Kids do it the most, but I’ve seen quite a few adults do it. Is it because they’re embarassed because the dog is barking at them? Don’t they know it draws more attention to themselves when they start barking back? Plus it’s likely to increase the volume and the tempo of the barking.
It usually happens when someones walking down the street, and the dog is in it’s yard either chained or behind a fence *("Look how cool I am, I’m not scared because this dog is barking at me, infact I’m barking back!). * But your not likely to see them barking back if the dog is loose. I’ve noticed it in parking lots too. Somebody leaves Cujo in the car, and it barks at everybody who walks by.
I’ve done this at times, out of a completely ludicrous impulse to feel as if I’m communicating with the animal in its own mode. I’ve also meowed to cats.
I do it to mock them for thier pointless noise and to irritate them for irritating me.
I’ve “play” barked with dogs before. Only dogs I know though. Seems silly to do it with stranger’s dogs.
Aw, c’mon. How often do you get a chance to take someone who’s already annoyed and poke at them, until they’re frothing at the mouth and yapping uncontrollably?
Besides in the Pit?
I only do it when a dog barks at me and I am irritated by it. I’ll say, “Ohh, woof-woof-woof, yourself!”
My sister used to enjoy antagonizing the neighbor’s dog across the street since they were people we didn’t like. She’d open her upstairs bedroom window and bark at it. The dog would always answer back.
I also meow at my cats, too, and mimck the tone and pitch they meow at me, but I do this in an affectionate manner.
I think the OP is taking this issue far to seriously. I do it to be silly. I do it because I like to imagine that on some other, more humorous level, I can actually talk to it.
I don’t mean when you’re playing with them. I mean when you get startled by a dog, and then try to cover your embarassment by barking, or yelling back in anger.
One time a neighbors dog was hanging out in our yard, and started barking at a guy walking down the street. Not only did the guy bark and yell back, he was so pissed, that later that day he returned to our yard with some friends and a baseball bat. He was headed straight for our solid glass door with the bat, but my husband saw him and stopped him. I wonder if he told his buddies it was because a dog barked at him, I kind of doubt it.
Oh, and you don’t have to bark to comunicate with dogs. They understand human language just fine, unless their owners don’t talk to them.
I like to see how well I can reproduce the sound of the dog’s bark. (I guess it’s a family thing… my sister talks to ground squirrels.)
I do it just to mess with their heads - same reason I do the “Get the HELL out of my yard, assclown” meow at cats. The look on their faces is priceless. But if the dog is playing “Stealth Defender of the Realm” and startles me, I usually just give 'em a dirty look and keep walking.
Are you trying to make me feel guilty for meowing at my worthless cat?
I meow-talk with my cat all the time and she meow-taks back too. We both enjoy it except it is usually she who gets tired of trying to make me see her point and then starts ignoring my meows.
It’s because I’m bilingual
<Will Ferrell, to a dog> I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. </Will Ferrell, to a dog>
To see how silly the dog will get. I used to have a little psycho poodle/maltese mix. She would viciously ‘attack’ anyone walking by the car, throwing all 5 of her pounds against the window, clawing to get through the glass and get AT the people and so on.
Most of the time I would come out of the store or where ever, and people would be laughing and trying to get her going outside my car.
Sometimes they’d be saying "booo wooo wooow ooo’ and so on. I always thought it was pretty funny, after all, she WAS a little terror.
Sometimes I’ll do the same to other 'psycho dogs". They can get pretty silly
Oh, well in that case No. Usually I jump, and say something like ‘jEEEZ, stupid dog’ and then go about my business.
I walk in the morning past a house that sometimes has two vicious-acting dogs. Whenever I would walk by, they would rush the fence, snarling and barking their heads off. As an experiment, I began answering bark per bark. The strange thing was, after maybe 7 or 8 times doing this, the dogs began to do the following: As soon as they heard me return their barks (and presumably recognized that it was me), they would stop their barking and slink away. I wonder if anyone else has seen this behavior.
[insert stupid zombie joke to let everyone know I’m aware that it’s a zombie thread]
In my mind it’s about the same as cooing at or using baby talk with a baby. No real reason for it, but since they’re doing it at you, you do it at them. Sometimes you might even do it out of frustration in not know what they’re [the dog or the baby] trying to say.
I’ve barked at strange dogs in their own home when their owner wasn’t there. You have to make that dog back down or not get any work done. Usually the dog submits and I make him my friend. Sometimes you’ve got to shut them in a room.