Can't visit friend as her dog is racist

[CaliforniaCookie]

I was making plans to visit one of my best friends.
She is white and I'm mixed race.

She told me she was concerned as her new dog who i haven't met, is racist.

Anytime he sees a person who is not white he goes mental.

This is honestly not a fake post.

Not sure how to respond. Advice welcome.

All our household pets have had anti racism training and we have taught them about unconscious bias- something for your friend to consider.
Until then she could leave the dog at home/lock it in the garden when you meet up.

My friend's dog is a rescue and terrified of men with beards. Goes absolutely mental. The rescue centre said they think he was abused by someone with a beard hence the fear. They've been trying to work with him on it but it's very challenging. He also hates Arab men in particular. Dogs can definitely be 'racist'.

Probably the dog collar rather than the priest him/herself

Your dog had good sense.

This made my day. Thank you! LOL

I've come across a racist dog before. He barked at his mistress's personal trainer on the laptop during lockdown and also went mad at her son's lifelong best friend who was a person of colour.

Our vet back home had a one eyed border collie. He used to lie on his bed quite happily behind the reception desk.
Apparently he hated black Labradors and Rottweilers (maybe they looked the same to him, with his limited sight?) but he would come out from behind the desk if a collie bitch came in to the surgery. We had one, and he always came out to say hello to her.

Our collie bitch didn't like small children. When she was about six months old, my brother in law came to our house with their toddler, who had just started walking. Toddler was used to dogs, they had two of their own. The family we got the collie bitch from had older children who were very used to, and gentle with dogs.

But when the little one toddled in, our bitch froze. Just froze on the spot. Her hackles even went up. Our other dog, who was as daft as a brush, and loved kids, was all over the little un, and vice versa, but our bitch was actually growling at her.
She was otherwise a very gentle dog. But she'd never seen a child that small before, and we think she just couldn't comprehend what this small human like creature walking into her territory actually was. It absolutely freaked her out, and that never changed in the 12 years we had her. With all small children.
Older/bigger ones, she was fine, she'd seen them as a tiny puppy.

I think that with dogs, it's something that either triggers a bad memory in them, or they just can't comprehend what they're seeing, that it's something completely outside their understanding. We've all seen people of all ethnicities and skin tones, but if a dog's only ever seen a light skinned person, it might confuse and scare them to see anyone with a darker complexion. Or vice versa!
Of course it's not racist. But unfortunately, you can't explain it to them, either.

a friends dog was like this, she consulted a behavioural specialist and they attributed to black peoples teeth being more obvious and dogs seeing them as aggressive for this reason. Her dog was also on the defensive towards wheels chairs and prams. I suspect all of this is about exposing dogs and training them.

My (rescue) cats are terrified of men from the Indian subcontinent (possibly others, but as indoor cats in a place where most maintenance people are from there, that’s what shows up. It is sometimes helpful as the terror has been reciprocated but mostly it is just mortifying.

It’s not on sight, though, so not skin colour - maybe scent? Voices? Either way they flee and hide.

🤣🤣🤣👍🏻

My friend's dog is a rescue and terrified of men with beards. Goes absolutely mental. The rescue centre said they think he was abused by someone with a beard hence the fear. They've been trying to work with him on it but it's very challenging.
One of my friends adopted an adult dog from a family who were wanting to rehome her (the man wanted to rehome her - wife and kids devastated, apparently, though).
Beautiful border collie bitch, very gentle girl, lovely with most people, especially women. Fine with my friend's husband, who was a big bear of a man.
But she was very timid and scared of my husband, which upset him a bit, he loved dogs, we had two collies of our own.
But my friend told us that the man of the family they'd rescued her from was very similar in build and appearance to my husband. Poor girl had obviously been abused to some degree by this guy, you could tell by how she reacted, she'd cower and hide behind me or my friend.

It took a lot of patience and time for her to come round. Totally understandable, but she did eventually. Thank goodness.
And she lived until she was twenty one, loved to bits and spoiled rotten. As she deserved after the start she'd had.

Oh god this. I was going to say, take some treats with you and you'll be fine! Ffs don't teach the dog that you ARE someone to be scared of!

Walk away from the "friend".

Dogs can be trained to be racist. It certainly happened a lot in Africa - South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe - 30 and 40 years ago.

Because dogs are able to see a difference in skin colour. They naturally accept all humans the way we accept all dogs. Most people don't react differently to a black or white labrador, you either love labradors or you don't.

Either your friend is as thick as a mushroom, and her dog has taken exception to a human "who happens to be black" - and so many reasons for that, usually the human's fault.

Or the dog has been trained.

But what concern's me most is your thick-as-a-mushroom friend has naturally concluded the dog must be racist.

You have very stupid, ignorant friends.

How many GCSE's does she have?

My dog used to hate men wearing hats and went crazy if she saw someone.

Yup had that said to me before: I give those properties a wide berth.

I once saw a movie on television. A man adopted a (big) dog that then appeared to hate and attack black people. Really went mental.

The conversation went something like this :
man : I don't know why he (the dog) does that
friend : he's a white dog
man : I can see that myself
friend : no, I mean he's been trained to attack non-whites
In America of course. Think KKK.
Ages ago I saw that movie but it stuck with me.

Unbelievable!!

Ha ha love Dalmatian's. My uncle had one and he hated men on bicycles. He used to hide behind the front garden wall and jump up and bark when they passed by. I swear he used to grin if one wobbled or fell off.

Is the dog from a shelter? Has she had him as a puppy? Are you loud and aggressive? I’ve Someone else made this strange assumption that a dog we knew didn’t like a certain race due to build and height. I find this weird aren’t dogs meant to be colour blind.

These reactions are possibly based on smell. Different cultures eat different food, and dogs 'see' by smell (though their colour recognition is better than had been thought last century) and so the dog is not 'racist' (has no such concept) but upset by what he smells if these smells are unfamiliar. The dog perceives a threat. Possibly take to cooking a wider range of interesting food?

Some of the replies on here have been beyond ridiculous. Racist dogs? Really? Racist humans, they exist, sadly. Let’s not impose our prejudices onto innocent animals though, for goodness sake.

ah this is lovely!
my sister had a rescue who had clearly been abused by a man in the past - he was initially terrified of all men, especially tall ones. Luckily got better with time and repeated exposure to normal (non abusive arsehole) men.

Our old Cavapoo was racist, not his fault, he just didn’t come across very many (if any) black people as a puppy as we lived in an area where the majority of people were white. I remember we sold something on Facebook marketplace and the dog went absolutely mental at the black guy who turned up, I had to make out that he was like that with everyone. He would even bark at black people on the TV.
He also barked at people wearing hats, people with beards, people carrying young children, cats, horses, sheep, anybody walking past the house, a leaf blowing in the garden, tape measures….

I wouldn’t really call it racism though, we shouldn’t attach human thoughts and behaviour to dogs, it’s simply just a case of the dog being afraid of something they’re not familiar with.
Sounds like your friend’s dog probably needs gentle exposure to more people of different races.

I have 3 son/dgtrs in law, one is black, one is East Asian, one is white. Our dog adores the white guy and always eyes the 2 BAME relatives with suspicion. Even though he has known them far longer he still barks when they arrive and won't even take treats off them. It's embarrassing.
He also hates my friends son who is in a wheelchair.

This thread would be 100% perfect for some sort of competition in which you'd need to submit one thread that perfectly encapsulates the forum's essence, its core essence. This thread alone would win hands down.