Hard on the heels of the research that dogs have evolved to look up to us with longing eyes to get … well, pretty much whatever it is they want, in our household at least … there is now a fascinating set of research findings that suggest dogs can discern when humans aren’t nice people.
Long suspected, it now appears to have been proven, as you can read below.
We have long suspected this to be the case. When about ten years old, we were walking our Norfolk Terrier – Tim, after Dickens’s Tiny Tim – down the hill to Langland Beach in Mumbles, at the bottom of which was a large art deco public toilet block.
A man – nondescript, forties, seemingly harmless – struck up a conversation on the way down the hill, noting how nice the dog was.
Except he wasn’t. Nice. He snarled, and bared his teeth, and ran in circles on the end of his lead, and wouldn’t let the man near him to pat him or any such activity. He snarled and barked all down the hill.
As his owner, and a polite little boy, I was shocked, and apologetic. It was totally out of character for the dog.
At the bottom of the hill, the guy asked if I wanted to come into the toilets with him, as I probably needed to go to the toilet, right?
Oh no I didn’t. My child safety training had been excellent. As he went in, I hightailed it back up the hill dragging the poor bloody dog behind me, to collapse in tears at my mother’s feet.
Looking back, I saw the man come out of the toilet again, and cast around looking for me.
Fuck him. And thank you to the dog. He knew.
PS Did we mention we had a bird who used to walk to the front door when I was still a mile away in the car?
Well, This Is What I Think 