Strange Topic: Do You Believe That Some Dogs Can Sense Good or Bad in People?

I think dogs can sense all sorts of things, but since they do not speak English it is hard to know what.

People that fear dogs.
People that may have a disease.
People with a physical condition.
People who have pets at home and the dog can small this.
People that are wearing certain scents through bath soap, shampoo, medications.. etc..

People whose phones are tracking and making too high pitch of a sound we cannot hear it, but the dog can.
And then maybe yes, they just do not care for that person.

It would be hard for me to judge someone based on my pet. I like to get to know people on my own instead of believing what anyone else or a dog may be "telling me".. I have found people are not great at greeting people or making a great first impression, but are really amazing people.

Can't really say. It could have been anything - the way the man smelled, if he had on a hat or wore a beard, his movement, etc. Dogs do pick up on things in a way that we cannot, but that doesn't mean that anything is necessarily "wrong". I would not assume someone is trouble because of how a dog reacted to them, although many people have anecdotal evidence that their dog did seem to sense something about someone that wasn't quite right. Dogs react to me because I wear a white coat and smell like a million other animals. Doesn't mean I am a bad person!

YES! I trust my dog and I feel like he has protected me in certain situations. When I was single I would walk him in a wooded park. Most people he met, he would try to lick them to death. But occasionally he would growl and point at someone across the lake, his hair would stand on end, etc. At those times I hightailed it out of there and watched my back the whole way home. So yes, I totally trust dogs' instincts.

Although it freaks me out a bit -- the other day a cable guy had to come in the house and my dog just stared him down growling, hair on end, the whole time. Now I'm worried a weirdo knows where we live.

Yes, I do.

I have never met a dog that liked my ex husband...he even tried to bribe the dog I had when we first got together daily with hamburgers to no avail. Every pet we had while we were together steered clear of him...the dog I've had since our separation doesn't like him. He was an abusive husband and father during our time together. One thing's for sure, I wont' be pursuing any relationships with anyone my dog doesn't approve of, lol!!

Animals rely totally on their instincts. Have you ever noticed that animals will leave a location or act unusual before an earthquake or some other natural disaster? They can sense these things including bad people (or people with bad intentions).

To some degree, yes. I certainly believe that animals (dogs in particular) can pick up on body language and smells that we do not perceive. Some dogs can "smell" cancer. Some service dogs can sense when their "patient" is going to have a seizure or their blood sugar is too low. How do they do this? Is it a "sense" or a "smell" they pick up? They are still studying trying to figure this out. Dogs also pick up on YOUR cues, even if YOU are unaware you are giving any off.

Our wonderful GSD loves all children, and likely would have behaved much like your dog did with all the kids at that park. Even with the lady who walked over. But she is very cautious and leery of unknown men. She would try to prevent our neighbor kids' dad from coming into our yard to get his own kid. He's virtually a stranger to her, and the kids are her "wards" almost, lol. She would have barked etc at the kids' club man's approach, too. BUT, she would have gotten over it pretty quickly if I was okay with it. Probably. But, there could also have been other things she picked up on that would prevent her from calming down completely.... like happened in the case you describe.

When we first moved into our home (brand new, still getting punch list items taken care of in the first few weeks), I had someone come out to add sometime above our fireplace. Two guys came. An older gentleman and his younger apprentice. Looked pretty much the same, dressed pretty much the same, both complete strangers to me, just one was late teens/maybe 20 and the other was probably 50. My dog did NOT like the younger kid AT ALL. The older guy--meh. She watched him. But the younger kid, she growled at, raised hackles, even snarled once when he tried to reach his arm out in an attempt to "make friends" with her. She sat ON my foot or right in front of my daughter the entire time the men were at our house and never let her attention wander to ANYTHING else--just that kid. That is not her normal behavior. Most strangers she warms up to easily once she sees that I am fine with the person.
Was the kid bad? Maybe, maybe not. Did he have an odor about him that bothered my dog (drug use?)? Maybe, maybe not. Problem is, I'll never know what it was, because my dog can't talk. But I know I would not let that kid inside my house again in the future. And I know that my dog would not let him in either, if we weren't home.
So, I would say, take note. But don't make any kind of accusations because you have no basis for any.

Yes, I do. When I met my now-husband I had a large dog who basically didn't like ANY strangers....she LOVED my husband from Day O..
Dogs use their natural instincts.
Children do, too.
Sad thing is that as we age, we make decisions based more on intellect. How many times do we meet someone, push past the initial impression only to find ourselves saying "I KNEW there was something I didn't like about that person! I should have listened to my first instinct!"?
I tend to do this. My husband, on the other hand, is often the O. saying: "I told you he/she was an abc or and xyz..." His instincts are still pretty pure. I need to listen to mine more!

I absolutely believe that dogs can tell whether or not someone is good.

Read "A Big Little Life" by Dean Koontz. It's a bi-dog-raphy about his dog, Trixie Koontz. In it she exhibits several instances where she "reads" people.

They can't sense "good" or "bad" but they can smell pheremones and read body language associated with fear or aggression. As for the tv, my guess would be that she was reacting to a change in sound frequencies in the scene, or a change in you or a family member's scent or body language, not following the plot of the movie.

YES! I have 2 dogs. One is a female dachsund mix. She is 100% in tune with things like that. Barks her head off when walking if there is someone passing by who is obviously not quite all there or on drugs or something. She absolutely seems to have a sixth sense to me.

My other dog is a female golden and she is as dumb as a brick. She got all the looks and none of the brains. Love her to death but whew...

Yes! Dogs have an uncanny knowledge of people!

If my dog doesn't like someone (and if you know Grady - you know that EVERYONE is a toy to him!) my alarms would be going off like there is NO tomorrow.

Listen to your mommy gut. When I am around 'bad' people - my head gets hot. I know it sounds funny - but when I met someone who didn't sit right with me - the top of my head (like in Home Alone where his head gets burned by the torch) gets hot...I've had that happen several times in my life. Listen to it!

Yes, a relative brought a buddy over and my little dog physically laid across my legs and stood up covering me if he stood up. I never let him come around again.

I believe they have instincts that tells them when to be on alert. I do believe that they pick up on what their owners are feeling. Since you were on edge a bit, the dog probably picked up on that. His master thought danger, so she thought danger too.

yes my dog knows good and bad people. plus she was feeding ff your anxiety about him.

They can tell if a person likes/wants to pet them. They can not tell if someone is "good" or "bad". And really...how many people are completely good or completely bad anyway?

I don't always give credence to stuff like this, but I don't ignore it either. You never know. I think animals know things and see things we do not just like they can tell when some one is about to have an epileptic seizure or if their blood sugar is off. I think they can sense some one whose body chemistry is off.

Yes!! In fact many studies have proved that point. My gut and my dog are two instincts I ALWAYS trust!!

Yes, I do. Although I'm not quite sure if it's because that dogs can sense when humans either don't like dogs or aren't comfortable around them or if they genuinely get a bad feeling about certain people.

It sounds crazy, I know, and I don't know what real research there is on this sort of thing.

But if a dog can tell when an epileptic person is going to have a seizure (some can), or detect cancer (some can), why couldn't a dog sense a personality? At any rate, if a dog at my house really distrusted someone who came in, I'd pay attention. I wouldn't expect everyone else to, though - I'd want more external evidence for other people.

I hope your doggie was barking at the witch, not at Dorothy!

We have a neighbor that NO ONE in our neighborhood can stand. All our dogs have disliked him and his family from the day they moved in. I found it odd at first cause some of my dogs are super friendly while a one is extremely protective. Anyway before us humans figured out what jerks these neighbors were the dogs had it figured out. Most times if the neighbors are out three of my dogs bark like crazy til I tell them to stop and get in the house. The our fourth dog as soon as she spots them run into the house.
Our protective dog has completely disobeyed my commands a few times to place herself between me and different people she hasn't liked. The first time it happened I was so pissed that she wouldn't listen when normally she was super at obeying. I was just randomly talking to a guy who expressed interest in my dog. She normally is to sit at my left side while I'm standing anyplace. She refused time and time again instead standing between us. The guy gave me the creeps but since I was in a busy public place I didn't pay much attention. He left when my husband came back from where he had wondered off too.

So yes I do believe dogs can and will sense when people aren't good. Be it something minor like not liking dogs to being jerks or just generally bad people.

I think they may be able to sense things...exactly what is kind of up in the air. Could it be that he guy is a bit reserved/fearful of dogs? I think they can definately sense that and the more aggressive a breed is, the more obvious this is. Could they send "bad" in someone, probably.

Yes, I definitely believe so. Our dog barks at a specific dog and his master every time they walk by our house--and her bark is NOT a nice bark. It's very hysterical and "you stay away" type bark. I always, always know when they're walking by the house, because our dog only uses that bark/tone with them. She'll even use it if just the guy walks alone up the street. The neighbor's dog was found at a pound when he was an adult, and the neighbor is in his 80s and is a retired military guy who fought in a few wars, so I believe there is some bad karma there. And I think the bad karma is coming more from the man than from the dog.

I believe dogs are deeply intuitive, some dogs more than others. Just like some dogs are wonderful therapy dogs, or others can smell/detect cancers, some dogs are able to "sense" other people and even animals.

Yes, I would agree with you. I have two dogs and they seem to know when people are bad. However, dogs are amazing at sensing energy and are especially sensitive to their owners. If you were feeling uneasy, it's possible that Pearl picked up on that and responded to it. I believe you should trust your gut about people. So often our intuition is good but we talk ourselves out of what we know on some unconscious level to be true. I wouldn't put my kids with that man if I felt that way, that's for sure.

Here's a little experiment to try: next time you're in a situation where you feel uneasy and you're with your dog, try to focus on something else all together and calm yourself down with lots of deep breaths. See if your dog relaxes too. I have a dog who can be a little dog aggressive when he's on a leash so whenever we're passing by another dog, I have to do what I can to relax and concentrate on getting him past the other dog without feeling any anxiety myself. It's a trick we were taught by our trainer. He told us that all of the owner's feelings travel down the leash and affect the dog.

It's possible that the experiment won't work when that boys and girls club guy is around. He may just be evil and your dog is reacting to it. Either way, I would definitely steer clear of that man!

Good luck!
Hilary

Yes I believe it. Our last dog was an amazing black lab who loved everyone. I used to take her anywhere and everywhere I could. I took her to my husband's casual office holiday party one year where everyone was coming over to pet her and she of course was loving it wagging her tail. Until one guy came over, she reached out sniffed his hand, turned around and walked away. She placed herself between us and him, sat down and stared him down until he walked away. Then she was back to her usual self. This dog has never done anything like that before. We later found out he got arrested for being a pediphile (sp?)! She knew before anyone else!