Seeing as how I've been on these boards for all of a few hours, I think you might want to get to know me better before you call me ignorant.
Thanks for relating your experience with your dog and his(her) reaction to it. I was relating my own experience when I wrote my previous post. If you have found your experiences to be contrary, I'd be happy to read them. But, please keep your comments and arguments in context rather than calling me names or disparaging my knowledge.
I'm glad to make your acquaintance on these boards and I hope that we can have productive discussions from now on.
Regards,
Rand
I grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in South Buffalo. You may not be able to train your dog to sic a black man, but the people in my neighborhood certainly tried.
All I'm saying is that I find it very hard to believe that dogs can distinguish between people of one ethnicity or another, regardless of tragic circumstances such as TrumpetJock related earlier.
And, I'll say more about this since TrumpetJock turned it from comment on my experience to a slight on my intelligence.
You straight up called anyone who has a dog that doesn't like black people racist. That was the beginning, middle and end of your post. How am I not supposed to take offense to that when one of my dogs doesn't like black men, and neither I nor my fiancee are racist (or afraid) of them?
You've only posted a few times on this board, maybe you should take a little more time getting to know us before you call a potentially large group of us racist.
Still doesn't make the dog racist.
The dog associated the knife, the threat, and the black man. That's not racism. That's associative learning that dogs do.
The dog isn't saying "oh I like whites over blacks because all blacks will try to cut me."
He's reacting on an instinctive level based on a traumatic event. The race applies only because it's part of the context of the event.
I fully realize this
My dog isn't actually "racist", that's a purely human social construct. There is an associated feeling of a scary experience, that is all. She very well could have associated the attack with a baseball cap and began being "racist" against cap wearers.
Randstrauss, if that had happened I guess that would have to mean I'm racist towards cap-wearers, eh? And for that matter, my in-laws must be racist against suit-case holders, because their poodle absolutely HATES anyone carrying a suitcase.
Makes perfect sense.
