Racist Border Collie???

[jennifer_cro]

Hi

We have a very placid Border Collie whom we rescued 4 months ago. He apparently came from a loving home but his owner was taken into a hospice and could no longer care for him.

He doesn't bark very much but we have recently noticed that the only time he's barking is at black people, not asian, white, pink, purple etc, just black people.

We live in quite a multi-cultural area so I'm slightly concerned! Does anyone know if this is common and can offer and advice?

Thanks

[lisa74656]

Hi.

I have a 5 year old collie cross that we also rescued. He doesn't so much now but when we first got him he did have a thing against black people and would bark whenever he saw them. Doesn't do it now though.

I guess it must be Collie related. Hope he grows out of it like mine did.

Lisa

[SizzleSquid]

His previous owner was most probably balck, and mistreated the dog, hence the dogs anger toward black people. It has happened many times before, and to people of different races. Also, and this has happebed before to another dog where it was trained by its racist owner to be aggressive toward black people.You will need to re-train your dog, invest in a manual or speak to a trainer.

[Snappy]

I work in a dog creche and we had a black work experience boy in helping out. All the dogs went mad whenever they saw him, a lot were terrified. I think this was because they where we live there aren't many black people so they haven't seen many

[postiepam]

My border does not bark at colored people but acts very strange and sticks to me like glue. She barks at people that wear sun glasses we think this is because she cant see thier eyes.

[happy_face]

We used to have a border collie lab cross and he would literally go for black people in the park if we didn't restrain him. He never grew out of it.

Haven't you got any black friends who you could ask to come and see you and your dog and ask them to sit and feed your dog lots of little treats. Obviously approach slowly and do it gradually over a few days. Hopefully by associating black people with treats it wil only have good memories. Good luck

[hugoboss]

We've had 2 borer collies at different times, and they've both barked and become very vicious around Asian people. Never understood it.

[WendyS]

I can only suspect that the dog possibly had a bad experience with a black person sometime in the past. Perhaps he was mistreated by a black individual before being adopted by his previous owner and the memory has lingered on. It may also be that different coloured skins emit a slightly different "scent or smell" which a dog can notice but we humans can't detect and for some reason this triggers the barking.

[blue eyes ;)]

hi,i have a 4 month old miniature pinscher and he does the same thing.i live in a multi cultural area and am also worried about my dogs "rascist"behaviour.he hadnt seen any black people before as i got him at 8 weeks old.my thought is that maybe as dogs are colour blind that they see white people as light grey and black people as dark grey?what does anyone else think? x