Dog freaked over a black & white pattern dress?

1220 Views 13 Replies 13 Participants Last post by Crantastic, Apr 1, 2012

BassetMixUp

Discussion Starter · Mar 31, 2012

I'm going to a wedding tomorrow so I was trying on a few different dresses. My dog was relaxing on the couch and when he saw me in this dress, he started growling at me (!!) and seemed super spooked. Unbelievably out of character. I continued to try on other colors and patterns with no problem.
Does anyone have any insight to this??

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Shell

· #2 · Mar 31, 2012

Dogs can freak out over odd things. The dress might have a strong enough pattern to confuse him, change your body shape in his eyes, or it could have just been coincidence if it was the first dress you tried on.

Chester went nuts barking at my neighbors yesterday (and he nearly never barks and is about the most bombproof dog around) because the father was swinging his toddler son around by the arms (the spinning type game) and I think Chester thought he was hurting him. Once we walked by a house we'd walked by a 100 times and they had PAINTED bears on the garage and Chester growled at the bears

Luna went nutty the first time she saw someone holding an umbrella and went nutty barking at my aunt wearing Christmas reindeer antlers (the little decorative headband antlers). Yesterday she barked a bit at an angel statue in a yard.

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hargyle

· #3 · Mar 31, 2012

I would agree with Shell, probably just something different. Loki freaked out at a towel once ... put it on the door and barked at it for a solid 5 minutes. Same with his toy box, DID NOT know what to do about that one, 20 min later. fine.

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hamandeggs

· #4 · Mar 31, 2012

Agree, sometimes dogs just notice things that are "different." Yesterday we were out walking Biscuit stopped dead and put her hackles up at the sight of a lady in a pink dress carrying a sheet of neon pink poster board.

Weird new thing! Could be dangerous! Better avoid it! And/or bark at it!

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spotted nikes

· #5 · Mar 31, 2012

Rusty, my dog that was a stray for about 3 yrs freaks out if someone is wearing red. He's ok with me wearing it, but he trusts me completely. I first discovered it when my mom was visiting and she put on a red coat. He had been fine with her until then, but then he charged her barking and growling, to the point where I had to step between them. She removed coat, and he was fine. She tried it again a few days later and same reaction. Then, a year later, after she had been visiting for a week, and he had been fine, she came out of the bedroom wearing burgandy-red sweat pants. He started slinking around with his tail down, eyeing her suspisciously. She changed he pants and he was fine again. I know when he was a stray, people had tried to catch him and were mean to him (throwing rocks at him, one guy intentionally drove his truck off the road trying to run him over (I saw him do it and confronted him...he said he was tired of him sitting outside his fence making his dogs bark). So I wonder if someone wearing red did something to scare him, or tried to throw a red blanket over him.

Could your dog have had a bad experience with someone wearing black and white checks?

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workerant

· #6 · Mar 31, 2012

Maybe he thought you were a border collie?

/not border collie-ist

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Spirit_of_Cotons

· #7 · Mar 31, 2012

Agreed with the other posters, sometimes dog just see things differently and bark at them. My mother used to keep out a very pretty tin box as it just went with our deocr and Luke barked endlessly at it. My mother inspected the box and found out that it could look like a face to him. He didn't like the face. And my late aunt's dog, this is hilarious, barked/growled at my stuffed lion I had. I tried to tell her he was fake, "Look would I hit a real lion?" Nope, didn't work. Haha.

But yeah, your dog will be fine. And congrats to whoever is getting married.

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Abbylynn

· #8 · Mar 31, 2012

I had a dog that would freak out on anything dark in color ... period ... material or human. I never could break her of it. She was a rescue. I think she may have been abused by someone wearing dark clothing. I could never train her out of it though. She is almost 10 years old now ... and still goes balistic!

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trainingjunkie

· #9 · Mar 31, 2012

My pup went through a phase where she would bark at tiny dots on a white wall or lint on a dark bedspread. To this day, she goes freaking nuts when she finds a feather in the back yard. And she lives in a home with a parrot.

She's not quite right in other ways either.

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KBLover

· #10 · Mar 31, 2012

Wally started growling at a bag of trash on the patio. He never saw it before (it was on the wall out of view), and when he saw it, he immediately started growling a low growl and making these short deep barks.

I'm like "what?! WTF?" and looking around thinking someone was trying to break in or something - and it was the trash bag.

Nice to know he's alert to marked differences though. Last winter, he barked at snowmen, especially at night. He growled at an overturned chair in a field as we walked by once. He seems to get really defensive at night. Typical?

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Roloni

· #11 · Mar 31, 2012

BassetMixUp said:
I'm going to a wedding tomorrow so I was trying on a few different dresses. My dog was relaxing on the couch and when he saw me in this dress, he started growling at me (!!) and seemed super spooked. Unbelievably out of character. I continued to try on other colors and patterns with no problem.
Does anyone have any insight to this??

Im a husband...
No matter what dress you wear ..I always tell you that your ass does not look fat in that dress.
However...
Dogs are more honest and express themseves more freely.

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GottaLuvMutts

· #12 · Apr 1, 2012

Could have also been the smell. When was the last time you wore that dress? Who were you around? Any dogs?

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BassetMixUp

Discussion Starter · #13 · Apr 1, 2012

LOL, so I guess if he's crazy, he's in good company.

It was the second dress I had tried on but it was brand new and could have smelled funny to him. I ended up wearing that dress so I waited until the last minute to put it on, just in case, and he was completely unfazed. I think he was more distracted my hair wasn't up in a ponytail.

He was a stray and is untrusting of men (specifically men with a larger football player type build.) Hmm.... Maybe a 6'4" 240 pound man in a black & white dress was mean to him. :wink:

Roloni said:
Im a husband...
No matter what dress you wear ..I always tell you that your ass does not look fat in that dress.
However...
Dogs are more honest and express themseves more freely.

Bwahaha! I'll have you know, my ass was rockin in that dress. :whoo:

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Crantastic

· #14 · Apr 1, 2012

KBLover said:
Nice to know he's alert to marked differences though. Last winter, he barked at snowmen, especially at night. He growled at an overturned chair in a field as we walked by once. He seems to get really defensive at night. Typical?

I think it's neat that dogs notice so quickly when things are different. A few days after I first got Crystal, I took her outside to pee as usual and she started barking and growling, which she had never done before. It was because all of the houses on the street had a garbage can out front -- it was pickup day. I had to let her sniff one of the cans so she'd realize it was fine. Since then she hasn't batted an eye at trash cans. My dogs are also very suspicious of anything weird in the street, like a pylon or a road construction sign, especially if it's dark out.

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