Humans are a highly visual species.
We put an unusual amount emphasis on what things look like.
Dogs do not.
Their color vision is much more limited than ours.
We selectively breed dogs for what they look like.
We agonize over it.
We have standards that define the ideal appearance for a particular breed.
We have people who only want chocolate Labs or black ones or yellow ones or silver ones.
I personally like the look of the darker yellow Labs and darker golden retrievers.
The dogs don’t care.
Dogs are much more concerned with odor.
Which somewhat disconcerting (as Mitt Romney would say).
What if dogs were selectively breeding us?
I bet they would be selecting us for the odors we produce.
We probably wouldn’t be able to smell these odors or distinguish between them.
Just as dogs don’t know what color they are, we wouldn’t know what we really smelled like.
LOL “What if dogs were selectively breeding us? “
I don’t know that it’s true that dogs don’t distinguish by color. I know several first hand instances where a groen reacted differently to a terv on the first encounter and vice versa. Dogs are ok with what they “grow up on” and if you expose a dog to a lot of different size, shape & color dogs, then they tend to be ok with whatever’s there. If you don’t, then they do tend to discriminate. I know that my sheep discriminate too. They know “who fits” and who doesn’t, and the years I’ve had all one color & wool type, they didnt want to have anything to do with the “other guys” and the years when there has been a mixture, they’ve been more ready to accept a newcomer regardless of color/wool. I suspect that animals DO discriminate between “familiar, looks like me” and “You look weird”. Makes sense — UC Davis did a study on red vs black angus and recommended farmers raise them seperately because they acted different — the color does involve hormones and hence both behavior and probably, smell.
I think what you’re seeing is that the dogs are just reacting to the novelty a bit differently. If a Turv grew up only seeing sable Turvs and then met a Groenendael, I wouldn’t be surprised if they reacted differently.
I’ve not seen any good studies that show any linkage between color in dogs and behavior beyond idle speculation about spots being a sign of domestication. The best I’ve seen is the association with the solid red color and rage syndrome in English cockers. However, the syndrome also common in English springer spaniels, which are never red.
In other species, there are studies. I saw that suggested that black pigmented deer mice were naturally more docile than wild-colored ones. There are probably a lot of variables that haven’t been accounted for in these sorts of studies.
So I’d be careful with them.
I’ve always thought that the fact that rage syndrome is more likely to happen in solid red Cocker was evidence of poor breedings within certain lines and kennels producing solid red dogs vs. the trait being strictly associated with mere coloration. As you said, Springers don’t come in that color, yet they are also a breed that tends to suffer from the syndrome more than others.
The strange thing is that when you have a three color litter of Labs you often go out to the whelping box and find them sorted by color, or nearly so. They do this even before their eyes are open. I think the puppies do it themselves . . . I’ve never seen a bitch move pups into color order. Maybe the different colors do smell different.
As a breeder, I see color as trivial. Personal taste: I don’t like yellows, though I’ve owned a couple yellows I was loved deeply. Because color is the first thing puppy buyers ask about, it’s hard to stay color neutral.
I’ve seen pups do this, too. It’s called coincidence. It makes a pattern, therefore we notice it more than when the pups are lying in a random order.
I used to statistics at a university level and am very sensitive to coincidence. I wish I could go back and replay those litters to do counts to do check the observed frequencies against those predicted by probability. . . but I’d swear the frequency was well above chance.
None of the folk I’ve talked to regarding coat color behavior differences indicate anything so significant as “rage”. But you do get “more nervous” “calmer” “more aggressive”, etc. A lot of that is hormone driven, so I really don’t feel that it’s outside the realm of reality to think that color does have some differences in dog behavior. I agree, I don’t know of any studies on dogs in that department (probably because standardizing things is too hard) but I do know they’ve done it in cattle and IIRC, some other animals. There’s no reason to think that dogs would somehow be unique. It’s easy to do a study in cattle — you could even use “clones except for color”,but it would be pretty hard to have enough dogs and to standardize handling to verify color genes making a difference.
Regarding “novelty” — yes, but it does mean the dogs DO note color. It’s a case of “you don’t look like anything familiar”. You see the same with size and coat –if they aren’t familiar with other dogs that “look like that” they do note that the newcomer is “odd”. So they are “aware”.
I’ve never seen dog go nuts over another’s color. But then none of the dogs I’ve ever been with has been allowed to grow up without seeing a wide diversity of dog breeds.
BTW, rage syndrome has nothing to do with temperament. It’s actually a neurological condition that exists within two breeds of spaniel, the English cocker and the English springer. It exists solely in conformation lines of both breeds, and in English cockers, it’s most common in solid red dogs.
With crossing between show and working types becoming recently much more popular among “pet” breeders and “pet” buyers in the UK, one can no longer say that rage syndrome only affects show type cockers or springers anymore. My rescue liver boy is of show and working lines. Fortunately, he got the best of both worlds. Can’t say that for most of the show/worker types I’ve seen.
Rage Syndrome occurs in several other breeds, too. Lhasa Apso and Bull Terrier come to mind & I think it has been documented on Rottweilers and Bernese Mountain Dogs.
I’ve read somewhere that solid black dogs are more likely to use more emphatic body language because their facial expressions are much harder to read (all in shadow, no contrasting “eyebrow spots” no clear demarcation between fur and skin color, etc, so harder to see lip lifts, brow wrinkling, etc.) This is assuming they were socialized with other dogs and learned to make up for their “disorder”. I’ve also read that the wild-type shaded wolf pattern evolved as much for social signaling as camouflage, because the banded agouti hairs with light undercoat make body movement/position very clear from a distance- you can see it ripple. It makes me wonder if all our solid-colored domestic dogs are somewhat handicapped in this sense.
Our first St. Bernard rescue, Toby, was very even-tempered, loved people, horses and other dogs, except for black dogs. Of course, since she was a rescue, I can’t say whether the aversion was inherited or acquired–no history on her.
Most Papillons (not just mine) hate black dogs. Maybe they just can`t “read ” them – I don`t really have an explanation for the phenomenon.
In cats there is a long tradition of linking personalities with coats, and there is a coat which only exists in female cats IIRC.