February 26, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Why are Dogs Such Awful Bigots?
Though it's not something one wants to spread around, the first time my dog saw a black person, he went ballistic. He barked like mad, and when we wouldn't join him in chasing her off (she was a friend of my sister's), he hid under the bed and refused to come out until he was gone. Though he's since made friends with many of my black friends, I know people with dogs that, despite their best efforts, simply go nuts whenever certain races are around. I've heard it argue that this was racism on the part of the owners, but I don't buy it -- in one case, the victim was the owner's fiance. Besides, the people Finnegan barks at are often people I haven't even noticed. This Slate article explains what's going on:
Barring human intent, however, what turns an otherwise sweet dog like Percy into a bigot? Typically, such behavior indicates that the dog was not exposed to the people it now targets during its developmentally "sensitive time"—weeks 3 through 12—when its understanding of the world was formed. "If you take a dog who has never encountered a black man, or someone who has a funny walk, who uses a walker, or has a gimp or a limp, and he sees the first one in his life when he's six months old. … it's going to be a shock," says Dodman. "He's going to think 'Jinx! That's pretty strange! What the heck is that!' They might hide—that's the more fearful type of dog. But if they're a little bit macho"—known in the trade as "fear aggressive"—"they might try and go for it, to try and drive it away. And it's because they're unfamiliar."But even if unfamiliarity breeds contempt, how does this explain Percy? Whatever the circumstances of his early life, being abandoned in Fort Greene indicated that he was, if not raised by, at least exposed to people of color. In such a case, a dog probably has had a bad experience at the hands (or feet) of those it doesn't like. This does not necessarily incriminate Percy's previous owner. In The Dog Who Loved Too Much, Dodman profiles a dog who developed a mysterious hatred of white-bearded men late in life. Eventually Dodman determined that the owner's white-bearded ex-boyfriend, left alone with the dog just once, was the likely culprit. "A dog's memory is like a photographic plate," Dodman says, "whatever happened, it just look a snapshot of that person and logged it in its long-term memory as 'bad'." (In the same vein, dogs can develop an aversion to certain breeds, sizes, and colors of other dogs.) Extreme trauma can even cause a dog to exhibit the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Whether it's bad experience or lack of experience that turns a dog into a racial profiler, the habit is hard to break. If the dog barks and the person recoils, the dog registers a victory. (Such "positive" reinforcement goes a long way to explain dogs' fixation on mailmen: He comes, I bark, he leaves.) And even if the person doesn't recoil or show fear visible to the human eye, the dog's sharp eye and sharper nose can sense fear in a tiny gesture or a whiff of sweat.
My dog still barks, randomly, at people (of all races). He doesn't like loitering, canes, wheelchairs, or balloons. Then there are the people I can't figure out -- something has clearly attracted his ire, but what? I'll probably never know. But at least when I'm standing on the street with that embarassed look, I'll be able to explain that it all goes back to childhood trauma. Posted by Jane Galt at February 26, 2003 11:54 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Did you intend the fourth word of this post to be "something" rather than "someone?" (A new doggie picture would be nice.)
My daughters had never seen a Caucasian before, but they got used to us. We did get them young (for humans), though. My second daughter was quite off-put at first by my wife's red hair.
My dog always barked at black people too. We just figured he'd never seen one before we let him out of the house (I grew up in a kinda mixed neighborhood, but he was very sick early in life). It's interesting to see that that was probably what it was. It was horribly embarrassing, though.
Dogs seem to have a powerful sense of "normal". My childhood dog was outraged by dolphins. Animals living under water? That's just unnatural. Apparently bald men with beards are also a common target, and some theorize that the dog gets upset because it thinks they have their faces on upside-down.
My dog has barked at black people, a friend in a wheelchair, and some asian neighbors.
Ultimately, when daddy picked him up and took him over to meet the different people, Beamer settled down, because if daddy says it's okay, it must be okay.
Hey, I really am the Leader of the Pack :-)
Our primary dog, Tom, is as sweet and gentle as they come. Until last year, he had never barked at anyone, not even once.
Then we had a repairman stop by... gentle looking older guy, slender and short, who greeted the dogs politely. Tom raised the hair on the back of his neck and emitted a very scary, low growl, unlike anything I have heard before.
I told Tom to cool it, apologised to the nice man, and invited him in. Tom stepped between us and growled again, so I banished him to the next room.
Then I asked the repairman - "You're not the Devil, are you"? and he said no, he didn't think so. He fixed the dryer and left without further incident.
Now here's the funny part: this dog is an idiot, and I wouldn't trust him to find his own way in out of the rain, but I'll never have that repair guy back.
My in-laws' Doberman has a passionate, rabid hatred of the UPS man. Nobody knows why.
A generation ago in the Deep South, it was not unheard-of for whites to pay blacks to beat a dog severely when it was young - so that it would forever attack rabidly when it saw someone black on the property.
Two years ago we got a 4 year old Maltese to keep my in-laws company as they grew older. Scooter accepted the women and my father in law, but it took him a week to agree to put up with me. (I'm now one of his best buddies.) Since then we've noticed that he never has a problem with women, children, or men who don't have dark hair. But every time he encounters a man with dark hair in his domain, he barks up a storm. Scooter also has a lump on his side (lower ribs)which the vet said could be a birth problem or a badly healed rib fracture. We theorize that a dark haired man kicked him when he was young.
Recently I saw the amusing site of a medium-sized pomeranian (small fluffy dog) getting itself into a fury because nearby pedestrian was towing a small wheeled suitcase. The dog was ready to attack the suitcase and completely ignored the luggage-owner (who in turn ignored the dog). I wondered it the pom thought the suitcase was some kind of dog and was just exhibiting the Napoleon Complex you find in poms sometimes. But from this article, I get the idea that the Pom just didn't know what the hell it was looking at. So be sure to socialize your animal with luggage while they're young.
I noticed that my cats, who usually just about assault anyone walking down the street for sweet sweet love, avoid young black men like the plague.
It was terribly embarassing for a while, but now I've just decided that young black men tend to walk a little more , um, aggressively and tend to be talking to their friends a little louder than the white yuppie lady with a stroller (a favorite target of the cats), and they're just slinking away because cats don't like to be approached aggressively.
Either that, or they're just furry little bigots.
B
I think the Slate piece of full of it. The dog was a pit bull mix, picked up on a city street. Duh--it had most likely been trained by its breeder or owner to behave aggressively towards men of color--drug dealers don't train watch or attack dogs to lunge for white grannies. See the movie Training Day for a good example. The Slate writer was just clueless.
Jenny the Wonderdog[Border Collie/ Lab/ Australian Cattle dog] was teased as a pup by a friend on crutches. Once. She has never forgiven this woman, and is highly skeptical of anyone else with crutches or a cane. Otherwise, she adores humankind of all races, colors or creeds. I believe the early trauma therory is correct [based on this single anecdotal episode] and as they say: "You only have to show a Border Collie once..."
Jenny the Wonderdog[Border Collie/ Lab/ Australian Cattle dog] was teased as a pup by a friend on crutches. Once. She has never forgiven this woman, and is highly skeptical of anyone else with crutches or a cane. Otherwise, she adores humankind of all races, colors or creeds. I believe the early trauma therory is correct [based on this single anecdotal episode] and as they say: "You only have to show a Border Collie once..."
"Either that, or they're just furry little bigots." Becky, as a cat owner, I would like to raise a third possibility: that they are cleverly trying to cause you grief by making you look like a bigot by association.
Sometimes cats are bad because they just want to be bad.
On to dogs. My parents dear departed terrier didn't care much for strange men and did a lot of barking to tell them that. However, when we were having the house painted, one of the painters told us the dog was quiet all day while we were gone. He'd only start barking after we got home. Funny.
What would make this dog go crazy was anyone on a bicycle. We thought he was freaked out by the odd spectacle of a person with big wheels. . . . until we looked outside one day while the dog was out and saw some neighbor kids riding by on their bikes and throwing rocks at him. Rotten little bastards.
My master just doesn't like tennis balls, especally yellow ones. I've worked on this problem for a while. Every morning when he wakes up, I greet him with the tennis ball firmly in my mouth and then I dutifully drop it right in front of his face. He pitches it but I bring it right back. Usually after about three tosses, he gets so scared he hides the ball. No problem, because there are alot of tennis balls laying around the house. Once in a while he trips over one the tennis balls, such language.
While I haven't been able to break him of his fear of tennis balls. He's not a bad master, he makes sure there is fresh water in the bowl. I've even learned how to get fresh water myself, just press the silver lever.
There was one occasion when the water turned blue but an emergency trip to the vets fixed my stomach problems, but that is another story.
Yikes, the neighbor's cat is on the porch!
Timmy
I've noticed my dog is "bigoted" also. I think it has something to do with the way certain minorties smell. Some blacks use hair care products he doesn't like to smell. Indian and Korean people have a smell that comes from what they eat, my dog doesn't like them either. He really hates smokers.
I once saw this dog that barked at ghosts, and then a little girl got sucked into the TV.
One of the dogs we sold to a lady out in the country started barking when she saw turkey vultures eating some roadkill on the road
outside the house. Her master was afraid
the TV would attack, but they like their food montionless, not little and yippy.
Thirty yaers ago the Goodyear Blimp [one of them] was stationed on Miami's Watson Island and floated and groaned around the city constantly. Then, my Father had a miniature Dachshund who HATED the blimp and barked at it constantly. Musta been the sound.
"My childhood dog was outraged by dolphins."
That's....how the hell did you dog come into contact with dolphins?
My chihuahua Charley is completely bonkers, he barks at black,asian and old people, anything with small wheels, hats, crash helmets and people with unkempt wayward hair! Imagine my complete embarassment when one day after calling an emergency plumber, he turned out to be an elderly black gentleman wearing a rather wonderfull hat, on entering our apartment, Charley went utterly ballistic!
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