Gromit is a Shiba Inu, a breed known to be a little stand-offish. And he is somewhat stand offish when meeting new people. He approaches them slowly, and checks 'em out before deciding if they’re OK. 99.9% of people he finds OK, and then he’s a friend for life. He gets excited when people like my mother or my neice come to visit, and he likes to go visiting himself.
However…
Every once in a while, he meets someone he decides is NOT ok. From what I can tell, there’s no link between the people he doesn’t like. I haven’t caught any of 'em kicking him while I’m not around or anything like that. In fact, these people usually like dogs, and are somewhat mystified by the fact that he doesn’t like them. He’s very vocal about these baaaaad people. He usually backs up and barks furiously at them, and won’t come near them even when they’re trying to give him one of his favorite treats.
So far, these evil people include my father and a woman named Jen. My dad is 66 or so, likes dogs, and has slowly gotten Gromit used to him. Six months ago, Gromit did nothing but bark at my Dad, and still does when he first comes over. Now, though, if my Dad sits down, Gromit will circle around his chair, and come up to the side of the chair and let my Dad pet him. If my Dad looks at him, he runs off. He’s getting better about it, though. A week or so Gromit even came to my Dad when he called him.
Jen is young, maybe 22-25 years old. She’s a hippy type - think Allanis Morrisette. She absolutely LOVES dogs, and goes all goofy around them. She’s harmless and nice as far as I can tell. Gromit does the barking thing around her as well. Won’t come near her. He hasn’t been around her enough for me to know if he’ll eventually warm up to her.
So what’s going on in his little mind? There seems to be no connection between the people he doesn’t like. He’ll meet people on the street who he’s fine with. But every once in a while, he’ll act like he’s detected some secret evil within certain people, and does NOT like them. Maybe my Dad is a zombie and we don’t know it? Any better ideas?
Nope, but let me know what you find out, 'cause I’ve got a Mostly Beagle who is the exact same way.
The closest we’ve ever been able to come by way of “causation” is that it seems to be “people who smell even a little bit like cigarette smoke”, and since we adopted her at 7 months from the Humane Society, and since she was kept in a garage all her life with her siblings, we’re assuming that at some point in her young life, she was abused or frightened by somebody who smoked.
However, she is of a remarkably amiable temperament, considering the rough start she had, and once she realizes that it’s “okay” (family friend, out-of-town relative), then she’s fine.
But she never did make up to the guy in the vet’s waiting room, who was there with his Big Dog. No amount of smiles and “nice puppy” could make her stop growling and cowering. He reeked of cigarettes.
Anyway, the point is, first, that you may never find out, and second, it may be something so subtle that a human being could never figure it out.
You say that these people he doesn’t like usually like dogs. Do they have dogs? Maybe your dog can smell the scent of the other dogs on them, and is really territorial.
I shake my head at some of the things ‘dog’ people believe. I have known several dog people that truely believe that their dog can tell if someone is a good person or a bad person. Please. I find this impossible to believe.
I had a girlfriend once that said she would have dumped me if her dog didn’t like me when we first met. I hate dogs but it seems every dog likes me. This same dog, which marked me as a ‘good’ person, also liked someone who then went on to threaten her friend and mother with a shotgun. This same dog also marked someone as ‘bad’ who was a kind person that I’ve known all my life.
Don’t attach too much to what your dog thinks of your girlfriend. Keep your eyes open and make your own judgement.
If you did not get your dog at birth, it could be possible that it got beaten up before by a person with a particular smell. So now it doesn’t like anybody with that smell.
I simply used the words “good” or “bad” to indicate what my dog is obviously thinking - he likes some people and doesn’t like others. Obviously, it would be idiotic to decide that I no longer like my father because my dog doesn’t like him.
Who came up with this idea that a dog must have been beaten by someone else to have this reaction? That posits that the dog is, well, stupid. I have found dogs to be much more subtle in their recognition of the differnces between people. I don’t find it any more likely that a dog would react badly to all people who smelled like cigarette smoke because of one cruel person who smoked, than I would expect you or me to be unable to control my reaction to all people who smoked because I once knew a cruel person who smoked. Dogs are smarter than that.
I have known people who have done exactly that. Maybe not with their fathers but have decided that people their dog doesn’t like must be a ‘bad’ person. Yes, I believe it is idiotic.
I’ve noticed this dog-reaction as well. My Lab, almost without exception, loves all people and dogs. He greets strangers with almost the same joy as he does well-known friends. He never barks, growls or otherwise displays aggression. He’s four years old, and I’ve had him since he was a puppy. He came from a reputable breeder, so I don’t think he was beaten or mistreated.
A few weekends ago, I was sitting with him in the outdoor sidewalk area of a dog-friendly bar (Cullen’s, for those Chicagoans who may be reading). He had a great time interacting with dozens of people and dogs who passed by. Then he caught sight of three people with a dog approaching from about half a block away. He immediately began barking and growling at them and continued until after they passed by and were out of sight. Weird. In four years, I’ve never seen that happen. I’d also think half a block away would be too far to pick up a distinct scent. (This is in a city with competing smells, lots of people around, and Labs aren’t bred for their noses.)
An ex-girlfriend’s beagle acted like the OP’s dog. Liked people, but about one time in 200, would display extreme fear when meeting someone new. I always assumed that the stranger-who-reminds-dog-of-someone-who-mistreated-him theory was true, which could explain the beagle’s reaction, as she came from a petshop and was a little older than the usual age for adoption of a pup when bought. Doesn’t explain the Lab’s reaction, though.
My dog is extremely friendly to new people (after the initial brief bark-at-the-intruder reaction), with one exception:
For some reason, she HATES tall people. People over about 6’3" or so, especially if they’re tall and thin, send her into absolute fits. With some of them, she’ll calm down eventually, but with others, she continues to hide under something whenever they’re around.
I’ve also noticed that anyone who smells even very faintly–too faintly for me to detect–of marijuana (which I never do) is automatically on her best-friends list. Maybe Walloon will call me an idiot for assuming the vice-versa of the “smells like cruelty” theory, but I attribute this to when Dog was a puppy and I had a roommate who smoked dope. His friends would come over, they’d toke up, and then they would play with the dog for hours, until she was totally exhausted and happy. And ever since then, occasionally she’ll meet someone new and immediately take to them like a long-lost sibling. On several occasions (when I’ve known the person well enough to ask) I’ve brought it up, and the instant friends have all turned out to be at least infrequent pot-smokers. Go figure.
So I’ll contradict Walloon and say sure, it could be some kind of smell the dog scents on a person to which they react instinctively. C’mon, people do that; personally, I react negatively to anyone who smells too strongly of perfume/cologne/hairspray, and positively to women who smell like honeysuckle (within moderation).
Pay close attention to the dog. If Johnny Quest and Hadji had listened to Bandit when he barked, there would have been many fewer threats to world peace.
Or, on a more serious note, dogs are smart enough to be weird for no good reason.
Outside of that there may be all kinds of stimuli we don’t recognize that sets a person apart from the rest to a pooch. Included in that would be the circumstances of first meeting. Some traits that dogs seem to latch on to are identifiable by us; such as dogs that are normally around only light skinned people who react poorly to the presence of a dark-skinned person or vice versa. The first Shiba Inu I knew was fresh off the boat from Japan (~10 years ago, and yes, it was probably actually a plane), and was (people interpretation) apparently a little iffy about non-Japanese at first.
My SO of many years had many dogs, and we usually lived with a few miniature poodles. Friendly pooches they were. When she lived with her best friend and his boyfriend, there were always lots of people around, parties, etc., and the poods were very sociable dogs.
But one day a friend and his wife dropped by with their daughters; the girls were about 4 and 6 then. The poodles flipped - and I don’t mean with their normal joyous acrobatics - they snarled, barked, charged, snapped teeth; it was very unnerving. I had to scarf 'em up and evacuate 'em. I had never seen them act like that. We finally decided that what set them off was that, for all the social activity they participated in, it was an adult house and they had never seen little people before.
My dog (a Border Collie cross) has been in the family since he was 8 weeks old and he came from a litter that was born into a loving home. He’s always been very outgoing and not at all fearful, and he loved all the neighbors at our old house, even the one I didn’t particularly like. He very rarely barked at anything except meter readers. After we moved into our new house last year, when he was 2, he decided that he was going to assume the role of Protector of the Universe. He now barks at anyone walking down the street, at other dogs, at strange cats in our front yard, at birds in the back yard, and even at butterflies. The worst thing is that he barks at our next-door neighbor, a lovely man who has two very nice dogs of his own, and he refuses to change his mind about the guy (the neighbor, to his credit, always says things like, “Oh, I’m sure he’ll get used to me eventually” as my vicious beast snarls and tries to lunge at him over the wall between the yards). I have given up trying to understand what the heck the dog’s problem is, except that I know he’s violently jealous of the dogs next door and will bark furiously if he catches me petting them. I suspect he may be angry at the neighbor for petting his own dogs.
My stepmother has a nasty little chihuahua who would happily kill either of my children if he got the chance. The only thing that saved the older one when she first met the dog is that his mouth is too small to really get a good grip on anyone. He hates all children on sight, and no one really knows why. I don’t like the dog, but I can kind of see his point, since I think it’s a sign of intelligence for a small animal to be afraid of children.
I think maybe you’re looking for something too systematic here. Just as humans will take a mostly (or completely) irrational dislike to certain people I think that dogs do to. The difference is the humans know that it’s rude to act on this and give people the benefit of the doubt whereas dogs don’t.
It may be that the people in question did something minor that the dog didn’t like and it’s remembering this, or it just decided that it didn’t like the person. I’ve known dogs that really didn’t like tobacco smoke or alcohol fumes just as I know humans that don’t.
And, again like humans, dogs can learn to overcome their inital reaction and grow to like people too. So I doubt you’ll find one particular reason.
Although, since I’m here, if read that dogs can smell (or otherwise detect) illness in people. Is it possible the first time that the dogs react to people like this the people in question were unwell ?
