Intersting story and beautiful thread. Thanks for posting and thanks for the ping from Joe 6 pack.
Do you suppose that the Afghan dogs are sensitive to the smell of the Afghan people because of what they eat? This would be in contrast to the soldiers who are probably eating MREs.
I had a neighbor in the Houston area who had a rather intimidating Airedale terrier. The dog was fine with us and allowed my kids to feed him when my neighbor was out of town. But, he absolutely hated the meter reader from ENTEX, who happened to be black. My neighbor’s gas usage was not monitored (just estimated) for as long as he owned that dog.
A lot of people will incorrectly interpret their dog's reaction to certain cues and conclude, "My dog is racist," or, "My dog hates the mailman."
What typically happens is that the mailman, meter reader, etc. will approach the residence. The dog barks, the mailman delivers the mail, then moves on. While the mailman is just going to his next delivery, the dog interprets this as having prompted the mailman's retreat by barking. It gets reinforced daily (in the case of the mailman) or monthly (in the case of the meter reader). I would wager that your neighbor's Airedale may hve barked at you early on, but never succeeded in forcing you to retreat from your property, and as he grew accustomed to you, and familiar with you, never saw the need to challenge you as you approached.
Ibizan Hounds are *the* most racist breed on earth.
Most of them shy away from black people.
[unless of course, they were raised by a black family, of which I know two examples]
This afternoon at Home Depot, she loved all over the ladies who came to worship her [especially the Russian immigrant who is *so* cool that I just love listening to her] and was, IMO, extremely rude when she ignored the perfectly nice young black lady who spoke to us as we left.
[which made me ashamed of my dog, especially since she was born into a white family with two black sons whom she knew from birth until 4 months of age]
We *thought* Odin was “racist” but judging by the lovey-dovey fuss he made over a very nice, decently dressed little black kid and his dad in PetCo the other day, apparently not.
If, however, he sees black people dressed like “rappers” [or “thugs” or whatever they term that “look”] he instantly goes into defense mode.
I seriously doubt he’s a born fashion critic so it may well be something in their body language that sets him off.
I’ve never had him react badly to any other minority and we’ve yet to run into any Muzzies.
If we do, I’ll post an update.
Some dogs dislike uniforms, or even people that are not dressed in ways they are not used to, or even move in a way they are used to. I’ve seen many dogs (I live in Thailand - there are dogs everywhere, pets as well as strays) that will get aggressive with crippled people or even very old hunched up people that are shuffling along, bent over, but otherwise lie like a log watching people come and go all day.
One dog of mine got extremely nervous around people with hats. Including me! She wouldn’t even sit if I was wearing a hat - just keep on circling around me. I took her in off the street so I don’t know if that was the result of a previous bad experience or not, but my guess is not. I think was simply because it was something she was not used to.
So your pal getting upset with the meter reader - it could be something simple like the uniform or hat, if he had one.