Can't visit friend as her dog is racist

My DS whippets hate cartoon characters, cyclists and Alsatian's.

Yes i believe it is true due to them only seeing in shades. They cannot distinguish features so clearly so a black dog bounding up to your dog is more likely to get a negative reaction.

Although I wouldn't call the dog racist, but there is definitely a different reaction to anyone who looks different to the owners.

Those saying it's a wind up- genuinely it's not. My friend's dog only reacts to men who are of colour- I understand those of you thinking/ accusing responders of this being a wind up- but it genuinely isn't. The dog will o it react to those men, white men get no reaction at all. Its fecking embarrassing when you walk him

My dog is racist. Which is embarrassing as we are a mixed race family. She is utterly adored and no one in the family would ever harm her.

She also hates fluro and cycle helmets.

We made an effort to walk in more diverse areas and that seemed to help.

Its very common in wolf dogs and wolves to be more cautious of adult males than women.

Reading all the reasons why peoples dogs take a dislike to certain people has made me chuckle a bit thinking about how some claim their dogs can “read” everyone.

I’ll save and show this thread to the ones who are SO convinced that their dog/all dogs are great judges of character and are always bleating about if a dog doesn’t like you there’s something wrong with you blah blah.

Obviously with dogs there’s no malice or whatever but it’s very clear that a dog not taking to you doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on you. You may just be white, black, fat, tall, thin, wearing a nice hat or headscarf, delivering mail etc the list is endless 😂

My dog is like this too 😫

This covers all of it really well with actual behavioral experts.

1. of course a dog isn’t racist because that’s part of human society.
2. BUT yes, they can be afraid of certain groups of people (skin colors, genders, wheelchair users, postmen!). This talks about how to fix it.
3. It also discusses why we call dogs “racist” or why we’re concerned, even though of course we know they can’t be (it’s American so it talks about American history, but also because dog owners are afraid people will think that they’re racist).

Good article. Good advice.
https://www.tuftsyourdog.com/dogtrainingandbehavior/my-dog-is-racist-and-im-mortified/

This makes sense, I don’t buy the dogs can’t see darker peoples features. It’s more that some dogs in the UK are going to be around mainly white people so some are alarmed at someone different. I’m not surprised to hear it’s the same the other way around.

OP, I’d suggest she keep your dog away from you or keep it on a leash initially. I generally don’t like dogs and when I was younger visiting friends they’ve been happy to put the dog in another room or whatever.

My friend's usually placid border collie was racist - went berzerk around our black friends.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

dogs that read the DM are deffo racist.

Is it true dogs are more weary of black dogs? My friend has a black Dane and I'm sure she told me this. Is it to do with their vision or something? There was a reason

Has this been picked up by the DM yet? I can’t wait for their expose on racist dogs.

Because using it on her dog is going to reinforce the issue the dog has with people of colour?

The dog, if indeed it hasn't been exposed to different ethnicities, and does have such an issue, it's first proper exposure in the home is going to be 'pet corrected by person of x ethnicity, of which I already had issue with (for whatever reason'?

It's common sense, really.

Just ignore the dog completely when you go. Don't look at it, talk to it, anything. Just completely ignore. It'll soon come around.

My dog is fine with people - but doesn’t like dark coloured dogs… is he racist?

This is true. When I was socialising my pup I had a spreadsheet of people and experiences for him to discover so he'd get used to differing things.
Postmen
Revolving doors
Walking on different textures
People with disabilities
Older and younger people
I almost punched the air with joy when a uniformed delivery man rang the doorbell. He was a Sikh with a turban - bonus points!

I'm surprised people are so shocked by this. I'm from the Caribbean and it's really common there for Black people's dogs to be massively reactive to white people and vice-versa.

My dog is the same with any flat faced breed. I think it is because they can't read them properly, as they don't have proper snout/mouth that they can read.

Saying that, my dog is a greyhound, and she is not that keen on other greyhounds.

I don't know why people are disbelieving the OP. This absolutely does happen. Dogs have different eyesight from humans. To some dogs, people with darker skin tones look as though they have "shadowy faces", which they find unnerving if they're not used to it. Some of them will also bark at women in niqabs for similar reasons.

This is my current dog with French bulldogs. Mortifying. He growls everytime he sees one, one went for him in the street for no reason and he’s hated the breed as a whole since.

BiL’s dog is sexist and hates men.

Neighbours’ dog is cyclistist and hates me because I’m a cyclist! Possibly many on MN would hate me too!

My sister's dog is scared to death of the fridge freezer. When they bring shopping home, her dog has to be put in another room.

Dogs are weird, but so lovable.

Interesting thread. However really baffled at the amount of responses agreeing with the OPs use of the term racist here. Keeping in mind it is a dog.