The dog as a judge of human character

[geonni banner]

I wonder what other dog owners think of their dog’s ability to judge character. My dog is a bit twitchy with anyone new. She warms up to people slowly, but rarely shows anything like hostility. But there are two people in our building which she took against from the start. One, (B.) I knew for a crazy and potentially violent man. He has moved away, to the great relief of both of us.

 

The other, (S.) I thought innocuous and even nice. 4 years later I can see that he is a passive-aggressive person who hides his real feelings most of the time and smiles a great deal. But my dog never fails to growl softly when he enters the building, and she keeps her distance from him without being overtly hostile.

 

I tend to “believe what my dog says about peoples’ character” but S. had me fooled. I thought that as a rescue dog she might have had a bad experience with someone who looked and/or smelled like S. That could still be true, but now I feel that she is right about her assessment of him.

 

So how many of you trust your dog’s ability to know if something is not right about a person?

[ArtTalKat]

Honestly, I don't put much stock in the whole "dogs sense bad people" type of thinking. My thinking on it is that some dogs are naturally weary, while others are not, but all dogs can see body language and strange or aggressive body language is more apparent to them than it is to us. They speak to others every day using body language, they are much better at picking up tiny details in body language and movements or tones that we don't notice. That, is what I think, sets friendly dogs off when it comes to people that are a bit "off."

 

Other dogs, like one of mine, are just afraid of people. He doesn't like most people, but every once in a while a person will come along that he loves. I think it has to do with familiarity. If the person has something familiar, like is similair to me or smells like something good, he is more responsive. It also matters how they approach. If they stare at him in the eyes, lean at the hips and not bends down, is too forward or aggressive, then he is immediately on alert.

 

My families old Malamute only growled at one guy when I was walking home late at night with him. I don't think it had anything to do with the guy being good or bad, I think it had to do with it being dark, a strange figure approaching and walking in a very irradict pattern. This all made him very nervous.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

Interesting question. I've no doubt my dogs respond to unfamiliar body language - but do they make accurate moral judgements . . .? At 2 years old June was extremely distressed walking on lead through San Francisco's chinatown. Unfamiliar body language. One day, on the way to a trial with June and Luke, who was extremely crate protective, I paused to visit my son's group home. 40 year old Jon is profoundly retarded/autistic/ doesn't talk. Jon's minder suggested I let the dogs out to see what Jon would make of them and I opened the tailgate. Well, Jon likes cars so he immediately started crawling in, sticking his fingers through the mesh door of Luke's crate who retreated to the back, wide-eyed. Clear as a bell, Luke said, "Whoa! What the Hell is this!"

 

Fly goes into DOG ALERT (ears up, tense, hard-eyed, watchful) unpredictably. This isn't full aggression (if she might bite she shows teeth) but the alert sometimes leads to a back of the leg nip. Evenings, sitting around watching TV, she often alerts on Anne - Fly's much more interested in her, solicits more petting etc than she is in me (and Fly's my stick-tight). Last night I joked that Fly saw Anne as "the other woman". Anne (who has been amazingly tolerant of a dog she sees as "the nutcase") wasn't amused.

 

I let Fly run loose at Patrick Shannahan's clinic w/o incident.

 

When I visited Margot Wood (Applewood dog training) we sat out with maybe twenty dogs running around, chatting with a pair of Margot's advanced student/trainers. Fly was entirely relaxed around us - but she alerted on the male student trainer.

 

Then, after a string of literary events, in Raleigh she alerted on a dopey/sentimental woman leaning over to pet her. No harm done. Woman didn't notice a thing. I took Fly's alert as a stress warning and we left soon after.

 

I can understand why Fly'd alert at dopey/sentimental but not why she alerts on non-threatening dog savvy humans. Anne has been around these dogs for years and Margot's student was dog savvy with good dog body language.

 

 

Donald McCaig

[mum24dog]

I think it's likely that often confirmation bias sneaks in - the human remembers the times the dog was right but forgets the times it wasn't.

 

My husband doesn't like dogs but wouldn't harm them. All he wants is for them not to bother him. Out of 6 dogs 2 have loved him, 2 have been really frightened of him and 2 pretty much neutral.

[juliepoudrier]

As Donald noted, I don't think dogs pass moral judgment. I had one dog that I used to take rollerblading with me in an area that was a little secluded. Occasionally we'd run into a guy who seriously creeped me out--he was perfectly nice and friendly, but there was something about him that just made me nervous. My dog was super friendly to this man, as he was to everyone he met, especially men.

 

I think dogs are more likely to react to odd noises/behaviors/smells from people than they are just to "know" something about some people, if that makes sense. For example, a person might have an odor associated with them that sets the dog's senses on alert, and that odor may be related to some issue the person has (chemical imbalance or similar) that might be related to that person's behaviors (i.e., people who aren't "normal"), but that's not the same as meeting a person and just knowing there's something off (in a mental sense) about them.

 

Also, I meet people that I just pretty much instantly dislike, not for any rational reason that I could articulate. I imagine other animals could be the same way.

 

J.

[border_collie_crazy]

I think some dogs are good judges, but only some. my old dog Shadow? id trust my life to her judgement, she was NEVER wrong. she growled at a kid who came to the door asking to use the phone (before the age of cellphones lol) we took her to a diff room.. turned out the kid was a thief. my dad once left me in the car while he went into a store, there was a group of men hanging in the parking lot, Shadow, who had been asleep in the back seat all of a sudden popped up, jumped into my lap and stared at the men, all of a sudden the men saw fit to leave lol. in her whole life she NEVER once reacted badly toward a person who wasn't trouble. all my current dogs? I dont take their opinions seriously.

[Jexa]

Well, if I trusted Max, I'd think everyone in the world is just So. Wonderful. And if I trusted Rudder, I'd be positively terrified of everyone

 

 

I think dogs' reactions to people are complex, affected by their own pasts, the situation in which they meet the person, their perception of how their owner is reacting to the person, how they smell, etc, etc.

[G. Festerling]

Man, I must be a miserable person then...I know of one dog that absolutely hates me!

I am sure glad her owner still felt me worthy to get a pup from them! (btw...not out of said dog...)

[urge to herd]

Yep, I wouldn't trust a dog to judge character in any consistent way. Buzz loved EVERYBODY, the only exception was the man who stepped out from behind some trees and almost tripped over him.

 

Sam was shy with most folks outside our home, but if a stranger came into our home, she was a very flirty girl.

 

Shoshone didn't like anyone, but she'd take treats quite gently from people, then weasel away just a few steps so she could eat in peace. We used to joke that she'd approach Idi Amin if he smelled like dried liver.

 

Gibbs doesn't care for stranger, and it takes him a while to warm up. If I depended on him for character references, I'd never say a word to anyone we passed on our walks.

 

I think many dogs will react defensively to an overt threat, such as an attack on their human or intrusion on their property. Not all, though.

 

Ruth and Agent Gibbs

[MrSnappy]

I'm not going to trust the value judgments of an animal that thinks the ceiling fan is a Monster.

 

And BTW, if you ever wanted to break into my house, be as creepy as you want, but bring a tennis ball in one hand and a squirrel in the other, and you've got 8 new Best Friends who will show you where all my valuables are.

 

But seriously, while I suspect there are some few dogs who have a greater capacity to read body language or what have you and respond accordingly, there are even more dogs who have completely unfounded stranger danger issues and other fear-based responses to flesh monkeys. I suspect that we humans have lost a lot of our innate ability to read people and trust our instincts, so we like to think our dogs have retained these mysterious abilities. In fact, domesticating them along with us has made them largely just as oblivious ;-)

 

RDM

[geonni banner]

Sorry this is so long, but I think it illustrates some of what I've been thinking about re: dogs. I think working-bred Border Collies might be better at this than the average dog, as stock reading is a prerequisite for them. I was in equine-assisted therapy for a year or so and here are my thoughts on why it works for people.

 

The reason equine-assisted therapy works is that horses are very, very good at reading people’s feelings. You can walk up to a horse and be all smiles and kind words on the outside, but if you are angry because your boss dissed you today, or your boyfriend said rude things about your outfit, the horse will sense the incongruence between your external behavior and your internal feelings.

A group of gazelles will sometimes allow a lioness to pass very close to them without causing them to flee in panic. The same lioness at a different time can appear just as nonchalant, but be thinking of how nice a gazelle would feel in her rumbling tummy, and the gazelles will bolt in terror. They can see the hunger beneath the saunter. This is a good thing for gazelles to be able to do because they are prey animals, and so they have evolved this ability.

Horses are prey animals too, and when you approach a horse with a “mind divided” they can sense it. They tend to move away from you. How is this helpful?

Many people carry states of anger, fear, hostility, and anxiety around with them some or all of the time. Lots of those people aren’t in touch with those feelings. Maybe they have carried them for a long time and are tired of feeling bad, so they push those feelings way down in their subconscious where they can’t be “seen or heard.” They cover them up with cheerfulness or being busy. Sometimes they think they’ve actually banished the unpleasant feelings completely. Sometimes they know the feelings are still there but are afraid to experience them, or just think that if they ignore them they won’t be bothered by them.

But those feelings don’t go away unless they are faced and dealt with. They lurk inside like land mines, threatening to go off. Sometimes the person hiding those little land mines steps on them by accident. Sometimes something outside of the person sets off a bomb. A chance remark, a scene in a movie, a little shred of memory that floats unexpectedly into the person’s consciousness can detonate that carefully buried bomb.

These feelings get in the way of the person harboring them. They can prevent them from being happy, calm, or confident. But if the person has carefully hidden them, they often cannot find them – even if they decide to face them and try to overcome them. The person can have trouble because they themselves aren’t able to access these buried feelings. This is where the horse comes in.

Just as those gazelles can tell when the lioness is feeling like eating even though she hasn’t actually started to hunt or chase, a horse can feel that pent-up anger or fear in a person who approaches. The horse may not know that your subconscious is a wreck because your parents abused you, or that you were in a bad car accident that left you with a state of terror that you have been masking for years. But the horse will know if your inside doesn’t match your outside, or if your internal processes are in conflict – even if you don’t. This will signal the horse to move away from you. The incongruence between co-existing dynamics in your mind will cause the horse to be repelled. So then what?

 

Here stands a horse in a pen, with no halter or bridle to grab, or bucket of feed or treats to entice. You walk in. Your job is to try to connect with the horse. But in order to do that you first have to connect with your feelings. The horse has to feel comfortable to connect with you. If you approach the horse and it moves away, you must try to evaluate what you are feeling at that moment. If you can own that feeling, experience it, and be in it, you will have come closer to understanding what’s going on inside of you. Your internal dissonance will have diminished and so you will seem less incongruent to the horse. It will not have so much reason to move away from you. Connection begins to be possible. As you go about interacting with the animal, listening to your inner thoughts and feelings, the horse can be a precise instrument for alerting you to states of mind that you need to improve your awareness of. This is how a horse can help you to experience your sub-conscious state of mind, heighten your awareness of what is happening inside you, and help you heal yourself.

 

I think that dogs which have been trained to view humans as animated treat-dispensers or ball-throwers will miss a lot that a more serious-minded dog will see. If you think of your dog as a "fur-baby" you will indeed likely end up with a dog that "hasn't got a lick of sense." But if a dog has a real job to do, and has learned that that job is not all butterflies and liver treats, it may have a more serious frame of mind which is alert to the fact that sometimes "things need watching."

 

Perhaps Donald McCaig's bitch is aware that the chortling nicey-nice "dog lover" may be an absolute train wreck emotionally. To her, perhaps, the incongruity shows, and the labile carrier of sticky-sweetness presents subtle signals that screeching invective is riding along with all the sugar.

[Oko]

I'd say it may be people just behaving differently then the dog is used to. Wesley is very wary of mentally disabled people, people that walk with a limp, or have an odd gait. I would think if he had been around such people as a puppy during socialization time, he would not have a problem with them today. So I would think that dogs can perceive people as acting abnormal, but it's not always right.

 

And the comment about the ceiling fan monster made me laugh, too true.

[Gideon's girl]

Dogs can smell our hormones, so if we are feeling aggressive, frightened, stressed, they smell it. They may not know how to interpret what they smell though.

[urge to herd]

I think that dogs which have been trained to view humans as animated treat-dispensers or ball-throwers will miss a lot that a more serious-minded dog will see. If you think of your dog as a "fur-baby" you will indeed likely end up with a dog that "hasn't got a lick of sense." But if a dog has a real job to do, and has learned that that job is not all butterflies and liver treats, it may have a more serious frame of mind which is alert to the fact that sometimes "things need watching."

 

Perhaps Donald McCaig's bitch is aware that the chortling nicey-nice "dog lover" may be an absolute train wreck emotionally. To her, perhaps, the incongruity shows, and the labile carrier of sticky-sweetness presents subtle signals that screeching invective is riding along with all the sugar.

Perhaps. Other possibilities are that Fly was tired of being around people she didn't know and didn't like yet another stranger invading her space. Maybe Fly was hungry, or needed to relieve herself. Maybe this woman had her own dogs, and Fly didn't like the smell of them.

 

In animals, (and I include homo sometimes sapiens here,) there is always a range of capabilities, shortcomings, and personality styles. I believe some dogs do 'read' humans as safe/not safe. I have a couple human friends who are absolutely spot on in doing the same thing. Do I believe all redheads can read safe/not safe in others? No. I've got tons of evidence to the contrary.

 

 

I'm a 'show me the double-blind studies' sort of person. If what you wrote about the horses is your own experience, I would ask if you know of objective studies that support the lions/gazelles anecdote. I'd also ask if studies about horses responses to humans has been researched in the same way.

 

My Buzz was also working bred/trained. He was the one who loved EVERYBODY, and indeed, approached life in general as a WONDERFUL THIHNG!!! Gibbs is also working bred/trained, and he tolerates strangers, but barely. All of them, he don't like nobody without some effort on their part. Two working bred/trained dogs, with radically different responses to strangers.

 

And Mr. Snappy is right on. Samantha once had a fit because I walked in with a rhinestone tiara on my head.

 

Ruth and Agent Gibbs, who has not met a stranger he liked

 

et correct Agent Gibbs' tag line

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

Ms. Urgetoherd wrote: "Other possibilities are that Fly was tired of being around people she didn't know and didn't like yet another stranger invading her space." That'd be my guess. It was Fly's 5th literary event and she'd had enough.

 

I recall fondly my Silk who fell utterly in love with the worst bum in the neighborhood. He couldn't take care of himself, much less a dog.

 

While I imagine some dogs are pretty good at threat detection, I'd put my money on the sheep guarding dogs - not my Border Collies who are, however, wonderfully good at amplifying our unstated (and sometimes unadmitted) feelings. We had a fellow working for us whose middle names were "late" and "hungover". Sometimes, when I really needed him for haymaking I'd drive to his shack and wait for him to get his clothes on.

 

He did have a legitimate complaint though. When he drove up, he'd roll down his window and scan the perimeter. When he thought it was all-clear, he'd emerge and start for the house. Whereupon, out of nowhere, my Harry would appear and nip him on the ass. He complained about that a lot. Many years later, he remembers the dog that always - always - bit him on the ass.

 

Harry never bit another soul. Or ass.

 

Donald McCaig

[Flamincomet]

I trust Link completely. When I was very ill a few years ago, I ended up wandering a dark part of town at night completely out of it. I had Link with me, because he followed me out of the house. I ended up sitting on a bench in the dark, no idea where I was, very vulnerable. While I was sitting there, a man noticed me and started to approach, he looked pretty shady from what I can remember, and no one else was around. He started to say something that I couldn't understand at that point, and Link, who had been laying calmly at my feet, stood and very stiffly walked to the end of the leash staring directly at him, hackles raised, and let out a low growl. The man didn't need any other persuasion and immediately turned around and left. Later, when a police officer found me, Link was very accepting of him and allowed him to sit right by me, but was very alert still. I don't trust police at all, so I doubt he was picking up on anything from me, and I wasn't afraid of the man earlier because I couldn't comprehend any possible danger. I ended up in the ER, with Link with me. He has always been a very good judge of character, he never really liked my ex husband or mother-in-law lol. I won't even date anyone he shows any kind of wariness about, which in all honesty is very few people.

[geonni banner]

Donald said, "I'm a 'show me the double-blind studies' sort of person. If what you wrote about the horses is your own experience, I would ask if you know of objective studies that support the lions/gazelles anecdote. I'd also ask if studies about horses responses to humans has been researched in the same way."

 

As for the lions and gazelles scenario, it's common knowledge. Sometimes the prey species throw up their heads and flee, but often they seem completely unconcerned about the presence of lions or hyenas. They will usually, but not always watch them, or at least sentinel members of the herd will. But it is clear that they get clues about whether the predators are actually hunting without overt behaviors on the part of the predators. (Like stalking or charging) I remember reading about this in several books also, one in particular about Spotted Hyenas by Hans Kruk. It doesn't seem to matter if the predator is upwind or downwind. Any time you watch a nature documentary about the Serengeti, or other African savannah locations you can see this. One sauntering lion hardly elicits a flared nostril, another seemingly nonchalant lion causes a mass flight. It is generally felt that the zebras, wildebeests, gazelles or whatever are getting clues we don't as to the predator's intentions. Whether those clues are very nuanced body language humans don't get, olfactory or ESP is not known.

 

There have been studies done on the horse assisted psychotherapy. At the time I was reading about it, (5 years ago) the results were mixed. But most showed that people were being helped to connect with their sublimated anxieties, fears, anger or what have you. Some were helped a little, others a lot.

 

I know it was very beneficial to me.

[Jexa]

Geonni, I largely agree with your description of horses vs dogs, though I admit to skepticism about the gazelles, at least the potential reason they don't run. My dogs have no idea if I'm royally PO'd about something, even if I stomp around and mutter angrily, and won't act differently, but my horse won't let me get within 10 feet of him unless I am truly calm and emotionally steady, no matter what facade I try to project.

 

We laugh about his "6th sense" when it comes to people's horsey experience level. He's very much the equine equivalent of a type A personality and is convinced he should be in charge, until proven otherwise. And by some subtle body language cues, or tone of voice, or smell, or who knows what, he can tell a LOT about total stranger's ability to handle him, as they approach him. We're not sure how he knows, but from the get-go he'll be a perfect gentleman for a stranger who is very experienced, and a fire breathing monster spaz with teeth for anyone who isn't experienced, and he rates his response for someone in the middle. I certainly don't think he can tell a "good" person from a "bad" person, though. And of course, like dogs, horses' run the gamut from totally clueless to very perceptive, but in my experience they tend to be much more in tune with humans' emotions (though NOT personalities) than dogs are.

[bcnewe2]

I was thinking if a person walked in and I got upset or was nervous my dogs would react. Then Julie mentioned the ball and YEP, they'd like anybody for a ball!

Faye is a nervous dog, I think shed bite if cornered where I don't think my other dogs would even feel cornered unless really aggressively by someone. Faye is scared to death of my sister. She is a bird person and has 2 big dogs. But I think Donald described her...dopey and emotional, fayes least favorite people.

 

I still believe or would like to believe that if I needed saving they would save me...just like Timmy in the well

[urge to herd]

It was me, not Donald, that you quoted. I'm flattered that my writing was confused with his, though!

 

I don't want to argue about who has the best information. You asked our opinion, I gave mine. I'd no more trust just any dog to be a good judge of character than I would just any person. Yes, there probably are individual dogs who have that ability. Do ALL dogs know who is safe/not safe? I've got personal experience that tells me no.

 

I'm also of the opinion that 'my dog knows who is safe/not safe' is part of the romanticizing of dogs as a species. We humans tend to do that a lot.

 

I'm glad you were helped by equine assisted therapy. I think healthy interactions with animals are hugely beneficial to many people. Not all animals, and not all people.

 

Ruth and Agent Gibs

[juliepoudrier]

And yet my dogs are very responsive to my moods, especially if I'm angry, even if not at them.

 

J.

 

 

Geonni, I largely agree with your description of horses vs dogs, though I admit to skepticism about the gazelles, at least the potential reason they don't run. My dogs have no idea if I'm royally PO'd about something, even if I stomp around and mutter angrily, and won't act differently, but my horse won't let me get within 10 feet of him unless I am truly calm and emotionally steady, no matter what facade I try to project.

[Oko]

Wesley is very in tune with how everyone feels, emotionally. I've heard it's a poodle thing to be so sensitive.

[geonni banner]

I agree with those who cite a variety of ability in individual dogs for evaluating threats - overt or veiled. I was not making a case for all dogs having this ability. I once had a Rough Collie that was so completely clueless that he would most likely have stood by with a glassy look and a wagging tail while someone cut my throat.

 

Fortunately, he was adopted by someone whose sole criteria for a dog was a gentle soul in a pretty fur coat. But I have also owned dogs that braved gunfire to attack a man with a rifle who was shooting at my home. And while a rifle shot is a clear indication of hostility, I have also had dogs who were excellent judges of potential hostilities.

 

The one I have now seems to fall into this category. I wonder if this ability is similar to that of the prey animal which distinguishes the hungry lion from the disinterested one. I asked for other's thoughts about their dog's ability to tell a person who is a friend and one who is potentially a threat. I asked here because I thought it would be interesting to see if the working Border Collie's owners noticed this characteristic in their dog/s. I specify working dogs because those dogs experience a more diverse slice of reality than the average pet dog. They must learn to recognize and respond appropriately to threats from livestock, whereas most pet dogs don't have this kind of thing to deal with most of the time.

 

Though I don't have scientific studies to back up the Idea, it has been my experience that dogs who have had to deal with danger and/or painful experiences are different that those who have not. While they may be well-balanced and stable mentally, they do seem to evaluate people and situations - especially new people and situations- with caution and a different sense of gravity than the dog that has never had a harsh word or a blow. Such dogs do seem to recognize potential threats whereas the dog who has known nothing but kindness is usually surprised when human-inflicted hurt befalls them.

 

And yes, individual dogs will have these factors modified by their personal temperament and intelligence. Even my rough Collie described above gave a ringing alarm bark (the only one he uttered in his 11 year life) upon beholding a person he was well-acquainted with wearing a welding helmet.

[Jexa]

Julie- certainly, different dogs have different levels of sensitivity. Also I'm sure the fact that your dogs are working dogs, and you work so closely with them, also hugely plays into their ability to read your emotions. I work closely with my horse, and he can read me from a distance. While I spend more time with my dogs than with my horse, I don't work with them the way you do with yours, or the way I do with my horse. Makes sense that they would be less able to perceive my emotional state.

[Flamincomet]

While I do agree that a lot of people's views of their dog's judge of character may be skewed and romanticized, I also believe that my dog is very intelligent and intuitive. This probably has a lot to do with his job as a service dog, he has to be alert and notice very minor changes in my own demeanor, and I can see that translating to being able to read other people very well. This doesn't lessen my trust of his ability to read other people, if anything it strengthens it.