to be taken into account.
At the risk of sounding racist myself, I’ve always noticed black people being generally afraid of dogs. I had a big, silly black lab, friendly and tail-waggy to all, but by and large the only people really afraid of him were black. And not just nervous, but often cowering away from him, physically starting and often crying out. :dubious: I would think this behavior would make a dog “racist”!
Thanks.
My miniature dachshund seems to have a problem with black and Hispanic men and overly aggressive kids of any color.
My theory is that many dogs don’t like people in uniform - especially over-confident-acting ones - because they represent people they’ve seen who don’t respect territory and often trespass, like the postal deliverer or the gas man. Some dog breeds are scent oriented and others are more visual. I used to jog with an Australian cattle dog and we’d end up on the University track, where I’d stop to stretch. Others would be jogging around the track and my dog would not pay any attention. Until once there was a guy jogging in jeans and boots, which didn’t look right to the dog. She took off barking and nipping. Not sure how she knew he didn’t look like a jogger, but she was very observant.
More members of certain cultural groups than others have only experienced dogs as house defenders as opposed to friendly pets. Once certain dogs have sensed fear and defensiveness in a few African Americans, those dogs will react aggressively with anyone they meet who meets that description in their view. That’s my theory. The dog I described earlier didn’t like black people, which was very embarrassing.
I have a dog now is also very visual and discriminates against anyone in uniform. He also doesn’t like anyone who looks him in the eye when they first meet. But he grew up with my black son, so maybe that’s whyhe doesn’t seem to notice race as much. Act defensive, fearful or guilty when you come in the door, though, and he’ll go after you.
My theory is that the dogs pick up the hostility from their owners and the subtle signals we give off when we are uncomfortable around strangers or people we perhaps don’t like (for whatever reason). Dogs have been with us a lot time after all, so it’s natural that they have become adept at picking up our subconscious signals.
Anyway, that’s my WAG.
-XT
My dog is petrified of one of my neighbors. He is from India and wears a turban. One day my dog got loose and I was chasing him in my car. He came up on my neighbor with his turban and just stopped and started barking at him. The man gave him the hairy eye ball and threw dirt at him. My Boston Terrier is usually very friendly but this man scared him and I opened the car door and he jumped right in and gave me a look like, hit it Ma. I did and now when ever he see’s this neighbor he tries to get between my legs to hide from him.
BTW, He is also afraid of the vacuum cleaner.
I don’t think this holds true for all situations, though. What about cases where the dog sees the individual before the owner does? Or those where the owner genuinely has friends that fall within the ‘offending’ race? How about your own situation with your wife and your grandmother’s dog- are you implying that your grandmother is racist and the dog was picking up on it?
As I said in my own post, my dog hated older black men. If he picked up on any prejudice of mine, he would have gone ballistic at the stereotypical gangbanger wannabes that we walked by on a daily basis… but he didn’t. He ignored them, just as he ignored all the black college students that we passed- from the jocks and frat boys to the ultra-academics- and all black women. God help the black college professors, though, and any other black male over the age of about 40.
He also hated rottweilers… I adore them, have trained a good number of them in my time, and if there’s any ‘breed’ of dog I dislike it’s the rat-in-a-dog-suit type (chihuahuas, yorkies, malteses, etc). RAIDSs were universally ignored; rottweilers (and mixes) were subject to no-uncertain-terms ‘back the hell off’ vibes.
I just can’t dismiss the phenomenon with a casual ‘it’s the owner’s subconscious prejudice’ wave of the hand. While I do think that may be a component in some situations*, I simply don’t think it’s universal.
[sub]* Just as I think the tendency for certain populations- Southern blacks, for instance- to be innately fearful around dogs unless they’ve had personal experience with them as pets also plays a role in the animal’s reaction.[/sub]